Favourite couples in fiction?

For the last few storylines in Dark Shadows John Karlen and Nancy Barrett were great as Will and Carolyn Loomis, Desmond Collins and Leticia Faye and Kendrick Young and Melanie Collins. They also played a couple in Night of Dark Shadows.

Mavic Chen and the Taranium Core

Special Agent Dale Cooper and Sheriff Harry S Truman, Twin Peaks. 

Without straying into friendships because that would take years...

Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright.
April Ludgate and Andy Dwyer.
Mulder and Scully.
Bill Nighy and Lindsay Duncan's characters in About Time.
Archie and Edith Bunker.
Beatrice and Benedick.

Is that a weird enough list yet? Can I stop?

It's okay if you don't agree We can each have our lists.

I'll admit, I have a soft spot for Ian and Barbara, I really do. I'm a big fan of the Mulder-Scully effect and this is probably where it started. There's an unspoken electricity between the two characters. I don't know how they managed it but William Russell and Jacqueline Hill do an astonishing job at pulling off the "more than friends, less than partners" dynamic of their relationship. It's genuinely, quietly magical.

Life is Strange's Max and Chloe are up there in the top tier now for me personally as well, after Destinysmasher's All Wounds. A really terrific story about survivor's guilt and hardships that feels very genuine and earnest in its feelings.

Reggie Lampert and, for simplicity's sake, I'll just say Cary Grant's character from Charade make a wonderful pair. A charming film with sparkling dialogue and lovely chemistry between Audrey Hepburn and Grant. It's one of those films that feels as though it could be booted up into a television series like Remington Steele or White Collar with some tweaking.

Avon and Servalan from Blake's 7 don't fill me with warm fuzzies like the previous three, but the dynamic between them is genuinely fascinating. There's admiration, loathing, respect, animosity, it's a very curious pairing and I'm still trying to figure out why the two of them gravitate towards one another. Is it because they're more alike than first appears? Might be, I'm not sure...

And a transparently non-romantic example (probably), are Napoleon and Illya from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. It's got the same click and verve as Kirk and Spock or Kelly and Scotty. They're both wonderfully drawn characters, stunningly executed and putting them together as a team made for a damn good series.

That's why they appealed to me. They were both selfish at various points in time and it seemed more realistic. Chandler and Monica - though I like them, seemed sudden. I preferred them as friends.

Ross and Rachel were toxic. Even at the end Rachel was willing to go to Paris with her's and Ross's daughter without consulting him about. The writers using them for the will they or won't they got tedious, especially when we had Rachel and Joey, and the episode where Ross insisted he was fine (when someone makes a big deal about being fine with something, they really aren't). Chandler and Monica were more natural, Chandler with his background of boarding school and parental embarrassment and neglect which he covered with sarcastic sense of humour, and Monica with her parental unfavourite issues.

In one late episode they plan a weekend away to process not being able to have a baby, and Rachel forces everyone to stick around her apartment for baby Emma's party. Emma isn't awake until near the end of the episode. So a woman trying to throw a perfect birthday party for a one year old, and a couple who have found out they can't have biological children stuck at that party. I know who I'd call out for being insensitive.

Hawk and Fisher (from the novels by Simon Green)
Lessa and F'lar from Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels
Simon and Miriamele from Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow And Thorn
Sam Vimes and Lady Sybil from Discworld
Eponine and Marius from Les Miserables (yeah, I know)