I don’t watch much television anymore, but I think I noticed a trend back before I stopped.
It seems like whenever there is a show with a strong woman role, either that character dies or gets wussy within a few seasons. Sometimes they get married or have children and then it’s insta-wussy.
Examples off the top of my head:
Star Trek Next Generation: The female lead engineer was dumped at the end of the first season. Jordi replaced her. Lt Yar was killed, Worf replaced her. The cool uppity doctor was replaced by Wesley’s mom. The series had such promise, but them all the women seemed to be falling into the traditional roles of healers and teachers.
Northern Exposure: The women here just seemed to become characters of their “types” in a manner most of the male characters didn’t. Shelly, in particular, while always a little stupid, only got worse with time. Maggie eventually de-evolved into a shrieking, sexually repressed person.
Murphy Brown: good starts, but once Murphy had a baby and Corkie got married all of the good lines went to Frank and Miles.
Was there ever a show where the women’s characters didn’t deteriorate?
Babylon 5: Commander Susan Ivanova was always no-nonsense tough. Mostly because the actress playing her fought to keep the Commander seperate Susan the woman.
**
The female lead engineer on ST:TNG was never a main character. The woman who played Tasha Yar was killed because she wanted to leave the show. The cool uppity doctor was a replacement for Wesley’s mom but they got rid of her because nobody liked her.
You want a hard ass female military character in Sci-Fi check out Susan Ivonova from Babylon 5.
I can’t say I watch MB religiously but I never noticed Corkie or Murphy’s characters deteriorating.
Didn’t Star Trek: Voyager have a female captain? And a half Klingon engineer who happened to be a woman? But then it had Seven of Nine. Cancelled each other out.
Hey, this season in X-Files Gillian Anderson’s Dana Scully will be the lead character. But then Terminator 2 will be doing most of the action scenes.
How about all of the main female Buffy characters? Well except Buffy herself, she is decomposing.
You tell me that Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship and characters deteriorated over time, even if the storylines betrayed them.
The Practice is certainly another show in which all the women characters didn’t deteriorate. Well, that’s five right there.