History VitriolicBestBuds / LiveActionTV

** The Doctor (particularly the Third, who spent the most time with UNIT) and TheBrigadier. They traded sarcasm near-constantly and often had quite irate arguments with one another (see Doctor Who and the Silurians) but were obviously fond friends.

* On ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun'', a thoroughly unlikable professor developed a friendship with Dick Solomon simply because of Dick's brutal honesty. When the character died, his will specified that Dick give his eulogy, as honestly as possible, which Dick found very difficult to do without being disrespectful.
* On ''Series/ThirtyRock'', Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy have this relationship. She's the head writer of the [[ShowWithinAShow fictional sketch comedy series]] ''TGS with Tracy Jordan'', and he's an executive for NBC. Jack often insults Liz with comments about her appearance and difficulty in getting dates; Liz starts out reluctant to respond (especially because Jack is her boss), but gradually becomes more comfortable snarking at his suggestions and rolling her eyes at his advice. They also aren't afraid to drop some BrutalHonesty on each other when needed. Ultimately, though, Liz and Jack are truly best friends and PlatonicLifePartners, to the point whenever they're in crisis, they always rush to one another first and foremost for advice and comfort.

* Series/{{Sherlock}} and John certainly argue a lot. Sherlock likes to insult John's intelligence and blog, while John often gets angry at him for his lack of empathy towards others, and occasionally about the severed heads in the fridge.
** Sherlock's the one who [[ItsPersonal gets pissed at Moriarty for involving his friend in his game with him]] and John [[TranquilFury threatens death]] on the Golem in the planetarium.
** Sherlock and Lestrade also have this relationship once they reach the point that they are genuine friends. Sherlock still mocks Lestrade to a certain degree (as he does with literally everyone in the entire series), and Lestrade has or has tried to take embarrassing photos or videos of Sherlock on numerous occasions when he's in a state of weakness. Nonetheless, Lestrade is Sherlock's ''only'' FriendOnTheForce, and Sherlock trusts him implicitly. In "The Reichenbach Fall", he was one of the three friends that [[spoiler:Moriarty planned to execute unless Sherlock committed suicide]]. Lestrade, in turn, respects and admires Sherlock, nicely summed up through this quote in the first episode.
--->''Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and I think one day, if we're all very lucky, he may even be a good one.''

* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': ComicBook/LoisLane and Clark Kent naturally have this, from their first meeting in Season 4 to Season 7. From [[{{NakedFirstImpression}} their first meeting]] there was plenty of {{UST}} bubbling under the surface, but Clark and Lois both managed to mask it as them being merely Vitriolic Best Buds, although [[{{EveryoneCanSeeIt}} Chloe, Jimmy, and the Kents saw it for what it was]]; in Seasons 8 and 9 it finally gets to the point where neither can deny its existence any longer.
* Odo and Quark from ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''. Quark is constantly bringing trivial complaints before Odo[[note]]Most of which are ''about'' Odo himself, or his security officers[[/note]] and Odo keeps Quark under constant surveillance and regularly threatens him with arrest and imprisonment. Yet somehow, whenever Quark is caught red-handed, it's almost always ''everyone else'' involved who actually gets arrested, and when Odo is in trouble Quark is the first (and sometimes even ''only'') one to speak up in his defense.
-->'''Quark:''' Nobody knows him like I know him. Let me tell you something, he's an ill-tempered, over-bearing crosspatch. But he was no Cardassian collaborator. And he's no killer.\\

** Miles O'Brien and Julian Bashir are this as well, albeit typically weighted more towards 'best buds' and less 'vitriolic' than Quark and Odo. When Bashir returns from [[spoiler:spending four months in a Dominion prison camp while having been replaced by a Changeling infiltrator,]] O'Brien comments during their regular darts game that "[[spoiler:the Changeling]] was easier to get along with".
* [[TheSpock Spock]] and [[TheMcCoy McCoy]] from the [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries original]] ''Franchise/StarTrek''. [=McCoy=] constantly insults Spock, and Spock's occasional rare outburst of anger or humor is usually a comeback, but they do pull together and worry about one another when danger looms. It would be more even-handed, but Vulcans are too rational to get into open insult exchanges.
** Spock does hold his own in said exchanges, though, and usually manages to give as good as he gets -- either through InsultBackfire, or more directly (e.g. his ridiculing of Bones's medical competence and his illogical nature, which is surely the gravest insult a Vulcan can think of). Although Spock seldom initiates volleying matches with Bones specifically, he ''does'' often condescendingly pontificate about the superiority of the Vulcan philosophy, inviting challenges to his perspective. Indeed, this was a common complaint when ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' attempted to replicate the Spock and [=McCoy=] dynamic with Data and Pulaski -- since Data, unlike Spock, never talked back or stood up for himself (or even really seemed to understand that Pulaski was insulting him), it looked less like a spirited exchange of give and take and more like a bigot bullying a neurodivergent person. Data, also unlike Spock, embraced humanity and wished to emulate it, making Pulaski appear much more a bigot and a bully than Bones, who has legitimate reasons to quarrel with Spock.
** Whenever ''anyone'' else (even Kirk!) criticizes, attacks, or insults one of them, the other will always be the first to rise to his defense.
* [=McKay=] and Sheppard from ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': they trade barbs, which frustrates Rodney to no end, combine their skills together in nearly every episode to save the day, but in the end, they are best buds -- they take turns saving each other, and despite massive blows to their friendship they continue to have an unbreakable bond.
** They've also bonded since the second episode of the first season, showing that their friendship was meant to last.
** It should be rather telling that Rodney's testing of a personal force field involved Sheppard throwing him off of a balcony, then explaining, with ridiculously large grins on their faces, that it wasn't the ''first'' test they tried;
--->'''Sheppard:''' I ''shot'' him!
** [=McKay=] and Beckett also qualify for this trope. On the one hand, Beckett knows that Rodney isn't kidding around when he insults medicine and everything else, but he brushes them off and sees past [=McKay=]'s exterior to his heart of gold (also almost immediately) to the extent that they become best friends which at the end of Season 3 culminates in [[spoiler: after Beckett's [[OnlyMostlyDead "death"]]]] which many fans also considered the series' hardest hitting TearJerker.

%%* ''Series/ICarly'': Sam and Freddie, especially in later episodes.