History TheRival / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/TheGoodWife'': Cary Agos to Alicia Florrick. In Season 1, the two are competing for a job at Lockhart/Gardner, as the firm has hired both of them provisionally for a year with a view to giving a permanent job to the superior employee at that time. After Alicia gets the job, Cary joins the State's Attorney's office, and the two are on opposing sides of cases almost every week. The pair become true friends and partners after Cary rejoins the firm, and even [[spoiler:break away to form their own firm together]]. However, their relationship begins to sour due to their competing ideals about how to run the firm, and by the end of the series Cary is one of many friends that Alicia seems to have lost the respect of due to her continued defence of her husband, Peter in the midst of yet another corruption scandal.

** Davos and Melisandre, for the position of Stannis's right hand. Davos is an earthy, pragmatic man who thinks Stannis should focus on winning over powerful houses to his cause, while Melisandre is a mystical Red Priestess who talks Stannis into morally murky actions like blood magic assisted assassinations. Though Melisandre actually respects Davos, Davos hates Melisandre and calls her his enemy to her face. However, Davos's relationship with Melisandre does eventually help him grow out of his [[FlatEarthAtheist Flat-Earth Atheism]] and accept the existence of the supernatural.

** Davos to Melisandre, for the position of Stannis's right hand.

** Faith to Buffy. They start out as friendly rivals and sometimes friends but Faith becomes a dark slayer.
** Spike to Angel, regardless of whether they're on opposing sides, both good, or both evil. Though Angelus was Spike's original mentor when he first became a vampire, the two frequently clashed with Angelus constantly humiliating Spike and stealing his girlfriend, while Spike in turn sought to outdo him by becoming a notorious [[HeroKiller slayer killer]]. In Season 2, Spike opposes Angel when he fights against the Scoobies, only for [[FaceHeelDoubleTurn both to switch sides]] before the end of the season, with Angel losing his soul and becoming evil again while Spike eventually grows sick of Angelus after he steals his girlfriend ''again'' and [[EnemyMine teams up with Buffy]] to get rid of him. In Season 5 of ''Series/{{Angel}}, both now have souls and are firmly on the side of good, but end up competing due to the Shanshu prophecy ambiguously stating that a vampire with a soul would play a pivotal role in the apocalypse and be rewarded by becoming human, with the two even fighting for the right to be the prophecised hero. However, they remain teammates with similar noble intentions despite their [[HeadbuttingHeroes infighting]].

** Spike to Angel, as revenge for all those times Angelus humiliated him and stole his girlfriend. He also butted heads with Riley on frequent occasions.
*** Reaches a new level in ''Angel'', due to the Shanshu prophecy involving a vampire with a soul.
** Angel unwittingly provokes Lindsay's wrath at every turn, from ruining his court cases, to stealing his would-be girlfriend (Darla), to having the entire firm handed to him on a silver platter. ..And then Angel has sex with Lindsey's ''new'' girlfriend, Eve, under the influence of a spell -- and oblivious to Lindsey's connection to her. When Lindsey consoles himself that Eve is one of the only things in his life that Angel "never got his mitts on", Eve wisely holds her tongue. A good thing, too, because otherwise his brain might have imploded.

** Jaime is Ned's constant antagonist for much of Season 1. Their animosity stems from Ned being vocal against the Lannisters' Sack of King's Landing and Jaime stabbing King Aerys InTheBack.

* Saburo/Hakaider in ''Series/{{Kikaider}}'' is one of the most famous examples in {{Toku}}, being Kikaider's "[[RoboFamily brother]]" who's dead set on [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou being the one to defeat him]]. Meaning he won't abide by any other [[MonsterOfTheWeek Destructoid]] trying to do so. The SequelSeries ''Kikaider 01'' introduced [[NobleDemon Waruder]], a robot samurai who sought to defeat Kikaider 01 in an honorable duel.

* Many of the secondary Heisei in ''Franchise/KamenRider'' play this role at first, then eventually become an ally or a true foe.

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** Angel unwittingly provokes Lindsay's wrath at every turn, from ruining his court cases, to stealing his would-be girlfriend (Darla), to having the entire firm handed to him on a silver platter. ..And then Angel has sex with Lindsey's ''new'' girlfriend, Eve, under the influence of a spell — and oblivious to Lindsey's connection to her. When Lindsey consoles himself that Eve is one of the only things in his life that Angel "never got his mitts on", Eve wisely holds her tongue. A good thing, too, because otherwise his brain might have imploded.

* Sharon Raydor shows up as this to Brenda in Season 5 of ''Series/TheCloser'', possibly because Commander Taylor is now something of a [[TheLancer Lancer]]. After working together (quite well) to solve a case in the fifth season finale, they agree that they "simply don't like each other." This turns out to be a [[NotSoDifferent big fat lie]]. Raydor went on to take the helm of the Major Case Squad in AfterShow ''Series/MajorCrimes'' following Brenda's departure from the LAPD, and has proceeded to ''[[BotheringByTheBook kick]] [[RulesLawyer ass]]''.

* ''Series/NeverHaveIEver''': Ben and Devi have been at each other's throats (and grades) since they were young.

* A considerably more benign version of this trope is Prince Arthur and Lancelot from ''Series/{{Merlin}}''. Both of them respect the other, but both are painfully aware of their mutual feelings for Guinevere.

* Bimpe from ''{{Tinsel}}'' is Telema Duke's rival, both in the industry and for Soji. Kwame is Soji's rival. Brenda Mensah is Fred Ade-Williams's rival.

* Sharon Raydor shows up as this to Brenda in Season 5 of ''Series/TheCloser'', possibly because Commander Taylor is now something of a [[TheLancer Lancer]]. After working together (quite well) to solve a case in the fifth season finale, they agree that they "simply don't like each other." This turns out to be a [[NotSoDifferent big fat lie]]. Raydor went on to take the helm of the Major Case Squad in AfterShow ''MajorCrimes'' following Brenda's departure from the LAPD, and has proceeded to ''[[BotheringByTheBook kick]] [[RulesLawyer ass]]''.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Davos to Melisandre, for the position of Stannis's right hand.

* ''{{Buffyverse}}'':

** Angel unwittingly provokes Lindsay's wrath at every turn, from ruining his court cases, to stealing his would-be girlfriend (Darla), to having the entire firm handed to him on a silver platter. ..And then Angel has sex with Lindsey's ''new'' girlfriend, Eve, under the influence of spell — and oblivious to Lindsey's connection to her. When Lindsey consoles himself that Eve is one of the only things in his life that Angel "never got his mitts on", Eve wisely holds her tongue. A good thing, too, because otherwise his brain might have imploded.

* So Random and Mackenzie Falls are rival television programs on ''SonnyWithAChance''.

* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': Miss Brooks has Miss Enright, her rival for [[LoveInterest Mr. Boynton's]] affections and the position of head of the English Department.

* Carter Baizen to Chuck Bass on ''GossipGirl''.
* ''GreysAnatomy'': Seattle Grace and Mercy West hospitals. Similar to the ''Degrassi'' example, they merged when Mercy West closed down. Some Mercy West characters were killed off, though the others have been accepted as part of Seattle Grace.

* For each series [[RetroGameMaster Arino]] does multiple games on. Most are simply the Big Bad of multiple games, such as Bowser, but some are enemies he has a lot of trouble with, most notably Red Arimer/Red Areemer/Firebrand and the birds.