It is unclear where it started, but The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, may have been the highpoint of the plotline.
As the rough-and-ready Canadian boat captain Charlie Allnut and British Methodist missionary Rose Sayer, the pair had an icy relationship at best, as they sailed their eponymous vessel down the river in German East Africa.
But as all classic movie fans know, that melted into the most passionate of couplings in the fire of a battle with the German military, and a nasty attack of leeches.
It's an old story, but a good one, and the third series of heart-warming Welsh comedy Stella (BBC TV, 8.30pm, from March 15) looks like it's setting us up for just such a story of acrimony to affection.
Stella is set in the fictional village of Pontyberry in the South Wales Valleys. Ruth Jones (Myfanwy in Little Britain and Nessa in Gavin and Stacey) stars as the 40-something single mum who earns a living doing other people's ironing, while juggling a rambunctious family and amusingly eccentric friends, relatives and children's fathers.
At the beginning of series three, Stella has been through two disastrous relationships, has given up on men, and is training to be a nurse.
In fact, as she says: ''That ship has well and truly sailed. The only thing I'm going to get married to is my nursing degree.''
So that's that.
Or is it?
We meet Michael Jackson (Patrick Baladi, David Brent's nemesis, Neil Godwin in The Office) as he sits in his BMW, blocking Stella's path in a Pontyberry street, and having a noisy phone argument with his recently divorced wife.
That results in a heated argument between Michael and Stella.
Meanwhile, Big Al (Steve Speirs) has a heart attack, and who should be again blocking the street when Stella accompanies him to hospital in an ambulance, eh?
It's Michael.
Not only that, but the quaint terrace house next door Stella and her noisy brood has been sold.
Who to, I wonder, eh?
Stella is running into menopause, has a battery-powered fan on standby for hot flushes, and discovers her doctor's pills for the symptoms are likely to make her ''rampant'', a difficult condition as she is single.
Amusing goings-on continue at the local funeral home, owned by Stella's brother, as the employees dabble in black market gravesites and bribe the local mortuary for access to bodies.
There are some genuinely funny moments involving the mortuary workers.
Stella does heart-warming so very, very well, even the darkly cynical cannot withstand the onslaught.
You should probably watch it.
- Charles Lougrey
