Who doesn’t love a good will they/won’t they romance? It’s so popular across television, but especially on crime procedurals. And one of the couples who took the longest to get together—it wasn’t until the second of the two was leaving that we found out they had a kid together (as did he)—is coming back, with Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo starring in an NCIS spinoff as Tony and Ziva for Paramount+.
With that upcoming series, fans will finally get to see the two together, raising their daughter, something that they missed out on during their time on NCIS. (At one point, she was even presumed dead, so it looked like that would never happen.) But they’re far from the first or the last to fall into that slow burn category. Just look at Blue Bloods, Bones, The Rookie, and The X-Files. And the longer a show runs, and the more popular it begins, the more likely it seems for something to finally happen since the worry of the Moonlighting curse no longer seems to be a concern.
But has any been going on longer than Law & Order: SVU‘s Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni, now on his own spinoff, Organized Crime)? We’re still waiting for something to happen there.
Below, we take a look at Tiva, Densi, Chenford, and more crime-solving partners who got romantic (and Bensler, who could be next).