Seven seasons of "Will they?" Josh is a genius; Donna is his assistant. The power dynamic is tricky, but the writing pays it off by making Donna essential to his survival. The moment they kiss in the season 7 premiere is the culmination of a decade of loyalty.
Consider Fleabag and the Hot Priest. The obstacle wasn't the church's rules (external). The obstacle was Fleabag’s self-destruction and the Priest’s fear of intimacy. In Normal People , Connell and Marianne have no villain standing in their way—only their own inability to communicate vulnerability. This internal conflict resonates because it mirrors real life. We aren't kept apart by dragons; we are kept apart by our pride. Instant gratification is the enemy of legendary romance. Audiences have been trained to crave the "slow burn." This is the narrative principle that the anticipation of the kiss is better than the kiss itself.
Think of Pride and Prejudice (2005) or Outlander . We watch Claire and Jamie fall in love through action. We watch Mulder and Scully deny their feelings through seven seasons of The X-Files . The hit relationship requires earned intimacy . When a show gives the couple what they want in episode three, the narrative tension evaporates. The best writers know how to stretch a single glance across an entire season. There is a subgenre of romance that fails: the "one-sided obsession." A hit relationship requires the audience to believe that both parties are desperately, silently, equally in love. This is the "pining equilibrium."