Ships that sink: The worst couples in TV and film

Let’s be clear, this article isn’t about the ships featured in TV and film that carry seemingly endless amounts of people across infinite bodies of water.

If I was writing about that, the Titanic would definitely be near — if not the top — of that list. Some honourable mentions include quite a few ships from popular franchises such as Pirates of the Caribbean and One Piece.

It would be a funny story for another time, but this is about a different ship — the people kind.

I’ve seen a lot of media, probably more than I should consume, so here the ships I know fans love and I … well don’t.

Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak from Arrow

Believe it or not, this was the ship that ultimately convinced me to write this story. 

Although I’m not a big reader of comic books, I know the show eventually goes a different direction with some character dynamics, making an original character the main partner of a canon character.

There’s a lot of criticisms I have with Arrow and the rest of CW’s superhero shows during the 2010s, which could be its own story. My main concerns are about this pair, which is unfortunate considering the actors playing Oliver and Felicity are Canadian, with Stephen Amell being from Ontario and Emily Bett Rickards being from B.C.

Literally any relationship from Twilight

I didn’t like Twilight growing up because it wasn’t for me. I still don’t understand the hype.

I eventually learned, for better or worse, how shallow the lore of this franchise is. Even some parodies of Twilight were more entertaining than the actual franchise.

One of my favourite memes is when people say “still a better love story than Twilight” on anything even remotely intimate. I bring this up because more often than not, there’s truth to a funny joke — if even a small truth.

It’s honestly a wonder how it was so popular in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Then again, I guess if you put enough attractive people on screen, it can cover up even the most lackluster of writing. 

This franchise has continued to make the concept of shipping worse, showing you don’t need any substance at all to make it real, which doesn’t make sense to me. 

Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey from the 50 Shades trilogy

Speaking of Twilight spawning lackluster ships in pop culture, Fifty Shades of Grey was initially Twilight fan-fiction.

That aside, this couple felt like self-inserts rather than actual characters from the clips I’ve unfortunately seen through videos about this movie. It also looked like it was trying to be risque, but ended up looking boring instead.

To be honest, I couldn’t remember the names of these characters until researching. All I remembered about this couple, besides doing some weird stuff together, was an old Film Theory video on how Christian acts like a cult leader.