[January Meme] - Discuss leading ladies in Sci-Fi TV shows

[grimorie]

"Discuss leading ladies in sci-fi television shows. Compare, contrast, who do you lovel who do you not?" via @ cleoselene

I’ll limit this to a few shows: Star Trek DS9, Farscape, Firefly, Fringe, Doctor Who, Star Trek Discovery, The Expanse, Legends of Tomorrow, Person of Interest, Killjoys, and Star Wars.

Breaking shows down further:

Space SciFi:

• Star Trek, Star Wars, Killjoys, Farscape, Firefly, and the Expanse

Under Star Trek I’m going to focus on Deep Space Nine and Discovery and for me, I’ll pick Kira Nerys as the main leading lady, and for Discovery there’s Michael Burnham.

It’s interesting to look at both of them coming from different eras in-show and IRL. DS9 is the first time Star Trek tries something a little more complicated. (Not that Trek hasn’t done it with TNG but DS9 tackles things in a more in depth way, due to being a station with a set of recurring characters).

Kira Nerys was a rebel, a freedom fighter against the Cardassian Occupation and sometimes she also gets called a terrorist. It’s not something Kira shrugs off too, she knows what she did in the name of freedom. She’s very clear eyed on that. If DS9 were written immediately after post-9/11 this would never be allowed.

Michael Burnham is also a character of her time, where Kira embraced the morally ambigous side of her, Michael's comfort level with violence and the number of people who died because of her bad judgement sits heavy on her shoulders.

She’s not used to that, she’s a Starfleet Officer, and as a Starfleet Officer who grew up in Vulcan it’s not a prospect she grew-up with. Michael had a set path, which was derailed.

Kira and Michael have different-life experiences and upbringing. One isn’t necessarily better than the other, just different. Kira grew-up in fighting a guerilla war. Michael was traumatized at a young age and grew-up in a very emotionally locked down household. Michael struggles to find her feet between the two, maybe three worlds she straddles over. Michael chooses to be Starfleet.

Kira didn’t want to be Starfleet and only started softening on that stance later in the series.

ATM though since Kira has a finished story, and because she’s stayed with me the longest, Kira edges Michael out a little.

• Star Wars This is another formative show but it’s only really recently that I’ve become really invested in Star Wars, with one caveat. I’m invested in the animated arm of the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

But! Princess Leia is the OG and she’s the template of most of the fantastic women in the ‘verse.

This top spot is shared together with Ahsoka Tano. Ahsoka was Anakin Skywalker’s apprentice and is instrumental for making me like Anakin in the way the Prequel movies failed to do. The other reason why I love Ahsoka so much is because of how she developed from a really snarky kid to one of the best characters in the Star Wars ‘verse. She has a rich history and an incredibly enigmatic future.

Space Opera

• Farscape: This is such a fantastic, zany and colorful space show. It’s grand in scale and the acting is phenomenal. Everyone is fantastic here and then there’s the Radiant Aeryn Sun, a soldier who grows beyond what she knows and becomes such a vibrant character on her own.
• Firefly: Space Cowboys, it’s only one season and as things go now I am glad we only have one season. This show had a lot of women but for me, the stand outs were Zoe Washburn and River Tam.
• Killjoys seem to be a spiritual successor of both Firefly and Farscape. It’s another zany show with twists that surprise me, and really really interesting world building. It is also a space show where the lead is unquestionably a woman, Dutch. A former assassin slave Princess who forms complicated and complex bonds with people.

Hard Space Fi

• ‘The Expanse' has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to complicated and complex women. I haven't started season 3 but I know the season adds on with more fantastic women with their own stories and agendas.

Chrisjen Avasarala is one of the more fascinating people in the show, she is a seasoned diplomat and politician who always took an "Earth First" approach. This comes in conflict with several characters on the show who each have theth own agenda. There's Naomi Nagata a' Belter' who wanted nothing to do with fights and causes and slowly re-learn 8 to be one.

The Expanse is such a rich and vibrant story that I think everyone can stand shoulder to shoulder together in the number 1 spot.

The Douglas Adams Sci Fi

I mean, not really but I don’t know what else to categorize both Doctor Who and Legends of Tomorrow

• Legends of Tomorrow

Zany doesn’t even cover this lovable show. It started out kind of a mess in season 1 and then slowly the writers threw the rule book out and what started out as a story with a standard squared jaw hero (Rip Hunter) and an unfortunate love story (Sorry Hawks) is now one of the most queer friendly and irreverent shows. The new lead of the show is Sarah, a former assassin and she leads a bunch of misfits accidentally breaking time to save time.

Sometimes they make the Doctor’s exploits... who am I kidding, they’re almost the same level of crazy.

• Doctor Who

Speak of the devil, and the Devil walks in the form of a shape-changing ancient alien (at this point) eldritch and their Blue Box. To use the TV Tropes parlance: Doctor Who is the Trope Codifier. Doctor Who is space show, a time travel show, it can even be a procedural. Doctor Who is not stuck in one genre. It can be different things in every episode.

The force of Chaotic Good in their universe, and because of the Thirteenth Doctor, Doctor Who joins the list.
Thirteen is a continuation of the Doctor we know but she is also someone new. Thirteen is a work-in-progress. It is interesting, in a list of ex-assassins and soldiers as protagonists, the Doctor has the highest body count of any heroic character I know.

SciFi Procedural

• Fringe

Olivia Dunham started as a fantastic character with her own flaws and complexity and enormous badass-ness... until the moment the showrunners lost interest in her and started favoring Peter Bishop over Olivia. I still love her but it’s tempered by the knowledge of what happens to her character in the later seasons. Olivia deserved better. Astrid deserved better. Nina deserved better.

Peter Bishop took a lot of air and it annoyed me that the final shot of the show is about Peter.

• Person of Interest

This show is so good. The final season might have dropped a ball a bit but man, I didn’t expect what seemed like a normal CBS procedural turning into a prescient, grounded cautionary Sci-Fi story.

It also is a show with a phenomenal set of characters and one of the best antagonist turned One of the Team characters in Root and then, later Sameen Shaw. If Fringe has superpowers and weird science Person of Interest is in a bit more grounded reality with one key difference-- Artificial Super Intelligence is real.

The show predicted the Snowden-NSA a year or two before it exploded, and it predicted that US elections could be tampered with.

So in this draft—- it’s really hard to choose, I love each of them for different reasons. Some stand a little bit over the others. This is a bit of a cop out, I know but I do love them all!

So, uh, DRAW!

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I've just started watching Legends of Tomorrow (starting with season 2) and I love it so far! Sarah is super great and I love how physical she is, stomping around and smacking things with her staff.

Fringe was a great show, but I've never been able to re-watch after they turned it into the Peter Show and made Olivia choose romantic love of Peter over every other relationship in her life. It was really gross, and much worse in a show that was so much about agency and making ethical choices when dealt a shitty hand.

[grimorie]

LoT is such a fun show!

It was really gross, and much worse in a show that was so much about agency and making ethical choices when dealt a shitty hand

THIS. It's like the showrunners forgot what the show was all about, and then when Abbie Mills (Sleepy Hollow) got shafted on her own show, I checked the showrunners and wasn't at all surprised it was the same people. I'll never trust those people with awesome women characters again, or any show they bring to TV.

[musesfool]

Agreed so hard on Fringe. Why? Just...why?

[grimorie]

It was such a great show and they had such a great character in Olivia and then they did it again with Abbie Mills, one thing's for sure I'm never going to follow the writers into a new show again!