Here’s to all the TV romances that didn’t make it

It’s Summer Lovin’ Week here at Mashable, which means things are getting steamy. In honor of the release of Crazy Rich Asians, we’re celebrating onscreen love and romance, looking at everything from our favorite fictional couples to how Hollywood’s love stories are evolving. Think of it as our love letter to, well, love.

Entertainment fans love love, but this Romance Week we wanted to take a moment to appreciate the TV couples that didn’t make it. Where would any of our romantic journeys be without a little (okay, a lot) of failure?

Some quick ground rules: These couples have to have been canon at some point – even if they didn’t date or hook up, their relationships had to have Come Up As A Thing. Oh, and, the relationship cannot have failed because one or more people involved died (sorry, Jon and Ygritte). 

Rebecca Bunch and Greg Serrano – Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

They were wrong for each other in so many ways, but Greg and Rebecca needed their time together. Greg realized that he was stuck in his patterns in West Covina and needed to get out, and Rebecca, who we know likes to fixate on things and people, had to let go of something she cares about and simply say goodbye. 

If they ever see each other again, we’d like to think it would be at least relatively copacetic. Maybe they’ll have the opportunity to smile at each other and say “I’m proud of you” for how far they’ve come.

Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler – Sherlock

After a sexually charged meeting and inordinate mounts of intellectual flirting, the Baker Street detective and the Woman never consummate their obvious feelings for each other, but by the end of “A Scandal in Belgravia,” the truth is known. The last we heard of her was a birthday text to Sherlock in “The Lying Detective.” Given how low the likelihood is of more Sherlock, this pair’s story is probably over.

Luke Cage and Claire Temple – Marvel’s Luke Cage

By the time they got together at the end of Luke Cage Season 1, Luke and Claire had both been through it; he had a dead wife and more recently, a turbulent affair with Jessica Jones; she, an almost-thing with Matt Murdock and the general burden of having to save every Marvel hero in Manhattan. But for a while they found each other, and it seemed things were good until Claire could no longer live with Luke’s anger. She left, heartbroken, to get space from it all, leaving them both more alone than ever.

Lorna Morello and Nicky Nichols – Orange is the New Black

We met these two in Season 1 as the first couple of Litchfield, despite Lorna’s insistence that it was only temporary and she would be marrying Christopher the second she got out. 

Though the romantic and sexual part of their relationship ends, Lorna and Nicky end up forging a touching friendship that, by Season 6, is one of the show’s few constants. They genuinely care for each other and their best interests. 

Shawn Hunter and Angela Moore – Boy Meets World

Shawn and Angela were always juxtaposed with their perfect couple friends Cory and Topanga, and that may have put them at a disadvantage from the outset. 

Where the show’s central couple couldn’t stay away from each other and ultimately married (at 19!) and rode off into the sunset, Shawn and Angela couldn’t keep their relationship alive when life pulled them apart. They meet again as friends on Girl Meets World, where Angela is married to someone else and Shawn Hunter is… well, Shawn Hunter.

Sookie Stackhouse and Eric Northman – True Blood

Some of the pairings on True Blood felt like the writers were pulling character names and affiliations out of a bingo cage (Lafayette… is casually dating a Mexican demon, for example), but this was one fans lament to this day. 

Sookie vacillated between a number of lovers, but she and Eric had a fierce connection that felt bloodier and more real than many of her other relationships. He was the hyper-masculine vampire/viking Sookie didn’t know she was looking for and the polar opposite of genteel, tortured Bill. It’s cute Sookie moved on from fangbanging and eventually had a baby, but there was an Eric-shaped hole in her final scene. Maybe they still keep in touch.

Tim Riggins and Lyla Garrity – Friday Night Lights

There is a timeless – if slightly problematic – allure to the trope of the good girl who falls for a boy from the wrong side of the tracks (just ask Rory Gilmore – who’s not on this list because we think it might still happen). 

Lyla and Tim didn’t start out great (they started sleeping together while her boyfriend was paralyzed in the hospital!), but they had their moments, and they really tried to make it work for a while. 

Lane Kim and Dave Rygalski – Gilmore Girls

We could write a whole essay about this (jk, we already did). In the fairy tale world of Stars Hollow where romance is as abundant as job opportunities for Kirk, Lane’s furtive relationship with Dave had all the sweet simplicity of high school courtship but demonstrated the kind of emotional maturity she and Rory (and Lorelai) would continue to seek out for years. Dave was the best, and who knows where they’d be if it weren’t for The O.C.!

James “Sawyer” Ford and Kate Austen – Lost

Talk about bad timing – these two murderers-on-the-lam met after a harrowing plane crash, and got together in the captivity of hostile natives with an obvious preference regarding the Jack-Kate-Sawyer love triangle. 

When they both have a chance to escape the island, Sawyer literally jumps into the ocean and swims back to the island to lighten the helicopter’s load and ensure Kate gets home to safety. They won’t meet again for three years, and they’ll never get that time back.

Penguin and Riddler – Gotham

The romance of Oswald Cobblepot and Edward Nygma could have been a story for the ages. Ed meets Penguin. Penguin ignores Ed. Ed goes bad to get Penguin’s attention. Oswald falls in love with The Riddler and they live villainously ever after.

Alas, it was not to be. While Gotham surely enjoyed the fan reaction to the possibility of a gay supervillain couple, the writing took the star-crossed romance only up to the point where Penguin confessed his love to The Riddler only to be rejected. 

To be fair, watching Oswald cope with a broken heart by cutting Ed’s girlfriend’s brakes and freezing him solid in a block of ice was fun, but the lost possibility of seeing something real between these two bad boys was a negative for the show overall.

Alexis Nedd contributed to this article.