If you spend any amount of time on the internet, then you probably know the actor Jake Johnson. Jake Johnson (of New Girl and most recently, Minx) is the type of sitcom actor who makes TV viewers tweet things like “I want Jake Johnson to run me over with a tractor” and “I want Jake Johnson to rock me like a damn baby”. The reason for this, mostly, is because Jake Johnson is considered a very good on-screen kisser. Not by the actors he is playing opposite – that would be unprofessional of them to note. But by people who have watched hundreds of romances play out on screen. Let’s just say that the first kiss between Nick (Johnson) and Jess (Zooey Deschanel) on New Girl is iconic for a reason.

Romcoms aren’t new, obviously, but you used to only be able to find the creme de la creme – the Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers vehicles, for instance – on the big screen. When excellent, mid-sized romantic comedies stopped being made in Hollywood, to make way for big budget superhero films that would attract more eyeballs, those excellent romcoms migrated to TV.

A romcom TV show has more hurdles to jump through than a film. It has to be funny and romantic, sure. That’s a tricky balance at the best of times! But it also has to sustain these two things over many episodes – not sacrificing tension or romance or, even harder, not start being annoying. Perhaps this fear of being annoying is why Netflix’s interactive film Choose Love is literally a choose-your-own-adventure romance in which the viewer decides which guy protagonist Cami (Laura Marano) ends up with? Sounds pretty annoying to me.

To be a success, these TV romcoms need to follow some rules. The moment where the couple gets together (or doesn’t) has to be perfectly timed. Too quick and you have a Moonlighting situation, where as soon as Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) and David (Bruce Willis) got together in season three, people realised that they weren’t actually interested in anything else happening on that show. Though if you wait too long, people can lose interest in your flagship couple! Did you care about Ted (Josh Radnor) and Robin (Cobie Smulders) getting together after how many seasons of How I Met Your Mother? I guess that depends on if you cared about the show in the first place.

Netflix’s under-appreciated British romcom Lovesick (which was originally called Scrotal Recall… the name change was wise) was a real masterclass in striking this balance. For three seasons we watched Dylan (Johnny Flynn) and his best friend Evie (Antonia Thomas) fall in love with each other at different stages, with the show jumping around in time to make the missed connections even more agonising. You get the thrill of the chase and the hint that some sort of confirmation is coming … if only Dylan and Evie can match up their timelines.

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And when they do get together … what then? What happens after the happy couple rides off into the sunset, and can that ever be as interesting as “will-they-or-won’t-they”? Season three of the beloved romcom Starstruck, which dropped on ABC iview last week, delves into that very problem, with Jessie (show creator Rose Matafeo) coming to terms with what it would actually mean to date movie star Tom (Nikesh Patel), who she met accidentally on a drunken night out. Once they’ve decided to give it a go, how do they combine their vastly different lives?

It’s a conundrum that’s also beautifully illustrated on comedy/drama Feel Good on Netflix, with Canadian comedian Mae Martin using one season to explore the rocky early stages of their relationship with the closeted George (Charlotte Ritchie), and the second to look at how to sustain a relationship when the early laughs and initial excitement peters out and traumatic pasts creep in. After the sunset, there is still a constant negotiation required to stay together, misunderstandings to iron out and a commitment to stick it out even when it’s not fun.