5. Working Together
In any couple - whether real or sitcom fictional - each individual has a home life and a work life. This, of course, means that each person in the relationship has a sanctuary to hide away in when the home has become a battleground of arguments and squabbles. For some unfortunate individuals, however, this sanctuary does not exist. When both of the people in a relationship work in the same place there is truly no hiding place from the tyranny of the partner. Many sitcoms explore this scenario and exploit it for all it's worth. In the medical sitcom, 'Scrubs', two of the main characters became involved in a serious relationship very early on and as a result they never had any hiding place from each other. Problems that arose between the two at home affected their behaviour towards each other and even their other colleagues. This also worked the other way around, where issues at work also became problems in the home and tested the strength of their relationship. Though in this case the situation actually had some serious impact on the stability of their relationship, it was also mined for comedy gold when the couples issues spilled over and impacted upon the lives of other characters as well. In other sitcoms this scenario is employed on a temporary basis and is used more in more humorous ways. In 'Rules of Engagement', for example, the show's young couple have the dynamic of their relationship altered when Jen takes up a role within Adam's workplace. Typically both characters are excited and optimistic about the situation at first, but when conflict arises and there is nowhere for either of them to run things turn sour. The comedy is derived from their unwillingness to admit how difficult the other person is to work with and their continued efforts to make a clearly unsuitable scenario work.