Everyone thinks their views on relationships come from “real life” — from parents, therapy, and hard-won experience.
But for most of us born before TikTok, our earliest scripts for love, conflict, friendship and self-worth also came from a strange cocktail of TV sitcoms, reruns, and prime-time dramas.
Including, in my case, a talking Pontiac Trans Am with a superiority complex. “Knight Rider” taught me that chemistry matters, and that sometimes, your most stable relationship is with technology.
Michael Knight and Kitt were the original human-AI power couple, decades before ChatGPT or Siri.
What made it work? Kitt was predictable, responsive and never judgemental. He saved Michael’s emotional bacon every single episode.
Maybe the reason so many of us now vent to AI is that we were secretly programmed to expect our partners to be part-car, part-therapist.
Our brains rehearse for real life using the stories we consume. Through media, we find our first identity playgrounds, a safe space to try on different versions of ourselves before we’re brave enough to do it in the real world.
Sometimes a ridiculous storyline plants a seed that blossoms into a lifelong belief about how relationships work.
“Dallas” taught me that families are basically unresolved group projects. The Ewing family showed an entire generation that no matter how powerful you are, your sibling can still ruin your life before breakfast.
JR gave us a masterclass in toxic leadership. Pam taught us how to gaslight ourselves into thinking “this time things will be different”.
Family systems theory tells us that early family scripts seep into adult relationships unless we actively rewrite them.
“Dallas”, with all its betrayal and champagne, was teaching us this decades before therapy made it mainstream.
From “The Golden Girls”, we learn that chosen families can be often healthier than biological ones. Long before community care became a buzzword, Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia modelled quiet, radical truths.
Friendship can be home. Age doesn’t disqualify you from joy or reinvention. And conflict handled with humour is conflict dissolved.
Social psychologists call it “identity scaffolding”. The Golden Girls taught us that scaffolding can be sassy, menopausal, and wearing shoulder pads.
“CHiPs” and “The A-Team” taught us that we fall for people who show up. The buddy cop who always has your back, the team who arrives just in time.
It sounds simple, but consistent behaviour builds what researchers call psychological safety. We learned it watching Ponch, Jon, Hannibal and the rest of the gang. Decades later, research gave language to what we already sensed, that showing up matters more than grand gestures.
“Who’s the Boss?” taught us that relationships work best when roles aren’t rigid. A male housekeeper. A female executive. Sexual tension shaped by role reversal and power play.
Long before we used words like “emotional labour” or “gender fluidity,” this show slipped a subversive message into the mainstream. Relationships work best when roles are negotiated, not assumed.
Adult development theory tells us we grow when our old assumptions break. Tony and Angela broke them in 30-minute increments.
The squabbling siblings of “Family Ties” and “Party of Five” taught us how to fight, and how to forgive.
Before mindfulness taught us to regulate emotions, these shows introduced us to the chaotic, necessary skill of relational repair. Conflict resolution is a developmental milestone. TV gave us practice reps for rupture and repair.
“Frasier” showed us that therapy-speak doesn’t necessarily mean you’re emotionally mature. Frasier and Niles were professionally trained, highly articulate, and catastrophically bad at basic human relationships.
The lesson? Knowing isn’t doing. Over-intellectualisation is often a defence against vulnerability.
This is the foundation of all personal change theory. We grow when we feel, not when we finesse the language.
What does this mean for us now? We may roll our eyes at the melodrama, the bad acting, the laugh tracks. But these shows were early exercises in trying on identities, testing emotional boundaries, understanding power and rehearsing who we might one day become.
Today, we’ve simply upgraded the medium. We binge-watch Netflix. We scroll TikTok therapists. We ask AI to explain our partner’s attachment style.
The real question to ask yourself is which scripts, borrowed from childhood shows, social media feeds, or algorithmically generated advice, are you still acting out today? And do you want to keep them?
This is the work of personal change: noticing the stories that shaped you, choosing the ones worth keeping, and consciously rewriting the ones that no longer serve you.