Tropes Some of us are Done With

I'm not worried about spoilers here, but there are Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spoilers.

One of the tropes I am the most tired of in television (which has the worst offenders, but the trope does show up in comics too) is the Marriage Ending.

By which I mean that TV shows often don't allow couples to marry until the show has been canceled, in the last episode or in an epilogue. If they do, then they will promptly kill off one of the characters, have them have to leave forever, etc. In some cases, this trope also applies to declarations of love.

Thanks for the twofer, Whedon.

Not only did Whedon let Fitz and Simmons get married only to kill Fitz off (It's a comic book show, so maybe it's not permanent) a couple of episodes later, but Coulson is dying, which means he was finally allowed to kiss May.

Seriously?

Can we stop?

There's this idea in media that marriage should be the end of the story. Married characters are sometimes allowed to be parents or mentors, but more normally they get divorced or widowed and then they get to start their story over. Black Lightning. Iris' father in the Flash.

I can only think of two SF franchises that have broken the rules.

One, despite the above, is the CW DC-verse. Barry and Iris got to get married and keep working together. And, finally, after way too much of the related trope of "They can't get together until the finale so we have to keep throwing stupid obstacles in their way," so did Oliver and Felicity. The writers also stated that they wanted to do this with Alex and Maggie, but Floriana Lima simply refused to stay on the show no matter what she was offered.

The other is Doctor Who, with Rory and Amy. And the Doctor and River, although their relationship was finite, it did last for quite some time, in its weird and quirky way.

Both are signs that things are getting better, but they still aren't there. The trope is even worse when it gets applied to same sex couples, where it crosses with Kill The Gays.

Makes me wish I could do a TV show...where the leads get married. In the first half of the first episode.

Marriage doesn't make you boring. Marriage is not the end of your story. Far from it.