Action Girl/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Ace Lightning's spunky sidekick (and Redheaded Hero), Sparx. The name is apt.
  • The protagonist of Alias, Sydney Bristow. Also Irina Derevko, Lauren Reed, Nadia Santos, Rachel Gibson, Anna Espinosa, Allison Dorren, Katya Derevko, and Elena Derevko.
  • Beka Valentine from Andromeda.
    • Romi.
  • You really don't want to get on the bad side of Fiona Glenanne from Burn Notice.
    • Though we may have to create the faux girly girl for her as her action girl status is apparent only in action, her demeanor and clothes are definitely girly, so that a new viewer who has also missed the trigger happy ex-girlfriend bit in the title sequence might a bit surprised to see her in kicking ass mode.
  • Cathy Gale from 1960s action/spy show The Avengers was arguably TV's first Action Girl. She replaced former star Ian Hendry and there were reportedly no changes in the early scripts, so that she was effectively playing a "male" character. She was later replaced with the equally tough Emma Peel, who became the series's iconic female character. Both of them occasionally needed to be saved by male colleague John Steed, but they saved him just as frequently.
  • Athena and Sheba from the original Battlestar Galactica.
  • Kara "Starbuck" Thrace from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. Kara is perhaps the Action Girl while in the cockpit of a Viper, but is no slouch in hand-to-hand or ranged infantry combat, either -- she's described as "the best shot in or out of the cockpit."
    • Athena as well--actually, most of the Cylons are super-strong and get close to this role.
  • Chen Lin from the Taiwanese Series Black & White. As the only daughter of a triad boss, she shoots and martial arts with the boys and wins.
  • Temperance Brennan, Bones. Trained in martial arts, and goes hunting. Just for food though.
  • Corporal Jennifer "Pilot" Chase from Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
  • Sarah Walker on Chuck as well as numerous female guest characters.
  • Max from Dark Angel.
  • Doctor Who has several:
    • Sarah Jane Smith told off brutish middle-ages jerks, faced a Sontaran without flinching, helped a king and queen organize a revolution, captured the Doctor, and later rescued the Doctor. And that was just in her first episode. To say nothing of the next three-and-a-half seasons.......and her own spin-off.
    • Despite what some newspapers may claim, Leela, who killed a Sontaran by throwing a knife into his vent from across a room. Also Ace, who was never without her trusty Nitro-9 (who also, incidentally, shot a Dalek in the face with a rocket launcher, and beat the crap out of another with a baseball bat).
    • Barbara Wright, one of the original companions! When she's not smashing Mind Rapist brains (it's more awesome in context) or destroying planet-engulfing entities, she's mowing down Daleks with an ancient truck.
    • In series 5, River Song managed to fly out an airlock into the TARDIS, put her hallucinogenic lipstick to good use, and killed a Dalek in cold blood. Then in series 6, she jumped from a skyscraper into the TARDIS swimming pool, and later took out several Silents by herself while still finding time to tell the Doctor off for being in the way.
      • She's had so many scenes kicking ass in series 6, she's earned the nickname 'River fucking Song' in some internet circles.
    • Amy Pond has her moments. Like fighting pirates with a sword. Or going into full battle mode against a group of robots. With a sword.
      • She also saved her husband with a machine gun.
    • Companions Martha Jones and Rose Tyler have been seen lugging around some rather impressive guns for facing aliens, and Donna Noble once took out a Sontaran with a mallet.
    • Madame Vastra and Jenny, of course. In spades. And with swords.
  • Jo Lupo, Eureka.
  • Aeryn Sun, Farscape.
    • The other women on the show are no slouches (except Jool, and even she gets better in The Peacekeeper Wars) in a fight, either. Even Zhaan gets some combat ability. But none of them are highly-trained soldiers who show themselves consistently able to make the hard call.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the very beginning. Joss Whedon explained that besides the pure female-empowerment angle, he wanted to take the opening of virtually every horror movie ever made and turn it on its head; normally, the pretty blond girl walks into the dark alley, the monster goes in after, and the girl dies. Here, the girl rips the monster a new one. Naturally, the movie features such a scene (involving several vampires, but also a telling-off for Buffy for being an idiot).
    • We also get Faith, Kendra, Willow (in the later seasons), Anya, Kennedy, and all the Potential Slayers.
  • And in Angel; Codelia, Fred, Illyria, Lilah, Kate, and Gwen.
  • Echo, Sierra, and November in Dollhouse will use this trope depending on the imprint. Echo will become one no matter what imprint you put in her.
  • FBI agent Olivia Dunham from Fringe.
    • As well as her alternate self.
  • Agent 99 from Get Smart.
  • Ella Dee in Hex. On the rare occasions when the heroes actually achieve anything, it usually involves her doing violence to somebody. Including throttling a priest (who was actually a demon) while wearing a truly terrifying expression.
  • The eponymous heroine of La Femme Nikita, both movie and series, as well as the lead of the 2010 television remake Nikita.
  • Detective Olivia Benson from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
  • Juliet on Lost. Television Without Pity calls her a ninja. Kate, Ana-Lucia, Rousseau, Charlotte (who rarely got to show it off), and Ilana (who took out Sayid, one of the biggest badasses on the show) as well.
    • We got an unlikely action girl in the form of Claire in the final season, too.
  • Ziva David of NCIS, a Mossad officer trained as an assassin. She's responsible for some impressive takedowns, such stopping the steroid-fueled Unstoppable Rage of a Marine who'd thrown off McGee, Tony, and Gibbs in "Corporal Punishment", and temporarily holding off four Marines at once in "Cloak".
  • Hunter of Neverwhere.
  • Megan Reeves of Numb3rs. Not only does she have the firearm proficiency expected of an FBI agent, but she also has a black belt in Krav Maga. As she remarks to Colby, "If you're going to be arresting people a hundred pounds heavier than you, you'll need to learn some hobbies."
  • Jen from Power Rangers Time Force. When not wearing the shiny Ranger suit, she'll clobber poor Wes in sparring sessions (and once for real while Brainwashed and Crazy) and wields a sniper rifle. (Wes isn't a Non-Action Guy, he just isn't police trained.) For that matter, most female Power Rangers count to some degree: there are Katie (Time Force), Alyssa and Taylor (Wild Force), Vida and her sister Madison (Mystic Force), Kira (Dino Thunder), Elizabeth aka Z and Sydney (and temporarily Kat) (SPD), Trini, Kimberly, Aisha, and Kat (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers)...
    • Super Sentai has some examples, as well. Remy from Fiveman and Sakura from Boukenger are a couple of the better examples.
  • Maid Marian in Robin of Sherwood, Robin Hood (2006) and, of course, Maid Marian and Her Merry Men.
  • Teresa Moreno from Sharpe.
  • Veronica Layton from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World.
  • Teyla from Stargate Atlantis is easily mistaken for the self-effacing type until she comes after you with a P-90 or her trusty Bantos rods. She routinely kicks Sheppard's butt during their sparring sessions and is not afraid of making her point with a knife to the throat.
    • The unlucky fella who ended up with the last option was a Wraith. Yes, those Wraith.
  • Samantha Carter in Stargate SG-1 prefers to be the thinker of the gang, but when butt kicking is called for, she kicks butt!
    • Vala can pull an action girl when she needs to, but normally she'd rather be devious and hide behind Daniel.
    • Actually she very obviously did the opposite once for Cam -- Cam's girlfriend looked terrified and hid behind him away from the big scary gun (for God's sake) and Vala just casually sauntered in the firing line and called the Psycho for Hire a coward. He didn't really manage to recover from that.
    • Come to think of it, Vala's really just as much of an Action Girl as Sam, what with pulling stunts like taking on the whole of Prometheus single-handedly and pissing off Goa'uld platoons.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Jadzia Dax is a dab hand with a bat'leth, and Kira -- well, Kira once beat the shit out of a serial killer while the equivalent of nine months pregnant.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: Seems the whole point of the "Macrocosm" episode was to show Captain Janeway stripping down to a sweaty tank top and going Sigourney Weaver on the macrovirus' hiney. Half-Klingon B'Elanna Torres is handy in a punchup too, and Seven of Nine is both a good shot and strong enough to knock someone off their feet and a yard down the corridor.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation had Tasha Yar for a while (pity she died) and K'Ehleyr as well, both women who easily counted as Action Girls. Tasha was raised in an anarchist colony and spent time running from rape gangs as a girl, and K'Ehleyr took on Worf in the holodeck.
  • Trooper Becca Gallagher from Ultimate Force. Okay, Season 3 was when the series (arguably) Jumped the Shark but there was nothing wrong with the character.
  • Summer Glau as Cameron Phillips in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Despite not being an android, Sarah herself qualifies as well.
  • Despite the fact that she seems to be The Chick, Gwen Cooper from Torchwood is actually an Action Girl. Toshike Sato, on the other hand, was definitely a combo of The Chick and The Smart Guy.
    • Gwen didn't start out this way, though. Up until the second episode she hasn't even handled a gun. According to her, she doesn't even kill spiders. Jack points out that he doesn't either... with a gun. Now she has no problem shooting a helicopter with a bazooka or punching out a trained CIA operative for calling her "English"... and by this point she's an Action Mom.
  • Xena: Warrior Princess
    • And in later seasons, Gabrielle. If you see her in the costume displaying abs o' steel and she has short hair, she's kicking ass.
  • Velda the Elf and Gundrada from Knightmare at least as much as possible within the confines of a kids show.
  • Queen of Swords. Tessa is essentially a female version of Zorro.
  • "Wrangler" Jane from F Troop.
  • Kate Beckett from Castle.
  • Teresa Lisbon from The Mentalist, who has tasered suspects while deadpan snarking them.
  • Alex Eames from Law & Order: Criminal Intent; compared to Goren, at least, she is much more ass-kicky.
  • Wendy Watson from The Middleman.
  • All the female BAU agents in Criminal Minds, except Garcia, who as the technical analyst is the only team member who can't hold her own in a fight.
  • 24 gives us Renee Walker, who is so badass she earned the fan nickname "Jill Bauer." Ladies like Nina Myers and Michelle Dessler are no slouch either, and Badass Bookworm Chloe O'Brian will unload some M-16 action on your ass if you push her far enough. It's also worth noting that even Jack Bauer's daughter Kim, the former Trope Namer for "Damsel Scrappy," once won a fight with her psychotic employer by smashing him in the face with a crowbar, and also once fought off seasoned Balkan warlords with a pot of hot coffee. Did we mention this was a World of Badass?
  • Lori the kick-boxer from Big Wolf on Campus, introduced in the second season.
  • All of the sisters in Charmed. At first Prue was the only one with an offensive power, making the dynamic unbalanced though Phoebe also knew martial arts. Then Phoebe learned to levitate and Piper learned to make things explode and combined with their potions and spells, the sisters are a force to be reckoned with. Then the show later adds Paige and Billie.
  • Abby Maitland from Primeval is a zookeeper who knows how to kick-box, making her a perfect for a team that has to chase dinosaurs that walk through time anomalies into the present time. Jenny Lewis is also revealed to know how to use a gun despite dressing inappropriately for her line of work.
  • Bo and Kenzi from Lost Girl have both held their own in fights.
  • While they aren't the main fighters, Leverage's Parker and Sophie have both had their extremely kick-ass moments: Parker fighting arms dealers in Serbia and Sophie knocking out goons with a fire extinguisher. They are also extremely, extremely competent in their own fields.
  • Most of the women in Roar, particularly Catlin.
  • Sergeant Jo McDonough from Red Cap
  • Kate and Bomber on Sea Patrol hold their own in their fights and win a good number. Nikki rarly fights but never lets the side down. And Bird is too young and inexpeariacned to be good.
  • Every single surviving female member of the party in The Walking Dead is this to some degree or another. While they may not have started out this way, they've definitely graduated to this level by now. A notable example of this trope is Carol, who went from being a battered wife who didn't even know how to use a gun to single-handedly freeing her True Companions from a highly guarded prison in the beginning of season 5 without even sustaining a single injury and being a better killer than Tyreese, her male companion.
Back to Action Girl
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Action_Girl/Live-Action_TV?oldid=1970509"