Yes, the arrogant woman = bitch thing is what I was thinking of. I can't think of specific character examples but I know I've seen chars like that - often in shows I don't watch regularly, soap operas and such? The 'ice queen' type of doctor or lawyer or businesswoman, in which an intelligent, ambitious woman who is confident of her competence is shown as being cruel/conniving/evil/otherwise threatening (often sexy as well, since doms are sexy? but rarely heroic in the way male chars with such traits can still be heroic.)(...but the only example coming to mind to me now is Better Off Ted's Veronica, who is a parody of the type and also made of awesome, so...? ^^;)
Bones, like Castle, set up the m/f dynamic as UST pretty much from the start, and I actually really like both pairings - though Castle is getting increasingly absurd in its attempts to prolong the UST without consummation; Bones imo has done more interesting things with it, and apparently now they are together in the latest season (I'm behind.). And Bones does good female chars, too - as an ensemble show with a bunch of women, it passes the Bechdel test pretty much every ep, and Bones herself is super-intelligent and super-arrogant but avoids a more bitchy stereotype by also being extremely and hilariously socially tone-deaf. Her partner Booth often ends up mediating between her and the rest of the world, very much like John with Sherlock; they've got the cute co-dependent partner thing going on, and I like that regardless of gender.
Though to be honest I like Tony/Ziva, too (mainly because that one does a good job of convincing me they're friends beyond the attraction, which tends to be my biggest problem with TV romance.) I won't watch a show just for the het romance (I started watching Bones because I wanted more David Boreanaz, and Castle for Nathan Fillion + promise of cute father-daughter stuff), but I don't have anything against m/f pairings in particular - if the female characters are well-written (which is encouragingly becoming more common on TV, if not in movies) and the show can convince me the chars are cute together, I'll go with it. But I get annoyed when it always has to be (het) romance, when romance is placed as the most important relationship, and the most important part of relationships. And especially in the case of Sherlock Holmes, because I do fall more on the ace!Holmes side, as you know; and also to have 2 recent Holmes versions playing massive gay chicken without actually crossing the line, and then they make a het version? Yeeeeeah... >.<
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Bones, like Castle, set up the m/f dynamic as UST pretty much from the start, and I actually really like both pairings - though Castle is getting increasingly absurd in its attempts to prolong the UST without consummation; Bones imo has done more interesting things with it, and apparently now they are together in the latest season (I'm behind.). And Bones does good female chars, too - as an ensemble show with a bunch of women, it passes the Bechdel test pretty much every ep, and Bones herself is super-intelligent and super-arrogant but avoids a more bitchy stereotype by also being extremely and hilariously socially tone-deaf. Her partner Booth often ends up mediating between her and the rest of the world, very much like John with Sherlock; they've got the cute co-dependent partner thing going on, and I like that regardless of gender.
Though to be honest I like Tony/Ziva, too (mainly because that one does a good job of convincing me they're friends beyond the attraction, which tends to be my biggest problem with TV romance.) I won't watch a show just for the het romance (I started watching Bones because I wanted more David Boreanaz, and Castle for Nathan Fillion + promise of cute father-daughter stuff), but I don't have anything against m/f pairings in particular - if the female characters are well-written (which is encouragingly becoming more common on TV, if not in movies) and the show can convince me the chars are cute together, I'll go with it. But I get annoyed when it always has to be (het) romance, when romance is placed as the most important relationship, and the most important part of relationships. And especially in the case of Sherlock Holmes, because I do fall more on the ace!Holmes side, as you know; and also to have 2 recent Holmes versions playing massive gay chicken without actually crossing the line, and then they make a het version? Yeeeeeah... >.<