Channeling : DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL . . . : Joel and Maggie: Are you sure you know what you’re doing?

Valentine’s Day. Love. Television.

Three things that go together like, well, Halloween, hate and radio. Valentine’s Day we celebrate annually. Love we don’t celebrate enough, and television we probably celebrate too much.

In fact, it seems that you can’t touch that dial without finding some kind of love--from the heart logo of “I Love Lucy” to the mating habits of animals on “Wild Kingdom”... or any ABC miniseries.

Down through the TV ages we have seen love in many forms. There are couples who love each other (“The Donna Reed Show,” “Leave It to Beaver”), couples who hate each other (“Dallas,” “Knots Landing,” most marriages in America) and couples who love each other but are too stupid to know it (“Superman,” “Get Smart”). But that’s not all. There are parents who love their kids (“The Brady Bunch”). Kids who love their animals (“Flipper”) and animals who love themselves (politicians on C-SPAN).

The best kind of television love involves couples who on the surface seem to hate each other, but really love each other. That’s my favorite. The barbs, the jibes. The fights, the spats. Expensive ceramic figurines flying across the screen ... ah ... just like home.

I was distressed, then, to hear that those two sparring partners from “Northern Exposure,” O’Connell and Fleischman, are going to share a “roll in the hay” on this week’s episode (Monday at 10 p.m. CBS). Yep, just in time for Valentine’s Day afterglow (not to mention the February sweeps) two of my favorite fighting foes, Maggie (Janine Turner) and Joel (Rob Morrow) are going to ... well, I can’t delicately say what because my mother will be reading this. But suffice it to say that it’s what we viewers have been taunted with for three seasons.

But have you ever noticed what happens to our favorite TV couples who love/hate each other once they ... you know, “do it?” Remember Sam and Diane from “Cheers,” or Maddie and David from “Moonlighting” or even Marley and Dennis from “Another World” (my personal favorite). Gone is that titillating sexual tension we grew to love and anticipate.

So what will this mean for our two crusty Northerners? (Is Joel even a “crusty” Northerner yet?) Will they eventually two-step down the aisle and end up wearing matching pajamas like Rob and Laura Petrie? I hope not. Then there’s that little teeny issue: All of Maggie’s lovers have died!

Then why are they . . .? I agonized over this until I spoke with Andrew Schneider, “Northern Exposure” co-executive producer, and Diane Frolov, supervising producer. According to Schneider, the “deed” wasn’t planned at the beginning of this season. It was the idea of Jeff Melvoin, who wrote this particular episode. “It’s not the main story of the episode,” Schneider reassured me. Frolov added it was “just an occurrence” that happens within the show as a result of a “meteoric event.” So what’s to become of Joel? Another stray satellite victim?

“It is a sword hanging over his head,” Schneider acknowledged. “Something that Maggie is very concerned about and has to come to terms with.”

And will this affect Maggie and Joel’s behavior toward each other? Schneider assured that it would only “heighten their push-pull relationship.”

Thank heaven. That’s the best Valentine you could have given me. But about that meteor . . .