TMC
03-12-2022, 06:45 AM
https://www.looper.com/796865/the-worst-storyline-in-cheers-season-5/
Sam and Diane's relationship finally sputters out in Season 5
By Season 5, the partnership between Sam and Diane had lost its momentum. Part of this was by design; Long decided to leave "Cheers" (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/cheers-at-25-untold-stories-inside-writers-room-1113428/) ahead of Season 6 once her contract was up. In orchestrating Long's departure, the show's writers, having wrung everything they could out of an overstretched romance, leaned into caricatures of the antagonistic partnership. At the end of Season 4, Sam asks Diane to marry him, setting up the following season for a strained back-and-forth in which Diane reneges on her initial refusal, all but forcing Sam to propose again. The pair engages in a bitter season-long game of cat and mouse, periodically dating around to spurn one another.
In Season 5 episodes (https://www.looper.com/303824/the-best-episodes-of-cheers-according-to-fans/) like "Chambers vs Malone" and "Dinner at Eight-ish," Sam and Diane are more spiteful than ever. The former sees Diane pressing phony assault and battery charges against Sam, only for the couple to secure their engagement by the episode's end. The newly betrothed couple is just as argumentative, even convincing a marriage counselor in Episode 21, titled "Simon Says," that their marriage is doomed. The "Cheers" writers ultimately break up the couple just as they're supposed to wed by shoehorning in a publishing opportunity for Diane at the last minute.
Still, after a season of never-ending wooing and waffling between the doomed couple, Long ends her time on "Cheers" on a moving note. In the season finale, "I Do, Adieu," Sam realizes they will never truly be happy as a married couple, ending the series' central romantic relationship with a bittersweet sendoff: "Have a good life."
Sam and Diane's relationship finally sputters out in Season 5
By Season 5, the partnership between Sam and Diane had lost its momentum. Part of this was by design; Long decided to leave "Cheers" (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/cheers-at-25-untold-stories-inside-writers-room-1113428/) ahead of Season 6 once her contract was up. In orchestrating Long's departure, the show's writers, having wrung everything they could out of an overstretched romance, leaned into caricatures of the antagonistic partnership. At the end of Season 4, Sam asks Diane to marry him, setting up the following season for a strained back-and-forth in which Diane reneges on her initial refusal, all but forcing Sam to propose again. The pair engages in a bitter season-long game of cat and mouse, periodically dating around to spurn one another.
In Season 5 episodes (https://www.looper.com/303824/the-best-episodes-of-cheers-according-to-fans/) like "Chambers vs Malone" and "Dinner at Eight-ish," Sam and Diane are more spiteful than ever. The former sees Diane pressing phony assault and battery charges against Sam, only for the couple to secure their engagement by the episode's end. The newly betrothed couple is just as argumentative, even convincing a marriage counselor in Episode 21, titled "Simon Says," that their marriage is doomed. The "Cheers" writers ultimately break up the couple just as they're supposed to wed by shoehorning in a publishing opportunity for Diane at the last minute.
Still, after a season of never-ending wooing and waffling between the doomed couple, Long ends her time on "Cheers" on a moving note. In the season finale, "I Do, Adieu," Sam realizes they will never truly be happy as a married couple, ending the series' central romantic relationship with a bittersweet sendoff: "Have a good life."