What are some decent feminist friendly tv shows?

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Like Parks and Recreation, that you'd recommend? You know, has more than one female character, the women are doing stuff, not just mooning over men, oh, or like Buffy!

That's what I'm after mumsnet feminists, hit me with it!

Orphan Black (was on BBC3 recently). It always passes the Bechdel test!

Nurse Jackie.

Sister Act (bizarrely) - at its core it's about relationships between women.

Agents of Shield - also written by Joss Whedon.

Can't believe noone has said Borgen yet! Bloody brilliant!

I've never seen Firefly - have been recommended it in the context of good sci-fi for a teen, so this thread is making it doubly interesting to me - is it shown on any freeview channels ever or would it be a box set job?

This is a really interesting programme (Front Row - Radio 4) asking what happened to the Buffy legacy? - why are there no TV programmes with strong women surrounded by other strong women. The point about the male/male/female dynamic (think Harry/Ron/Hermione, Edward/Jacob/Bella, Damon/Stefan/Elena) as opposed to the female/female/male dynamic of Buffy/Willow/Xander is a really interesting one - once you start thinking about it, you realise how many shows are structured around that first pattern.

Castle has some strong women in, and Castle's home life of course is him, his mother and his daughter, both of whom are very feisty! Nathan Fillion is a Joss Whedon favourite as well - I think it all comes back to Joss!

Someone in real life said Nashville and two people on here means that's first on my list so far for my Amazon vouchers! Keep them coming!

I watched Firefly and quite liked it but can't remember a thing about it now to be honest. I didn't find it memorable at all!
Yes Brenda in 6 feet under was a great character!

Oh Nurse Jackie was another someone has mentioned to me before.

Errol, Firefly is available on LoveFilm.

I've never used LoveFilm....looks like the Complete Series is only about a tenner on DVD from amazon so that may be one of DDs birthday presents (Feb).

Scandal is good.

Big Love is also interesting, although maybe not exactly feminist, it does have lots of female characters, and their relationship with each other is central to the story.

Surprised to see Steven Moffatt recommended on here, google 'Steven Moffatt sexist' to see plenty of discussion. He is shit at writing female characters, they are never well-rounded, he defaults to feisty/sexy. Russell T Davies was a far better Dr Who writer.

Scott & Bailey - excellent police series where most of the top jobs are held by women.

Bones - cast is easily 50/50 (by now, I don't think so at the start), and the women and men are all qualified experts in their own areas.

They still hook up, but they are shown as equal relationships, even after kids.

I think most episodes will even pass the bechdel test ( especially if the 'talking about a man' rule doesn't apply to corpses)

X files
ER

The Simpsons.

Once Upon a Time has loads of strong, varied, multi-faceted female characters, and three of the four main characters are women. Iirc every episode passes the bechdel test.

Silk. Not sure is it passes the bechdel test every episode but the female characters are dynamic and multifaceted.

Scott & Bailey - excellent police series where most of the top jobs are held by women.

My Mum is a big fan of this and I agree, it's well populated with decent women.

You really need a lot of women characters to start getting depth of character and variation, if there's one token female then the default now is 'strong woman' which seems to be a woman who does all the things it would be completely unacceptable for a decent man to do, e.g sexual harassment, violence etc.

I know Steve Moffatt has a bad reputation but I think it's slightly undeserved, Coupling (although it would fail the Bechdal since it was a romcom) has 3 varied characters and I did like Aimee in Dr Who, she was a married woman who was allowed to have adventures and was not vilified (in the programme) for not bringing up her daughter. It's hard though because everyone has different ideas of what is acceptable to them, my sister thinks it's fine that e.g. Toy Story 2 fails the Bechdel because the female cowgirl is a good character. I'm happier with Tangled because I liked the complex mother-daughter relationship even if it was based on a traditional 'girl meets boy' fairytale.

Xena: Warrior Princess.

Season 1 of the L Word is great, after that it tanks. Love The Good Wife. The Closer is also pretty great.

I think Firefly is sexist personally but it's not blatant. At least relatively not.

Lip service
Orange is the new black

Scandal

Reiltin was was thinking about recommending scandal but wasn't sure. I think the women are really strong and interesting but they don't talk to each other really.

Law and Order SVU? Olivia Benson is my hero.