TV/ movie Couples

There were a bunch of lists of good and bad media couples and I mostly didn't find any I liked or agreed with, so I figured I'd start my own list. Here are the couples I admire usually both from an acting and a writing perspective. The reason I think these characters appeal to me more than movie couples is that we get to see them through a whole relationship spectrum, whereas most movies give a situation and watch them deal with it (like "The Notebook" - we watch Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams fall in love and eventually work things out and then see them as adults much, much later but we don't get to see how they argued or changed as people and together as a couple.) .

Eric and Tammy Taylor ("Friday Night Lights") - Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton

They're the football coach and now principal at the school, so they have to debate both the policies of having the boosters pay for a Jumbotron while teachers are being laid off, and whether their daughter is old enough for her own car. They're friends, lovers, parents, and partners and while they don't always agree, they always have each other's back. The united front they present is both good TV and a great couple.

President and Dr. Abigail Bartlett ("The West Wing") - Martin Sheen and Stockard Channing

Rising to the top of their respective fields (politics and medicine) makes for an intimidating couple. They balance their own rights as people with the larger rights of the people they represent. They fight religion, politics, medicine, health and power and how they and their family falls in between. There's a great scene in the second or third season where they've been fighting and Abby arrives in the West Wing and starts right into their fight and Jed stops and says "no, first we do, how are you, how was the flight?" They try to keep their relationship above the stresses they deal with as a power couple.

Admiral Adama and President Laura Roslin ("Battlestar Galactica") - Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell

They literally lead the entire human race, from a military and civilian perspective. Their methods often differ, but their mutual respect makes at least the fight for their own way reasonable. They've only recently developed an intimate relationship, but it hasn't cramped their leadership. They know what's right and that sometimes you have to fight like hell to make sure it happens. It seems that when they each have a crisis of faith, they other is there to support them through it to a better place.

Marshall Eriksen and Lily Aldrin ("How I Met Your Mother") - Jason Segel and Allyson Hannigan

They've been in love since college and eventually broke up and got back together and got married. They worked together to create a life and be friends to each other as well as other people. They share jokes and personal moments, but they're hardly perfect - keeping secrets from each other and trying to still be the best person they each can be.