Exactly two years ago, I wrote up a post about my favorite TV shows centered around female protagonists. I think it’s time for an update.
When I was a kid – we’re going there – there were very few TV shows about women. And three of them (that I can think of at the moment) were spinoffs of shows that focused on male protagonists. The Six-Million-Dollar Man yielded the Bionic Woman (and a few followup TV movies). She-Ra, Princess of Power was a spin-off of He-Man: Masters of the Universe. In the 1990s, Hercules: the Legendary Journeys gave us Xena: Warrior Princess. In the comic book world, Superman had a cousin named Supergirl who eventually found her way to earth to fight crime just like (and sometimes alongside) her cousin. Another famous pair of cousins? The Incredible Hulk and She-Hulk. Even the origin of the recent Agent Carter, whom some of us here at Speculative Chic adore, was formed in the context of Captain America (although we all know Peggy Carter’s value, for sure). Series like the 1970s Wonder Woman were exceptions.
A person can peruse any Ranker list or imdb.com list and see that the majority of TV shows in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, SF or otherwise, revolved around men. Think MacGuyver, The Incredible Hulk, Knight Rider (and its knockoffs such as Street Hawk and Super Force), Quantum Leap, The Sentinel, Seven Days. Factor in ensemble shows such as Babylon 5, seaQuest:DSV, V, any Star Trek show, Stargate: SG-1, and 3rd Rock from the Sun, as well as what I call “witty banter shows: The Avengers (BBC, rerun in the 1990s), The X-Files, and animated series such as the various iterations of Batman and X-Men. Only a handful of shows starred or revolved around women, SF or otherwise (Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego!, Golden Girls, Cagney & Lacey, Ellen, Daria), or were seen in reruns (Bionic Woman, Charlie’s Angels). Then along came Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: Voyager, and The Secret World of Alex Mack. This is not to say that women did not deliver memorable character performances: we have Captain Janeway, Xena, Dana Scully, Samantha Carter, Aeryn Sun, and Buffy Summers, among others.
At the edge of the 2000s, we got Birds of Prey, which was low on production values and scrapped after the first season (rightly); Dark Angel, which was so promising but went off the rails in the second season (so go ahead, James Cameron, criticize Patty Jenkins, aaargheyeroll); Totally Spies!, Stargate: Atlantis, headlined by first Torri Higginson and then Amanda Tapping after SG:1 ended; Amanda Tapping went on to produce and headline Sanctuary.
That’s a short, very edited history of women’s shows until recent times.
It sounds like I’m complaining. Maybe. I’m just pointing out some things. I haven’t listed every single title, I admit; but there are websites for that. You can probably think of shows I haven’t listed here. It’s also possible I’m simplifying. My point is that TV shows headlined by women are rarer than we think, and that is what led to my very first post two years hence. Because now there are more shows featuring women. And here are a few of my current favorites.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, 2018-present (Netflix). This reboot of the 1980s cartoon is one of the best things ever. I have already watched it twice since it dropped in mid-November, and I’m here to recommend it (while I download all the She-Ra gifs I can find). Showrunner Noelle Stevenson moves from graphic novels (YOU’VE READ LUMBERJANES, RIGHT? WHY HAVE YOU NOT READ LUMBERJANES?) to animation and infuses the legend of She-Ra with a fresh, updated origin, storyline, and characterizations, none of which (so far) have anything to do with a certain lawful good Eternian prince who enjoys running around in fur underpants. Because it’s 2018, not 1985, and post-Wonder-Woman-on-the-big-screen, we need more stories about women independent of, well, men. If that makes me a feminist—awesome. Netflix has also made the original series available, and there are definite differences between the two. (Linguistics, for instance; the characters in the original speak with a question mark at the end, as if afraid to claim their authority; I refer you to Robin Lakoff’s 1975 groundbreaking work in the differences between men’s and women’s language.) The original She-Ra is a competent series. She-ra/Adora runs around with a cool sword, transforms animals, saves people, and makes wisecracks while doing it. Wait. Who does that sound like? Yeah. And that’s what I mean when I say Ms. Stevenson and company has given Adora her own characterization and her own origin story (which she is still sussing out). They’ve recast all the characters, from Adora and Catra to Glimmer, Bow and the rest of the rebellion, as younger, more believable versions of their 1980s counterparts, all of whom wrestle with everything from emotional abuse, personal insecurities, questions of neutrality, and more. The new series is much more emotionally balanced, has more people (and princesses) of color, timely themes (the Horde is destroying the planet, which puts the series solidly in eco-awareness territory), an apparently diverse voice cast (to be fair, I couldn’t find photos of the original cast) – and it is also hella queer. The animated show I didn’t know I wanted as a kid is right here. (And greenlit for Season 2.)
Van Helsing (2016-present, SYFY) If, like me, you could not care less about sticking to vampire lore, and you didn’t have a problem with Underworld (the premise, anyway, not speaking to the movie series production), then Van Helsing is for you. It’s convoluted, full of plot twists, and it doesn’t care about traditional SF incarnations of vampire lore (so far; I’ve just begun the third season). The series opens with a solider named Axel siphoning off his own blood to feed a captive woman he calls Doc, while guarding a prone woman, Vanessa, who’s been in a coma for two years – ever since the world went to hell in a handbasket; the Yosemite volcano finally erupted, filling the sky with ash and spurring the vampire apocalypse. The entire Pacific Northwest is a no-sun zone. Of course, vampires starte coming out of their hidey-holes and establishing dominance. Not much is known about the world outside the Pacific Northwest–rumors abound that Denver, for example, is the beginning of the “free zone” -but that’s because we’re following survivors in the Pacific Northwest, working against (and sometimes for) the vampires. Lo and behold, when Vanessa mysteriously awakens in the first episode, she bites a vampire and turns him human again. No one has any idea why this is so, least of all Vanessa herself. But the vampires she turns -including returning Doc to her human state – are then empathically connected to her. Vanessa gains a small but loyal following, not that she wants to lead anything. She wants to find her daughter, who was supposed to be on her way to Denver to stay with her father, Vanessa’s ex. But stories of Vanessa’s ability make her a target of all the local vampire clans, some of whom want to kill her, and some who want to study her. And that’s just the first season. The second season continued to throw out twists, while exploring the characters’ backgrounds, abilities, and weaknesses as Vanessa discovers her origins and her gang continues to find ways to fight the vampires. In addition, the show sports Christopher Heyerdahl (John Druitt/ack the Ripper from Sanctuary) in his best role (to say more is to spoil it). Rukiya Bernard as Doc is one of my favorite characters; she does such a great job portraying the nuances of making the character her own. I wasn’t too thrilled with the end of the second season, but I find the show intriguing and enjoyable enough to begin watching the third. And I’m with it so far. One of the main themes of Van Helsing has to do with forgiveness, and unlike other series in the vampire canon, I find the characters to be so very human, faults and all. That’s what keeps me coming back.
Supergirl (2015-present, CBS/CW). When last I wrote about shows headlined by women, it was early 2016. And one of the shows I did not include in that list was Supergirl, even though I was watching it at the time. I’m not sure why I omitted it, but here we are. Supergirl is a show I have immensely enjoyed, although the fourth season has been wobbly. Some fans believe it’s only stronger as a show now, but I loved the first season when it aired on CBS. Kara Danvers has lived in obscurity on Earth, but that becomes a challenge when she uses her powers to save her sister Alex’s airplane from disaster. She takes on a life of crimefighting while also showing up for her everyday job as personal assistant to Cat Grant, owner of Catco Media, played by Calista Flockhart. And CBS subsequently dropped it after its first season. (Why did I expect any different from a network that cancelled Threshold and Jericho? Nuts to you, CBS.) The CW picked it up, because it fit with their DC comics offerings, but many viewers were afraid that Supergirl, whose first-season themes touched on grief, loss, family, and survivor’s guilt, would become a dumbed-down, diluted mess. Supergirl’s second season was really well done, but the last half of the third season going into the fourth has been… not-so-stellar. I’ll try not to spoil anything, but toward the end of the third season, Kara finds someone who is very important to her – and that meeting is glossed over for the sake of the plot. Yet, it was her driving force in the first season. Supergirl’s stories parallel today’s real-world stuff, and that keeps me watching. I know the characters should be more established by the fourth season, and they are, and that is a good thing (Supergirl can’t possible wrestle with every conceivable moral dilemma, after all). While this show is not the Supergirl I fell in love with back in 2015, which carefully balanced a complicated plot and character development with relevant social themes, there are things Supergirl still does well–the relationship between Kara and her sister Alex, and their relationship with J’onn, has always been a strong point. And Melissa Benoist was, and still is, the best choice to play Supergirl. The showrunners have also made it a point to be inclusive, and again, the show is tackling themes straight out of the news. So I haven’t given up on Supergirl yet, by far, and I still recommend it because it is worth watching. I don’t want to say a show should be this or that; TV shows and characters evolve just like everyone else, and I want to see what future episodes and seasons bring us.
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