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?
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?
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.
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.
The IT Crowd i think, i don’t remember in group romance in that show, maybe light flirty comedic moments but not more.
Probably not, because romantic entanglements make for better TV.
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.
Probably nothing that made it past one season, the writers eventually will turn to that. Good question, curious.
Scooby-Doo? No, they’re supposed to be teens.
Fred and Daphne are a couple I’m pretty sure
So are Shaggy and Scooby.
Ruh roh!
And sometimes Velma and Shaggy.
They drive a van don’t they?
They’re probably poly, less drama
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
Golden girls comes to mind. And maybe arrested development? but that’s more family than a group of friends.
I can’t comment on Arrested Development cause I’ve never seen it, but Golden Girls are all women not a mixed-gender group
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.
You should go watch Arrested Development.
George Michael and maybe is a pretty big plot point 😂
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.
Power Rangers?
That was my guess too, but I needed someone with more memory of the show to confirm
Feels like asking if there’s a show where the main characters never eat together. Sex and food are sorta what we do. Like as a species. A show would have to be very limited in scope to leave one of those things out.
Only Murders in the Building
deleted by creator
Seinfeld- Jerry and Elaine are exes and breify get back together at the end of season one
I was never a big fan of Seinfeld, and didn’t know this.
Well, they do really mean briefly. They’re already broken up again by the season two premiere, which I think is when the ‘no hugging, no learning’ rule was implemented.
