Lukewarm Love Polygons

I understand that in order to keep a television series on the air long-term, you need some plot element that lingers over the run of the series, or at least a large chunk of it. For shows where the plot elements are event based (think doctors, lawyers, cops) this will likely take the form of a romance between the male and female protagonists. The catch is everyone knows that if they get together too quickly, the show will lose viewers, so you gotta drag it out for as long as possible, using pretty much every trope in the book. What will ultimately end up happening is the the romantic angle will turn into a big game of 'Will He/She or Won't She/He' This tactic can be played straight, subverted, or be plain fucking obvious. Bones, Defying Gravity and Castle. will be used to illustrate an example of each

In Bones, it's played pretty straight. Booth and Brennan are both very much aware of the chemistry between them. He has dreams, she gets the gossip stream from her coworkers, they even see the same shrink for couple's therapy by any other name. It's so cute that at the end of every episode, they have a burger (or some food, but generally a burger) and a beer, with the longing looks and what not. We all know that by the end of the series, they're going to be dating/married, potentially with kids in the picture, or at least a very strong implication of either scenario.

Defying Gravity subverts this by not only giving everything to you for free in the beginning. We see all the stuff happen during astronaut training, then we fast forward a few years. Now we have a situation where all of the main characters dated each other (with some getting hitched), and are now trapped with each other on Antares for six years . Jen dated Ted, married Rollie, and is pretty much going to go back to Ted while on the ship, Ted dated Jen, married Eve, and is stuck on the ship with Jen. Then there's that poor bastard Donner still lamenting the chick he left behind on Mars while Nadia and Zoe are at each others' throats, even though EVERYONE knew from the word 'Go' it's going to be Zoe and Donner, I mean is there any doubt that the romance in this was designed merely for the sex and nothing else? Christ, Eve hung a lampshade on it near the end by saying "It was always Zoe and Donner"

And then we have Castle, the impetus for this post, with a little assistance from Robin (@UppityWomyn). Here we have Castle and Beckett, polar opposites of each other in most respects,going round and round. Castle's a divorced family man that basically acts like a womanizer, and Beckett's the hardass who wants to settle and have a family after she locates the guy who killed her mom and avenges her, but she's not going to say that out loud. She's the inspiration for his book, writes about passionate sex between them, but in real life (show perspective)they're a pair of teenagers at best going through the motions. I can't tell you how many times I've seen the 'inadvertent double dinner date at fancy restaurant' gag one too many times.

Look guys, I'm a fan of all three shows (less so Bones than the other three, but I don't even dislike it), and I doubt you'll find a bigger Wassenfelder fan ('cause I know I'm on the ship, and you're not, because it's fractalrific!), but sweet Jesus people, learn to write better romantic scenes, or at least don't write them so obviously.