Odd Friendship / Live-Action TV

Who knew that watching The Sopranos could bring such different people together?

Examples of Odd Friendship in television.

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• All in the Family has Archie Bunker and Lionel Jefferson. With the former being an elderly, outspoken, opinionated bigot who looks down on anyone who isn't a straight white conservative American (and even most who are) and the latter being an open-minded, young, ambitious black man who plans to pursue post-secondary education, you'd think these guys would be at each other's throats but they somehow, SOMEHOW, share a genuine and deep mutual friendship with each other. Archie is condescending and sees himself as Lionel's mentor, but also considers the young man to be of his closest friends and looks out for him like a mother hen, while Lionel is typically amused by Archie's bigoted statements and patronizes them in a way that goes completely over Archie's head, but is well-aware Archie means well and he actually appreciates how Archie genuinely likes him as a person and individual rather than how Michael only seems to relate to him as "a representative of Black people". In fact, the one time Archie goes too far, with his "white ought to stay with white and colored ought to stay with colored" gaffe, he firmly but politely tells Archie off but makes it clear that he still wants to remain friends with the man.
• Similarly, Angel characters Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (the strait-laced, stuck-up bookish Brit) and Charles Gunn (the street-smart, snarky, badass former gang member) form a very tight bond, despite later fighting over a girl.
• Arrowverse
  • Oliver Queen and Barry Allen. Oliver is a PTSD-ridden former playboy... also former hardened killer. Barry's a goofy, smiley kid. This despite the fact that they're about the same age. Oliver acts as a mentor to Barry, Barry as the idealistic Morality Pet to Oliver.
  • Furthermore, there is a layer of irony. In the comics, both of them are good friends with Hal Jordan, but the two don't get along very well (Barry sees Oliver as a bad influence on Hal, and Oliver doesn't like Barry because he's with the police).
    • Legends of Tomorrow has Dr. Stein (older gentleman, married for years, professor of nuclear physics) and Jax (high school graduate, ex-football prospect, car mechanic). Together they form Firestorm, so it's in their best interests to tolerate each other. However they do genuinely like each other, and both go out of their way to help and protect the other. In fact, Stein and Jax have risked their lives to save the other for reasons besides Firestorm, and Stein has tried at least once to play wingman to Jax.
    • Dr. Stein also ended up forming a companionship with Heatwave/Mick Rory (pyromaniac thief). It's not as present, but Rory takes it personally when they disagree. Captain Cold (master thief, deadpan snarker) ends up growing fond of Jax and Ray Palmer (boy scout and scientist).
    • There's some of this in Sara and Kendra's friendship. One's a former assassin and the other's a former barista, but they bond as Sara helps Kendra to master the side of her that comes out when she's enraged.
    • Gary Green and John Constantine. Gary is a pencil pusher who can never catch a break yet almost never loses his enthusiasm while John is a warlock who is literally damned yet almost never stops fighting. The latter even takes the former under his wing as a mage-in-training and have apparently had a fling at some point that still rendered Gary a virgin.
• The A-Team
  • Murdock and Face. The insane, delusional, wise-cracking pilot and the suave, handsome, unrepentant Con Man probably shouldn't be best friends, but they are. Then again, they're both chameleon-like tricksters during scams. In fact, of the whole team, they're probably the most alike. You just can't tell at first glance.
  • B.A. and Murdock as well. Murdock's the Ace Pilot in the team; B.A.'s afraid of flying. And that's just the start of their differences. At the end of the day, however, each has the other's back without reservation.
• Londo Mollari and G'Kar in Babylon 5 are implied to have ultimately become this, in spite of personal and interspecies antagonism between Centauri and Narn; the series puts them through a lot together, and their storyline is probably even more fascinating than the main Myth Arc. This causes a major Prophecy Twist: Londo had a dream in Season 1 that G'Kar would choke him to death (the Centauri are stated to sometimes have accurate visions of their deaths), and assumes that it will be some sort of assassination; but it turns out that G'Kar was giving him a Mercy Kill to release Londo from his Drakh Keeper.

• The Big Bang Theory
  • Penny is a beautiful, highly fashionable, under-educated and street-smart aspiring actress whose best friends are a group of nerds who are not always the best at using common sense despite their academic accomplishments. This is especially the case in her friendship with Sheldon, a brilliant, but condescending theoretical physicist with a host of disorders that make him barely functional in his day-to-day life.
  • Debbie (Howard's mother) and Stuart (the owner of the comic book store) develop one in Season 8. Debbie is loud, overbearing, and gives the people around her a hard time, while Stuart is a meek and soft spoken Butt-Monkey. Contrary to what one would expect from such a pairing, Debbie and Stuart enjoy each other's company, with the former giving the latter money to re-open his comic book store. When she dies midway through Season 8, Stuart is distraught.

• Set in the more than somewhat racist 1920s, Boardwalk Empire has the hot-headed Italian, Lucky Luciano, and the even-tempered and Jewish Meyer Lansky. When dealing with other Italian gangsters, Luciano's friendship with Meyer is often called into question, but at the end of the day, they're partners and friends. Truthin Television.
• Brennan and Angela on Bones. Brennan is an Insufferable Genius and Angela is The Heart.
  • Booth and Brennan, total opposites of each other, yet close friends.
• Subverted on Boy Meets World: for the couple of seasons (and, via flashbacks, several years before that), Cory doesn't seem to quite understand that his friendship with Shawn would be considered odd due to their wildly different socioeconomic statuses, home lives, and level of Street Smarts, and simply sees Shawn as his cooler best friend. Shawn, on the other hand, is painfully aware but is too proud to talk about it. During late Season 2, Cory begins to realize, via Shawn's troubles (which are completely alien to him) intersecting with his own life, the full implications of how different backgrounds can shape people's lives in ways different from his own experience and that his high-minded ideas about fairness and equality aren't universally accepted in real life.
  • The dynamic is seen again in Spinoff Girl Meets World, between Riley and Maya. Riley is sunny and optimistic, while Maya is sarcastic and cynical, but they're inseparable.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Spike and Joyce. The two shared several hot chocolate moments together and talked about Passions. No one really got it. (It seemed to be based on the fact that Joyce was the only one who didn't treat him like crap.)
  Spike: I liked the lady. Always had a cuppa for me.
  • Spike and Dawn as well. Buffy's family seem to be the only people Spike actually likes and hasn't attempted to harm. In addition to Spike and Joyce's aforementioned warm conversations, they were both addicted to soap operas.
  • Andrew and Dawn seem to have gotten to this point by the end of the show, though they might have bonded over the shared position of The Smart Guy/The Heart. To the point where when the First tries to get Andrew to kill the Potentials, it repeatedly assures him that this will not include hurting Dawn.
  • Xander with Dracula in the comics. Xander even taught him how to motorbike.
• Burn Notice: Sam and Fiona — a retired Navy SEAL and a former IRA bombmaker. It's pretty clear in the earlier seasons that they'd probably have shot each other if not for their shared affection and respect for Michael.
• Chuck:
  • It's hard to imagine Casey forging a friendship with anyone, and he's certainly openly disdainful of Chuck for almost all of the first season and well into Season 2. However by the time Season 3 rolls around, it's shown quite clearly that Casey has become part of the family and is willing to acknowledge Chuck as a friend.
  • Casey's relationship with Morgan. It makes their scenes where they act Like an Old Married Couple even more hilarious.
  • Many characters also try to establish that the idea that Sarah could not only genuinely befriend but even fall in love with Chuck is ridiculous. They do both come from fairly bizarre family lives, but Chuck is very much an every-guy, while Sarah is an Action Girl top spy. Ironically, it's in part that each provides the other a bit of wish-fulfillment that leads to them not only forming a genuine friendship, but also drives their romantic relationship.
  • Ellie and Morgan: Morgan drives her crazy with his unrequited (and very obvious) crush. They ultimately bond over Chuck's increasingly being unavailable for them because of his "relationship" with Sarah (neither knowing that it he's actually involved in spywork).
  • Devon is this for almost everyone in the cast. He gets along with almost everyone, and even if they don't hang out, at least shows great consideration for even Jeff and Lester.
• Community:
  • Despite his extreme racism towards pretty much everyone, a lot of Pierce's best friends (if you can call them that) are minorities. For example, he has expressed his admiration towards Shirley and Britta, and has gotten along with Troy.
  • Then there's Troy and Abed, who by all accounts shouldn't be friends as one was a charismatic, self-absorbed football star and one was a socially inept and often put-upon nerd, respectively. Their close friendship (implied to be the first real friendship either of them had) became one of the cornerstones of the show. This also caused a lot of Characterization Marches On as Troy becomes a lot more like Abed over the course of the show.

• Blair and Jo on The Facts of Life began as an anvilicious riff on Class Warfare and turned into a surprisingly subtle tale of people overcoming differences and becoming best friends in the process.
• Farscape
  • Pilot and Aeryn. One's a Starfish Alien symbiotic pilot to a living ship, the other is a former soldier from a military dictatorship. Both bond over their shared desire to be something more than they used to be. The episode "The Way We Weren't" deals with the (temporary) breakdown of their friendship when it is revealed that Aeryn was a member of the firing squad that killed the previous Pilot of Moya
  • From the same show we have Rygel and Zhaan. One is a deposed leader of an interstellar empire who seems to have been something of The Caligula when he was Dominar, the other is a former revolutionary who was jailed for killing her lover who became a priest while in prison. Rygel is easily the most selfish member of the crew, while Zhaan is probably the most selfless. However, Zhaan is the member of Moya's crew who seems to see the good in Rygel the most, and despite his protestations Rygel is obviously quite affectionate towards the "big blue bitch"
  • Rygel and Chiana have elements of this as well, bonding over their shared sneakiness, although Chiana is easily irritated with Rygel.
  • there's Chiana and John. Their relationship is about 10% UST (Chiana is mostly more interested in getting John together with Aeryn rather than trying for him herself, although she did take his virginity when the crew traveled back in time to 1985 Earth) and about 90% a sort of surrogate Big Brother/Little Sister relationship (with John subbing in for Chiana's actual big brother).
  • Even John and D'Argo have strains of this. On the one hand, you have Proud Warrior Race Guy D'Argo, and the other is scientist Crichton. Even if Crichton is a Genius Bruiser and more than capable of holding his own in a fight, it's odd to think of them as having much to connect over. In fact D'Argo clearly thinks very little of him for most of the first season, but as the series progresses he begins to earn D'Argo's respect, and from about Season 2 on their relationship has grown so close that they essentially have become brothers. It's really telling that of all his shipmates, D'Argo refers to John by his first name more than anyone else (except perhaps Zhaan). Even more than Aeryn does.
  • It's hard to imagine Aeryn and John becoming friends, much less falling in love with one another.
• Firefly: Towards the end, Jayne, the hardened and uncouth mercenary, and Shepherd Book, the preacher with a mysterious past, start to develop one. When they're not doing anything else, they are seen hanging out together, talking, joking, working out, etc.
• Fraggle Rock: Mokey Fraggle is quiet, gentle, artistic, and introverted. Red Fraggle is loud, competitive, athletic, and outgoing. The two are best friends and, starting with the second season, roommates.
• Friends: Out of the six friends, Ross and Phoebe are the strangest pair. They have a surprisingly large amount of plots together, even though Ross is a very scientifically-minded museum worker and later college professor, while Phoebe is a Granola Girl with a very unique worldview.
• Game of Thrones.
  • Arya Stark and Tywin Lannister. But this doesn't stop Arya from trying to get Tywin assassinated though and it doesn't stop Tywin from leaving Arya in the hands of Gregor Clegane when he leaves.
  • Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon, who are completely opposite in almost every way and yet best friends.
  • Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow at the beginning of Season 1, despite their families' animosity for each other. They seem to have nothing in common, except for each having highborn upbringings, but bond over their shared societal outsider positions (Tyrion being a dwarf and Jon being an illegitimate child). However, where Jon is loved by his father, half-siblings and uncle, Tyrion is despised by his family with the exception of his brother Jamie (who loves him) — but still, both feel like somewhat of an outsider in their own families as they are The Unfavorite to someone in their home (Jon to his father's wife and Tyrion to his father and sister). Tyrion says, "all dwarfs are bastards in the their fathers' eyes" and gives this advice to Jon: "Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you." This revives again in Season 7 when a letter from Tyrion referring their conversation ("All dwarfs are bastards in their father's eyes") inspires Jon to accept Tyrion's invitation to meet him.
  • Later, Tyrion and his right-hand-man Bronn, a mercenary, until they part ways in Season 4. Their relationship has been likened to a buddy comedy.
  • Later, Tyrion and Varys. Their relationship goes from Friendly Rivalry in earlier seasons to a combination of this and Vitriolic Best Buds by Season 5, which is firmly solidified by the Season 5 finale.
  • Jaime and Brienne, complete with Ship Tease and Unresolved Sexual Tension.
  • Considering the nature of this series, the fact Tyrion and Dany become friends almost instantly qualifies due to being unusual.
  • Salladhor Saan is an old and close friend of Davos Seaworth's, from his smuggling days, despite the two being virtual polar opposites in terms of character.
    Salladhor: You believe your king can win?
    Davos: He is the one true king.
    Salladhor: You Westerosi are funny people. Man chops off your fingers and you fall in love with him. (Davos laughs) I'll sail with you, Davos Seaworth. You're the most honest smuggler I ever met. Make me rich.
    Davos: Get me ta the gates o' King's Landin', an' I will.
• House of the Dragon: Rhaenyra and Alicent are very different early on in the series. Rhaenyra is a fiery, Spirited Young Lady who loves dragon-riding and dreams of adventure and glory. By contrast, Alicent is a quiet and somewhat awkward Proper Lady who prefers reading books. At the tourney, Rhaenyra is paying rapt attention while Alicent is clearly unnerved by all the brutality. The main thing they have in common is being of the same age and same sex, and in the same place at the same time. By the end of the episode, they have one slightly more significant thing in common: they've both lost their mothers recently.
• Subverted on Gilmore Girls. Studious, quiet Rory strikes up a friendship (and then a romantic relationship) with Jess, Luke's ne'er-do-well nephew sent From New York to Nowhere because his mother can't handle him anymore. Much to everyone's confusion and disapproval. Lorelai even goes Wrong Genre Savvy and guesses it's because All Girls Want Bad Boys. In reality, they share a Commonality Connection in their love of literature, music, and pop culture, but Jess's Sugar-and-Ice Personality means he's only nice to her, so everyone else just thinks Rory is weird for liking such a jerk.
• The entire cast of Glee with each other.
  • Artie and Puck (although as Puck's actor likes to point out Puck+Artie=Partie!).
  • Santana and Brittany. Santana is basically the meanest, most manipulative person in Glee Club. Brittany is naive, sweet, and dumber than a jar of mayonnaise. The two of them were virtually inseparable during the course of Season 1. Brittany and Santana are later revealed to be Pitbull Dates Puppy.
• The Good Place: With the possible exception of Eleanor and Jason, none of the main characters should be close friends. Eleanor is a selfish but street-smart jerk. Tahani is a wealthy socialite. Chidi is a neurotically indecisive academic. Jason is a petty criminal. Michael is a demon who is torturing the above mentioned humans during the first season. Janet is an all knowing AI with a human form. Over the course of four seasons, these characters develop and form genuine bonds with each other despite their differences.
• Gossip Girl:
  • Dan and Blair as of Season 4.
  • Nate and Chuck. In the books they're not friends, but on the show they started out as Heterosexual Life-Partners. Nate is a sweet, gentle borderline goody-two-shoes who at the start of the show has had a steady girlfriend since kindergarten. Chuck is a depraved, ruthless, manipulative bastard who sleeps with everything that enters his line of sight and tries to rape people on occasion (though oddly since the show started Nate has been the one jumping from girl to girl while Chuck has been consumed with Blair). Or as Gossip Girl herself puts it, they're a white knight and a dark prince.
• Gotham:
  • Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, who likely never even would have met had extenuating circumstances not brought them together. The sheltered, privileged, empathetic young billionaire takes an instant liking to the brusque, cynical, and often downright mean street thief, to the point where even Alfred tries to discourage it, but it's enough to earn Selina's fragile trust and the two are loyal to each to other no matter what. Of course, it's not just a friendship.
    Alfred: Now, I have my own opinions about Selina Kyle, but she has been a right good and loyal friend to you, and I will not have you put that little girl's life in danger.
  • A villainous example between Oswald Cobblepot and Ed Nygma. Who would have expected Gotham's ruthless, driven, psycho mob boss and the GCPD's adorkable, awkward, and cheery forensic scientist to hit it off so well? Of course, they have a lot more in common as Ed's dark side begins to unfurl. Even after Ed's Face–Heel Turn, Penguin is more emotional and focused on the big picture, while Riddler is more aloof and detail-oriented, but they still get along swimmingly despite their opposing methods.
• Grimm:
  • The friendships that Nick has with certain wesen like Monroe and Rosalee are seen as outright strange, especially since Nick is a Grimm, whose ancestors are something of a boogeyman to wesen, and has mercilessly hunted and killed many of them. In fact, several wesen don't like this friendship since it jeopardizes the status quo, including beating up Monroe and warning him that a Reaper would come after all of them.
  • Inverted/averted in the case of Hank and his best friend who happened to be a Coyotl. While the former didn't realize (at first) the nature of their friendship, the latter never saw anything odd with being best friends with a human, including naming him the godfather for his daughter.
• Joe Hardy and JB Cox in The Hardy Boys. Joe is a Kid Detective and Amateur Sleuth while JB is a career thief and criminal. Despite JB working with and against the Hardys at different times depending on his current situation and what best suits his needs, he is consistently impressed with how smart Joe is, respects his and Frank's detective skills and talents, and looks out for their safety, even saving their lives a few times.
• House: House and Wilson. Wilson is a caring, selfless healer who's so comforting that his patients routinely thank him after he tells them they're dying. House is a sarcastic, narcissistic misanthrope who consistently rude to everyone around him, [including his patients. This is analyzed over the series, as Wilson's need to fix broken people is a compulsion which makes it hard for him to maintain healthy relationships. House will never stop needing fixing, and Wilson will never stop forgiving House, creating a weird but stable bond.
• The five main characters on How I Met Your Mother are all so different that pretty much every permutation of the gang is this trope or its romantic equivalent (in fact, while Ted and Robin have a very happy Odd Friendship, their romance didn't last precisely because they were so different). The only exception is Ted and Marshall, who are very alike, particularly in the earlier seasons, with the exception of their chronically different relationship statuses, but even they started out as this trope when they were roommates in college (Marshall being an obnoxious slacker and Ted a pretentious hipster) who bonded while trapped in a stalled car during a blizzard.
• Ezra and Kyle in The InBESTigators; the first episode features Ezra saying that no one understands why they're friends and then admitting that even he isn't sure why. To a lesser extent, Maudie's friendship with Kyle and her and Ezra's friendship with Ava also qualify.
• Jen with Moss or Roy in The IT Crowd. They're both anti-social computer geeks, and while she isn't normal, she's considerably more social, and doesn't know the first thing about computers. Case in point — she doesn't know what IT stands for.
• Keen Eddie: Deceptively scruffy American detective, Eddie Arlette, is deep, noble, sensitive, protective, brave, uptight, a hopeless romantic, and honest, while his foppish partner, British inspector Monty Pippin, is shallow, selfish, callous, immature, craven, laid-back, hedonistic, and a compulsive liar. Despite this, the two are fast friends and generally get along swimmingly.
• The Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Cuba Libre" features two villains in an odd friendship. One is an elderly, white, Ambiguously Jewish, multimillionaire businessman. The other is a middle-aged, black, Malcolm Xerox drug kingpin. They commit crimes. Ironically, the trait that cements their friendship (which at times seems to verge on Undying Loyalty) is actually their paranoia: each believes with all his heart that the world is out to get him, and this brings them together. Unfortunately for them, the drug kingpin did not share the full extent of his Evil Plan with his friend, which allows the police to play on his paranoia to drive a wedge between them.
• Eliot Spencer and Alec Hardison on Leverage. Eliot is the grouchy badass, while Hardison is the hyper tech genius. They spend much of the first few episodes hating each other, but end up with a grudging friendship.
• Most of friendships in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are of the 'people from different Races being friends' flavor.
  • Elrond Half-Elven and Prince Durin of Khazad-dum being good friends in times where Elves and Dwarves not standing each other is legendary.
  • Galadriel strikes an odd bond with the human Halbrand, with whom she argues all of the time, complete with Belligerent Sexual Tension.
  • Nori, a little Harfoot, and the Stranger, one of the Istari.
• Lost: Despite being arguably the two most polar opposite characters in the series, Ben and Hurley form this near the very end of the series, with Hurley choosing Ben as his second in command after he ends up the leader of the island. Considering Hurley's kind, open-minded and forgiving personality, his friendship is probably exactly what Ben needs to become a better and happier person after everything he's been through.
• Several examples in Lucifer (2016):
  • Lucifer Morningstar and Chloe Decker. Chloe is a very by-the-book detective, a stark contrast to Lucifer, who will freely ignore the law and disrupt her work if it means solving the case. Chloe admits that, differences aside, she needs Lucifer as her partner, as he often makes their cases successful. Eventually, they end up becoming close friends and even fall for each other.
  • Maze and Trixie Espinoza. The former is a demon with a sadistic streak and formerly one of Hell's torturers. Trixie is Chloe's young daughter. Maze takes a shine to Trixie almost immediately after meeting her, and eventually becomes something of a big sister towards her.
  • Maze and Dr. Linda Martin. They couldn't be more different in terms of personality, yet become incredibly close friends. This continues even after Linda finds out the truth about Maze being a demon.
• To a certain extent, Maj. Winchester and Cpl. Klinger on M*A*S*H. (Although it was more of an "understanding" than an actual friendship.)
  • Klinger and Margaret also develop something of an understanding-bordering-on-friendship late in the series.
  • The Chivalrous Pervert Pierce and the Happily Married Hunnicutt.
    • The thoroughly unmilitary Pierce also develops a relationship similar to the one between Winchester and Klinger with the Army brat Margaret.
• Max & Shred: The title pair. A popular snowboarder and an unpopular nerd.
• Merlin:
  • Merlin and Arthur have a lot of differences, yet have become friends.
  • Morgana and Gwen, too, at least at first. Especially interesting since Morgana, as a noble lady and the king's ward, could reasonably be expected to distance herself from commoners. Instead, she and Gwen are best friends.
  • Merlin and the various knights also count, since they generally have very little in common but all seem to like him quite well.
• Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries:
  • Bert, a working class communist taxi driver, and Aunt Prudence, an upper-class society matron who puts great emphasis on behaving properly, have developed this by "Death and Hysteria", when he spends a fair part of the episode trying to help her come to terms with her son's death and succeeds where Phryne and a psychiatrist failed.
  • Straight-laced Detective Inspector Jack Robinson and the freewheeling Miss Phryne Fisher could also count, though "friendship" doesn't completely describe the true depths of their relationship.
• My So-Called Life: Sharon Cherski is somewhat of a goody two-shoes - she doesn't want to get into trouble at all, and is always getting involved in school activities. Rayanne Graf is known for sleeping with a lot of guys at high school, she couldn't care less about school, and she drinks a lot. Despite all of that, in "The Substitute", when Rayanne finds out Sharon wrote an unsigned poem about having sex (with her boyfriend) that's become controversial, the two of them begin a cautious friendship, which is also helped by the fact they're both close to Angela.
• The Nanny: Fran and Niles's friendship is a departure from most sitcoms where the Butler and the Nanny characters would normally be enemies.
• Lots of them in Night and Day, but especially Ryan Harper and Josh Alexander. The generally sociopathic Ryan has good reason to suspect that Josh may have killed Ryan's sister Jane during a blackout, and frequently torments him about it — to the extent of deliberately inducing another blackout in Josh and making him believe he's hurt Della Wells while he was out of it. Yet their friendship is surprisingly tender at times, with Josh frequently trying to bring out Ryan’s better nature. The oddness is cranked up a gear when Ryan saves Josh’s life via tracheotomy, and subsequently decides he ‘owns’ him –- making him sing ‘I’d Do Anything’ from Oliver! to prove it. Josh later shows Ryan how to kiss a girl by offering his hand as a stand-in –- and then by demonstrating his own kissing technique on the object of Ryan’s affections, Celeste.
• The Office (US): Pam has Odd Friendships with Michael, Angela, and Dwight (even when he's not concussed), though all three friendships are off-again, on-again.
• Once Upon a Time: Zelena develops one with Belle of all people starting late into Season 5 and continuing into Season 6. It gets to the point where, when Zelena is thinking about leaving Storybrooke and returning to Oz, Belle looks genuinely sad at the prospect.
• One Tree Hill: The most notable example is the nerdy Mouth's friendship with the popular crowd, in particular his friendship with Brooke Davis.
• From Orange Is the New Black, Sophia Burset (a transgender inmate) and Sister Ingalls (an ex-nun), what started as a way for Sophia to get her medication became one of the show's best examples of this trope.
  • Rosa strikes up a friendship with a teenager in the episode "A Whole Other Hole."
  • Season 3 sees lesbian Boo and born again Christian Pensatuckey develop an odd rapport.
• Parks and Recreation: These friendships are the norm among the cast. Notable examples include:
  • Leslie and Ron, loath as the latter is to admit it, are arguably closer than any other two characters on the show, despite their completely contrasting personalities (Leslie is a peppy, friendly, pro-government go-getter, Ron is a laid-back, taciturn, anti-government introvert, though they have commonalities over being Big Eaters and Competition Freaks), and are very good at reining in each other's quirks. Diane, Ron's main Love Interest through most of the series, actually feels threatened by their closeness at one point.
    • Ron has this with pretty much everyone, really: Andy, Typhoon, Anne... basically all of his friendships are examples of this trope with the notable exception of April, with whom he's Birds of a Feather and something of a Parental Substitute to.
  • Ben and Chris are Heterosexual Life-Partners and have been best friends for years, even though they could barely be more different — Ben is blunt, cynical, and nerdy, while Chris is optimistic, athletic, and compulsively polite to everyone. The show makes clear that their contrasting personalities are actually very helpful for their work in government auditing — Chris keeps everyone's spirits up while Ben makes the hard decisions that will result in people losing their jobs.
  • Fellow Heterosexual Life-Partners Leslie and Anne. Much like Ben and Chris, the show shows how their differences actually improve each other, with Anne controlling Leslie's crazier impulses and Leslie encouraging Anne to be more adventurous and live her life. (humorously enough, Leslie and Ben end up getting married, and so do Anne and Chris — guess contrasting personalities can also make for strong marriages).
  • Donna and Jerry are likewise this, as part of their status as the department's Those Two Guys. They live very different lives — Donna is a vivacious world traveler who Really Gets Around, Jerry is a settled-down, Happily Married family man — but still know each other well enough to win Tom's "Know Ya Boo" game show, and even spend an entire episode in the final season reminiscing over the history of their friendship.
• Psych:
  • Juliet — oftentimes the Only Sane Man, younger, friendly, enthusiastic — and Lassiter, the older detective that's always doubting Shawn despite the latter's near flawless record and is painfully socially awkward, difficult to get along with, and often just odd. Despite their differences, they work well together.
  • If Shawn and Gus weren't already childhood friends, their friendship as adults would be inexplicable. Shawn is a lazy, childish, and hyperactive slacker without a steady job, while Gus, despite his Not So Above It All moments, is more serious, hard-working, and has a well paying job as a pharmaceutical salesman. In fact, any time Gus acts like Shawn, the latter gets worried.
• Red Dwarf: Lister is an abject slob and layabout with an anti-authoritarian streak a mile wide, but is nevertheless friends with the titular ship's upper-class executive officer Frank Todhunter. One can only assume that they bonded over mutual love of the ladies and belief that Rimmer is a smeghead, and Todhunter seems to be the kind of officer who will overlook his subordinates' foibles if they can get things done.
• Rome: Pullo and Vorenus, introduced brawling with each other and then saving each other's lives in the very next battle (based on two Roman soldiers of the same name who did the same). They are often at odds and have completely different personalities, but become True Companions.
• Scrubs.
  • Elliot and The Janitor. Sometimes it seems Janitor is only her friend just to piss J.D. off. Although it is revealed that The Janitor has a crush on Elliot. He tried to propose to her once!
  • Carla and Dr. Cox. He's an irascible divorced middle-aged doctor with a serious Insufferable Genius streak, she's a young and attractive Latina nurse with an empathetic and motherly personality—yet against all odds, she's one of the few people at Sacred Heart whom Cox openly and unconditionally respects, and one of the only people whom he'll openly call a friend.
  • The Janitor's "Brain Trust" buddies.
  • Drs. Kelso and Cox near the end of the show.

• She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has for one episode Wong, the Sorcerer Supreme, and Madisynn King, a Hard-Drinking Party Girl who just appeared in Wong's home after managing to escape a hellish dimension by making a Deal with the Devil (It Makes Sense in Context). The Stinger of said episode is particularly fun and heartwarming, both watching This Is Us while discussing drinks.
• Skins:
  • Particularly in the second generation. JJ, Cook, and Freddie seem to have nothing in common, but they're still friends. Also Effy and Pandora become friends in Season 1 despite having very different personalities. Pandora is The Ingenue and Effy Emotionless Girl.
  • Even more so in Gen 3 with Heterosexual Life-Partners metal-head Rich and plucky comic relief Alo. They — along with loner Franky — befriend Pollyannish Grace and, eventually, the rest of the Girl Posse. In the final episode, Mini even goes as far as to call herself Franky's best friend and has grown to deeply care about the girl who she once taunted and picked on.
• Stargate SG-1,
  • O'Neill and Dr. Daniel Jackson. O'Neill thinks little of Daniel initially, but by the end of Season 1, they're on their way to being best friends.
  • O'Neill and Teal'c. Teal'c was actually The Dragon for SG-1's enemy and captured O'Neill and his team. Jack got through to him and got Teal'c to join their team. Jack has been Teal'c biggest ally and supporter ever since.
  • The odd, antagonistic yet strangely friendly relationship between Jack O'Neill and Harry Maybourne. Jack's an honorable, courageous USAF officer (albeit with a very shadowy past), and Harry is a convicted traitor and every bit the weasel that that implies. Jack bailed Harry out of jail, and repeatedly let him go when he could have easily dumped him back into prison, no matter how much he annoyed him. Albeit, Harry proved himself quite useful on several occasions, but still, Jack got him his own planet in the end.
  • Also the friendship between Vala and Teal'c, who get remarkably close even though he's an honorable, stoic warrior and she's a volatile, unprincipled thief. In one of her early episodes, she even gets him to bump hips with her after scoring a goal in basketball.
• In Stargate Atlantis:
  • McKay and Beckett. McKay and anyone who would consider him a friend, really, the man is not easy to get along with.
  • Ronon and McKay. At least they are somewhat friends... they seem to get along well for being opposites.
  • Might as well point out McKay/Sheppard. They spend an unusual amount of free time together despite the military-vs-scientist divide. They played that game-that-wasn't-really-a-game, they race RC cars down hallways in isolated parts of the city, and Sheppard was the only person McKay told that he intended to propose to Katie Brown. In "The Shrine," McKay wakes up terrified of completely forgetting himself and immediately runs to find Sheppard. Then there's the running joke about them taking turns saving each other's lives. What isn't a joke is that each will walk through fire to get the other out of a jam.
• Stargate Universe: Greer is a stoic soldier with a deadpanned humor, Eli is an excitable Geek a little too uncertain in himself. Greer sincerely respects him and offers him advice regarding his love life.
  • In fact, Eli is one of the few civilians Greer does sincerely respect.
• Star Trek: Voyager

• We also have Seven and Captain Janeway, Tom Paris and Harry Kim (at least at first; once Tom becomes more "Starfleet officer", the oddity in that one disappears), and the Doctor and ... well, everyone. You could also say Tom and Chakotay, but that was more like a cease-fire than an actual friendship for a long time.
• Not to mention Neelix and Tuvok after the brain damage episode.
• It's understated through most of the series, but Paris and Tuvok have a certain friendship as well; Paris tells Tuvok he's "made [a friend] today" after Tuvok helps him out of a murder charge, and Paris is seen seeking Tuvok's advice when he finds out B'Elanna is pregnant.

• The grandmother of them all, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy from Star Trek: The Original Series. Kirk and Spock, especially, were... close. Very close. Close to the point where Kirk sacrificed his ship, his career, and almost his life to get Spock back. Is it a wonder these guys invented slash?
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: Most of Data's friendships edge into this, except maybe Geordi (since they're fairly similar in personality), but Troi and Worf are particularly noteworthy.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • "Odd" is almost insufficient to describe the friendship between Odo and Lwaxana Troi, and yet after a moment of crisis in which both of them are forced to let their walls down and be vulnerable with each other, they form a deep and lasting friendship. The formation of this friendship is also a major moment of Character Development for both of them.
  • Also Odo and Quark, though they'd never admit to being friends.
  • Bashir and O'Brien. In the beginning of the show, O'Brien found Bashir annoying (well, everyone did, but the cranky engineer seemed most irritated by the over-enthusiastic young doctor). Over time, after being thrust into a few tense situations together, O'Brien developed a grudging admiration for Bashir, which solidified into friendship over their shared love of reenacting famous battles in the Holosuite. By the end of the show, they were best buds and nigh-inseparable.

• Star Trek: Enterprise had the quiet, stoic Malcolm Reed and the talkative, personable Trip Tucker, frequent verbal sparring partners who went on to develop a strong friendship.
• Dean Winchester and Castiel on Supernatural. You wouldn't think a very agnostic hunter and an obedient angel would get along very well, but they've developed an interesting relationship — one that has caused Castiel to doubt his angelic orders and duties.
  • Their friendship has actually escalated to the point where Castiel turns his back on Heaven after Dean pretty much begs him to help him and even stays behind to hold off an Archangel and possibly a few more of his brothers so they won't go after Dean.
  • Although, Cas has a few shades of Woman Scorned, particularly when Dean tries to say yes to Michael. Castiel takes it as a grievous insult, and well... it wasn't pretty.
• Teachers (2016): The worldly, promiscuous Ms. Snap and the naive, chaste Ms. Bennigan are best friends.
• The Twilight Zone (1985):
  • In "The Star", Father Matthew Costigan, a Jesuit priest and an astrophysicist, is close friends with Dr. Chandler, an atheist physician and one of his shipmates aboard the survey ship Magellan. They frequently have polite discussions about whether God is responsible for the beauty of the universe or whether it is merely random.
  • In "Monsters!", a young monster movie fan named Toby Michaels becomes friends with a 158-year-old vampire named Emile Francis Bendictson, who has just moved next door.
• Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt had during the first season finale, a bond formed between the former Trophy Wife and Rich Bitch, Jacqueline and the resident Cool Old Lady and Cloud Cuckoolander, Lillian, who had previously stated to hate rich people. They end up in a roadtrip together and bond over their lack of knowledge of outside New York.
• Damon and Alaric from The Vampire Diaries. They're now best friends/drinking buddies. This despite the fact that Damon turned Alaric's wife. And slept with her. And taunted him about both facts. And killed him. Twice.
  • Damon and Bonnie as of Season 6 have become relatively closer based on the fact that they spent 4 months alone together in a 1984 dimension-like-prison. The turning point actually starts to take shape more when Damon gets back from the prison after Bonnie sacrificed herself again, leaving him to work his ass off getting her back.
  • Matt and Tyler are best friends, despite being polar opposites.
• Veep made an unlikely friendship out of caustic asshole Jonah Ryan and poor, sweet Richard Splett. The two have nothing in common besides being idiots.
• Daryl and Carol on The Walking Dead. Violent Hick and Shrinking Violet? Pretty Odd. Many other friendships in the show may fit this trope as well, but this one particularly. It becomes less odd over time as Daryl becomes more empathetic and Carol becomes more of a badass.
• White Collar:
  • Neal Caffrey and Peter Burke, to a truly adorable degree.
  • Mozzie — conspiracy theorist and unrepentant con artist — with both of the Burkes, especially Elizabeth.
• Harper and Alex from Wizards of Waverly Place. Harper is The Ingenue, while Alex is a darker character. Yet, they're best friends.
• Xena and Gabrielle on Xena: Warrior Princess, both with each other and also with Joxer. After the fourth season, however, Gabrielle becomes much more like Xena, making the friendship less odd.