I think I may have found one of those rare gems, a feminist female lead- in a cop show, no less!
I may be jumping the gun, as I've only seen the first 3 episodes but BBC's Ashes to Ashes is fantastic! It follows on from the earlier series Life on Mars where the male protagonist traveled back to the 1960's; here, the protagonist is female and the year is 1982, but she is working with the same horrendously sexist (but ultimately good-hearted, I believe we're meant to feel) team.
Detective Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) is thin, white, and beautiful, while all the males are completely ordinary of course, but she is awesome. Not because she's 100% kick ass, or completely PC. She's a flawed character in the sense that we're all flawed at times. Some nights she drinks too much and hooks up with inappropriate men, sometimes she's bitchy, sometimes she's childish, sometimes she makes judment mistakes at work. But she doesn't give a fuck what the other (men) think, and she doesn't wait for instruction (which makes sense because she's a senior officer) because she's new to the place, or even just to be polite as some other fictional female professionals seem to do (Mariska Hargitay on Law and Order SVU springs to mind as being a good cop but rarely taking the initiative). We see Gene Hunt following Alex's action as often as we see the female grudgingly chasing after the male detective's "stroke of genius" on other shows.
Alex spends most of her time thinking it's all a dream, so doesn't care a jot whether the others think she's crazy, or try to modify her behaviour to fit the time (as the male protagonist attempted in Life on Mars).
I haven't seen enough of the show to know whether it devolves into a typical "fall in love with your hard-nosed match", or even the oft-seen "mother falls apart" trope, but I'm hoping against hope that it doesn't. I'm also looking foward to seeing how the writers use the opportunity to develop the younger female officer who'a a bit quirky in her own right and seems to have a bit of a "girl crush" (how I hate that term) on Alex, or whether they typically focus more on her budding relationship with one of her fellow officers.
Reading over this rave, it appears I have a bit of a crush myself. I'd highly recommend the show- though I have no idea whether its screened in the US already, but I'd love to hear the opinions of anyone else who has seen the show and recommendations from others for more of your favourit female-led TV.
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Detective Kate Beckett from ABC's Castle is pretty badass, too.
Yeah, she's great but I feel the show is really about Castle (which isn't a bad thing of course, as he's hilarious)
I loved the show for how feminist it was. Not sure if you know, but there is a season 2. I've only watched some of it, and I think it's good, but not as great. Doesn't really matter. I have a huge crush on D.I. Drake for not backing down when something is important to her, trying to help people who need her help and generally just standing up for herself and others.