Seinfeld- Jerry and Elaine are exes and breify get back together at the end of season one
Friends- lots of romantic entaglements but mainly Chandler/Monica, Ross/Rachel, and Joey/Rachel
How I Met Your Mother - two of the main characters are a steady couple, the other three are a love triangle
Big Bang Theory- by the end, it’s three couples and one single guy
Any shows like these where the main characters never date each other or hook up with each other?
3rd Rock from the Sun? Been a while since I rewatched that, though. Kinda not “friends” but “co-workers”.
Hadn’t thought of that one. It’s a bit hard to decide if they should be considered coworkers or a family. I guess it technically counts cause they’re a gender mixed group not actually related by blood. One of them is a kid but is actually the oldest. Although I’m not sure the aliens really had gender in the way humans do
Humans are horny and attracted to proximity.
being human kinda. the werewolf ends up dating someone who moves in so that kinda messes it up but the original trio never has relations I think.
30 Rock. None of the core group ever get together. There’s a little bit of sexual tension between jack and lemon but it’s always clear that it will never go anywhere
The IT Crowd i think, i don’t remember in group romance in that show, maybe light flirty comedic moments but not more.
Douglas Reynholm tried to roofie Jen
Has there ever been a mixed-gender group of adult friends where there are no romantic entaglements within the group?
Facts lmao
Maybe a group of aces?
Only Murders in the Building
Good one, I hadn’t thought of that
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Dee and Charlie bang.
Mac bangs Dee and Dennis’ mom.
Frank bangs Charlie’s mom (a lot).
Frank, Charlie, and Dennis all bang the waitress.
Dennis tries to bang Mac’s mom.
Frank and Mac both try to bang Dee and Dennis’ Aunt Donna.
I think Frank bangs Dee and Dennis’ cousin Gail the Snail
But all of these are one off bits rather than being part of a larger arc or plotline, so I think it still fits the spirit of the question.
But all of these are one off bits
Well that and the question was about “between the group”, i.e. intra-group entanglements. The only one that’s intra-group here is the first (to which what you said about a one-off applies).
Mac and the waitress do hand stuff.
Mac is gay for Dennis, and Charlie and Dee had a fling in The Gang Misses the Boat
Addressed the Charlie and Dee thing below; I just don’t consider a one-off, single-episode B-plot like that 10 seasons into the show (with a later throwaway joke in one episode three seasons later) a “romantic entanglement” for what’s an ongoing 17-season comedy show.
Mac’s crush on Dennis is the closest we come, but that’s still very distant from “romantic entanglement” to me; that implies an entanglement, where in reality Mac’s one-sided crush is infrequently referenced and pretty much always for laughs, and Dennis clearly demonstrates at every turn that literally nothing will ever come of it. The audience is always deliberately shown that this will never turn into anything; there’s no “will they, won’t they” going on because the answer is always and in perpetuity “won’t they”.
TL;DR: There’s no actual arc or plotline.
Tricky – because they’re entangled off set(?)
Love the show, but Dee and Charlie hook up in ‘The Gang Misses The Boat’. She also admits to SAing him later in ‘Time’s Up For The Gang’
Yeah, it does happen, although I still went ahead with the comment because I don’t consider that a “romantic entanglement”.
- The show has 178 20-ish-minute episodes over 17 seasons.
- Of those, there’s one B-plot in one episode (“The Gang Misses the Boat”) ten seasons in and a later one-off reference to it in “Time’s Up for the Gang” (S13).
- The show has mostly minor elements of serialization, and there’s no ongoing romance between the core gang at any point; if you accidentally missed those two episodes (or one and walked away to get a drink without pausing for like a minute on the other), you’d literally never know.
- Arguably the closest we get is Mac’s obvious crush on Dennis, but this only comes up infrequently, is rarely played for any kind of actual drama, and is almost exclusively a punchline, and Dennis never reciprocates in the slightest.
“Entanglement” to me implies that the two or more characters have ongoing, mutual romantic feelings for each other that are explored or at least consistently shown over multiple episodes.
Probably not, because romantic entanglements make for better TV.
Very subjective. In my opinion introducing romantic subplots is the laziest of writing.
Golden girls comes to mind. And maybe arrested development? but that’s more family than a group of friends.
George Michael and maybe is a pretty big plot point 😂
I can’t comment on Arrested Development cause I’ve never seen it, but Golden Girls are all women not a mixed-gender group
You should go watch Arrested Development.
Damn it. I think I subconsciously ruled out of the mix gendered and ended up at golden girls just trying to think of a sitcom that didn’t feature romantic interests in the group.
I’m a dummy, carry on.
Did you forget about Golden Girl pilot where they had a gay housekeeper? Mixed gender bam!!!
I don’t consider him a main character unless he was a series regular for at least one season
Nice try, I thought of the A-team but there’s no girls, there’s some in later seasons but not really a major part.
I want to say Resident Alien. The core 3 adult friends don’t have any romantic relations as far as I remember. Although there is one love triangle involving one of the main and side characters I guess. But the majority of the show is about real beautiful mixed-gender friendships IMO.
Harry and D’Arcy dated for a few episodes (maybe only one or two, I don’t recall clearly). There was a bit of teasing that Asta and Harry would be a thing at some point but thankfully that never materialized.
There were definitely romantic relationships with side characters - Sheriff Mike had a couple, obviously the mayor and his wife, Harry and the bird lady, Liz had a boyfriend (though he rarely appeared or was even mentioned), plus D’Arcy tried a few times to find love and Judy… had several flings?
Yeah my main thinking was that at least those relationships (with the exception of d’arcy/the mayor) weren’t central to the friend group/drama, but of course there’s gonna be romantic relationships in anything because they are a part of life. As far as I remember, the harry/d’arcy thing was an awkward date in a very early episode but maybe I’m misremembering.
More like co-workers instead of friends but MAS*H.
Margaret and Frank were a couple and she hooked up with Hawkeye at one point
Valid points.
Power Rangers?
The original Power Rangers were teenagers. And I thought Jason and Kimberly were a couple but I don’t know, the only season I really watched was RPM, which has a romance between Dillon and Summer
That was my guess too, but I needed someone with more memory of the show to confirm
Three’s Company?
I’m not sure about Three’s Company. I feel like one of the main women may have hooked up with either Jack or Larry at some point. But I’m not sure
Ghosts? Does that count as a group of friends
The British one would qualify as one with no romantic entaglements (if you don’t count the living couple) but the American one has several couples in the core group Thor/Flower, Trevor/Hetty, Pete/Alberta
Also, Thomas+Allison.
It was one-sided and played for laughs, but it’s pretty much always there, so you might count it.
Good point
Didn’t know there was an American one tbh
They even recycled a lot of the same basic characters and plot points. It’s has a pretty different feel though, so I’m not sure whether to be mad.
There are also French, German, Greek, and Australian versions
TIL. Did any of them deviate much from the original set-up, or is there a too-nice scoutmaster with an arrow through the neck in all of them?
I’ve only watched the British and American ones but I think all or most of them have a character like that
