What are some decent feminist friendly tv shows?

Lost Girl is entertaining tosh with a strong female lead - there is lots of cheesy erotic nonsense as the lead is a succubus but she is bi-sexual so it is very equal ops - very Xena and Buffy inspired.

Casualty!

It has a good range of male and female consultants, nurses and other hcps.

The Big Bang Theory.

Amy - Neuroscientist. Even though she is moony over Sheldon, she is his itellectual equal.

Bernadette - microbiologist, earns megabucks. Has a Phd unlike her dh.

Penny - stereotypical 'blonde bimbo' (hate that expression), yet trumps the men due to her street savvy and common sense.

Please you've reminded me that Designing Women was an AMAZING show! What a cast of characters.

The Good Wife - Diane is the most kickass feminist EVER. I also love Getting On. Have heard great things about Veep and Nashville.

OH and Murphy Brown! The late 80s wern't that bad actually

oh love Golden Girls! and that reminds me Designing Women!

Can't bring myself to watch Mad Men. I don't want to watch sexism, even if it's making a good point as I'm just sick of watching it.
Have rediscovered the Golden Girls over xmas so have had a bit of a binge. I think it's quite feminist?
I'd just like to watch shows that have women just well... there. Taking up their fair share of space and time as though it's normal. Even though it's a film, I've always found Silent Hill to be interesting as it reverses the normal trend (although there is one horrible scene with barbed wire that I always turn away from) - most of the main characters are women, goodies and baddies and it's of the genre that I usually watch (crappy game films/horror don't judge me).
Sorry for the aimless waffle, am lurking here to avoid study.

Orange is the new Black

30 Rock

Xena

Prime Suspect

2 Broke Girls is kind of sexist and horrible but some how not.. if that makes sense?

I would say Law and Order SVU until they used Mike Tyson as a rape victim . Way to throw women under the bus to get ratings (which backfired and they had their worst episode ever!)

Has anyone seen "Mom" or "mum" with Allison Janney yet? I really like her and think she has great comic timing but it's from the creator of Two &half men, Big Bang Theory which doesn't bode well for it.

I sort of don't want to see it if I it's terrible as It would tar Allison Janney for me.

Agree Kiwiinkits , Veep is great! I always forget about it but it is!

Some very funny scenes in Veep where she (the Vice President) deals with her 21 year old daughter.

Can't believe no-one has said Veep. Julia Louis Dreyfuss is perfection. Funny as hell.

I agree with ER. A fab show all round, but Weaver, Lewis, Corday, Rasgotra are all excellent characters, as are many others

Mad Men is fabulous. I'm not sure if every episode would pass the Bechdel (because we mainly see things through the lead character's eyes) but there is a strong feminist strand running through the whole series and comparison between the choices the three lead females make (or have forces upon them) and the consequences arising from those choices are clearly shown. I think because it's a historic show it allows the writers to be more explicit with the feminist thread, you could argue we can look back at the Mad Men generation and feel superior because we are more sophisticated than them. However there are still clear lessons to be learnt from the many well developed female characters in the series.

FairPhyllis, I would say Borgen is a wholly feminist show, although I suppose that depends how you define a feminist show. What I want is a show that shows several female characters that drive action that is not romantic. Borgen has a majority of female characters in a show that could easily have made every one of them male without causing any comment in the mainstream. But they do examine some 'female' issue like balancing family and work (but without every questioning the desire of women to work) as well, but not as much as Mad Men does.

Astonished to see Steven Moffat recommended here too.

IMO there aren't really any wholly feminist shows but you could do worse than Veronica Mars, Battlestar Galactica and the X Files. I've heard good things about Borgen but haven't seen it.

I just rewatched Firefly recently and was a bit sad that the gender stuff in it is worse than I remembered it as. I would say that Angel is quite watchable even though the cast is male dominated because the women in it are fully formed characters.

I like Bones for this.

Battlestar Galactica. Lots of complex / flawed / strong female characters in that...

Starbuck
President Roslin
Number Six
Boomer
Athena
Admiral Cain

Boomer and Starbuck, interestingly, were both originally male characters, becoming female in the 2003 reboot.

Not every episode of the XFiles passes the Bechdel test but Scully is tremendous.

Stargate SG1. Captain Samantha Carter: cracking role model for young ladies everywhere. Warrior, scientist, pilot, leader - by the final series I think she was a full Colonel, and while I haven't kept up with Atlantis, ISTR she got one-star general's rank by the time she finished. Plus there's the UST with Colonel (later General) O' Neil, with them both obviously caring but being careful to be professional in their workplace. Really nice.

Plus they whack on the baddies something fierce. My daughter was mightily impressed.

One of the reasons I love Parenthood is that Max got a diagnosis soon after DS2 did, and I found it reassuring to see AS portrayed in a regular family drama.

Veep

Ha! I've never seen Walking Dead, sounds like I should

I know, he truly is lovely. He's just so very boring. And his dad and brother take advantage of him and I really want him to put them in their places and he just won't. Actually I feel like he and Christina both sort of love to be the family martyrs. But looking forward to seeing season 5 now ...

I'd say the Gilmore Girls but series 5/6 it turns a bit sour with the girls putting up with a lot of man-related angst.

Heard that, I only pay per episode for Walking Dead so I can see my boyfriend Daryl Dixon But no, I just meant how could anyone not love Adam after how lovely he was in season 4? :o Also Crosby is much improved in 5!