‘Ted Lasso,’ ‘Up Here’ and More Series Highlight How the ‘Meet Cute’ Has Evolved
variety.comWhitney Friedlander Whether it’s a collision in an office elevator or a case of mistaken identities, fans of romantic comedies have a love-hate relationship with meet-cutes: The central couple must meet somehow and, since this is a love story, preferably they should do so in a cute way.
But how many more white shirts must be killed in the name of clumsy-cute trip-and-falls while holding cups of coffee or orange juice?
For serialized romances, the challenge is even greater. Directors and writers must create interesting run-ins for characters to help sustain interest for longer than it takes for audiences to eat a bucket of popcorn. “I feel like the bar now is, if you are expected to figure out a meet-cute, it has to be your new slightly subversive never-before-seen version of it,” says director Jay Karas. “I don’t think it’s a trope that we can totally get away from, because people have to meet somehow, and it’s just about how do you modernize it.” Karas has a personal connection to the genre — he met his wife, author Monica Osborne, in a bar.
He also got to do a send-up of both it and teen movie tropes with “Woodstone’s Hottest Couple,” an episode of the CBS comedy “Ghosts.” There, he played matchmaker for the ghost of an ax-murdered ‘80s teen (Odessa A’zion) stuck forever in her prom dress and the spirit of a young man (Tyler Alvarez) who died during an 1832 cholera outbreak.
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