The 10 best TV rom-coms ranked — from Catastrophe to A Fine Romance
Either way, there is no end to the love that audiences have for rom-coms. The latest is Lena Dunham's Too Much on Netflix (out on July 10), about a New Yorker in London. It's some way kookier than any on the following list of my favourite ten rom-coms — small-screen only — and it certainly won't be the last. Leave your favourites in the comments.
The internet got hot and flustered by this one because about 80 per cent of its viewers had a crush on Adam Brody as the newly single 'hot rabbi' Noah — so casually unconventional that he has no problem entering a tentative relationship to ruffle feathers all round: Joanne (Kristen Bell) is not just a sex podcaster, she's a Gentile. If some of the supporting characters are less grating in the hotly awaited second series, this could become something great. Netflix
That old When Harry Met Sally… question: 'Can men and women just be friends?' Of course they can. The thoroughly modern Platonic is fully rom-com, yet with no actual romance. There isn't really a question of things getting physical for Seth Rogen's Will and Rose Byrne's Sylvia (she's happy in her marriage), even though they have a once-in-a-lifetime kind of rapport. Will they or won't they? They won't, but they squabble abrasively and make each other laugh as much as any couple on this list. Apple TV+
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I remember this as very affable and funny, although it was a long time ago. A prim Jan Francis and a laddish Paul Nicholas, with his likeable smile, were the couple who meet for love-hate fireworks five years after he jilted her on their wedding day. Its script was by John Sullivan, of Citizen Smith and Only Fools and Horses fame, so it's surely as much fun as I remember it to be, right? Sky/Now
Handsome posho Dexter meets headstrong northerner Emma at the University of Edinburgh in 1988. Fourteen episodes, covering 19 years, follow — enough to capture Emma and Dex's fluctuating friendship and catch a beguiling sense of the way we all stumble through our twenties. It's less a rom-com, more a rom-drama, but full marks for the nostalgic dreamy-indie soundtrack, from Cocteau Twins to the House of Love to the The. Netflix
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The title is a nod to a line in Zorba the Greek: 'I married — wife, children, house, everything … the full catastrophe.' This was about a couple — Sharon Horgan's Sharon (Irish, sardonic) and Rob Delaney's Rob (American, sardonic) — thrown together after a one-night stand left her pregnant, leading to the full catastrophe. Marital differences exploded in bracingly frank rows; this is certainly the rudest entry on the list ('Imagine a nice enough guy taking a shit and reading about Hitler and that's my husband'). Netflix
Forget Gavin & Stacey — this boisterous comedy could have been called Smithy & Nessa because that's where the real rom-com lay. Actually, the funniest bits were often from the characters round them —perpetually cheerful Uncle Bryn, omelette-making mum Gwen, deadpan Dave Coaches etc — although Nessa's impassive catchphrases remain peerless. Oh! iPlayer
A refreshing throwback to when TV rom-com couples were unromantic middle-aged singletons. Judi Dench's Fulham linguist Laura and Michael Williams's Mike strike up an unpromising relationship at a cocktail party. The performances were effortlessly natural; the jokes, from The Good Life co-writer Bob Larbey, often oddly loveable. Laura: 'Do you wear false teeth?' Mike: 'No, why?' Laura: 'When you kissed me now, I heard a clicking noise.' ITVX
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It may have been the 1980s, with a smirking Bruce Willis and glamorous Cybill Shepherd doing the bickering, but the witty overlapping dialogue at their Blue Moon Detective Agency harked back to classic films such as His Girl Friday ('You've got your nose so high in the air, it's snowing on your brain'). TV sleuthing has rarely had such a likeably romantic streak underneath the sparring. DVD
In rom-com parlance it was a 'meet-cute' — but with a difference. He slowed his car to let her cross the road, their eyes met across the bonnet, she smiled, he smiled, she exposed her breast … in shock, he drove into a dog. From thereon the will-they-won't-they (they will) back and forth between the underachievers Ashley (Harriet Dyer) and Gordon (Patrick Brammall) has a kind of earthy, offbeat Aussieness that just flies, perhaps because Dyer and Brammall are married in real life. iPlayer
After A Fine Romance, the writer Bob Larbey and Judi Dench reunited on a second middle-age rom-com, this time with a sardonic Geoffrey Palmer, with his 'funny-sad eyes', as the former sweetheart with whom she reunites decades later. It has a wonderful gentleness to it — as relaxing as a warm bath — yet the dialogue is sharper than you may remember, delivered in almost throwaway style. Waiter: 'Did you enjoy your meal, sir?' Palmer: 'Compared to pushing a pea up Vesuvius with my nose, it was a delightful experience.' iPlayer
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