2016 has been a stel­lar year for strong, com­plex female characters

In 2012, Mayan cal­en­dar enthu­si­asts every­where were busi­ly prepar­ing for the end of the world. Sim­i­lar­ly, 2016 has not exact­ly been short on apoc­a­lyp­tic proph­esy­ing, with the likes of Brex­it and Trump lead­ing com­e­dy-duo Flo & Joan to dub 2016 ​“the skid-mark of all the shit­ty years.” It has also been a year of what has felt like con­tin­u­ous mourn­ing. We’ve said good­bye to icon­ic pop cul­ture fig­ures such as David Bowie, Prince and Muhammed Ali, as well as bril­liant actors like Gene Wilder, Alan Rick­man and Anton Yelchin.

On the plus side, 2016 has been a fan­tas­tic year for women on- and off-screen. Some of the best shows to have graced the small screen this year were led and penned by tal­ent­ed women seek­ing to cel­e­brate wom­an­hood while chal­leng­ing the pop­u­lar dis­course sur­round­ing strong, com­plex female char­ac­ters and their emo­tion­al envi­ron­ment. Here are just some of the incred­i­ble women who have made this a mem­o­rable year for women in television.

Pamela Adlon start­ed out in the film and tele­vi­sion indus­try at an ear­ly age. In her teens she appeared in shows like The Facts of Life and films like Bad Man­ners, but by her twen­ties she found inter­est­ing parts increas­ing­ly hard to come by. For a while she did voiceover work on King of the Hill before final­ly return­ing to our screens in per­son on her friend Louis CK’s short-lived HBO show Lucky Louie. In her new show, Bet­ter Things, we get clos­er to the real Pam than ever before.

Cre­at­ed by Adlon and Louis CK, the semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal show chron­i­cles the life of sin­gle moth­er Sam (Adlon) and her three daugh­ters Duke (Olivia Edward), Frankie (Han­nah Alli­good) and Max (Mikey Madi­son). It is an inti­mate por­trait of moth­er­hood told in an authen­tic, down-to-earth man­ner as Sam tries to nav­i­gate the frus­trat­ing, heart-wrench­ing and beau­ti­ful moments that come her way. She is also open about her short­com­ings as a daugh­ter; sea­son finale ​‘Only Women Bleed’ is a bit­ter­sweet trib­ute to Adlon’s own three daugh­ters, not to men­tion moth­ers the world over. It per­fect­ly encap­su­lates the men­tal­i­ty of a woman who is forced to play the role of moth­er, father, bread win­ner, life coach coun­sel­lor all in one.

One of the most dar­ing and trag­i­cal­ly fun­ny shows of 2016 is actu­al­ly based on a one-woman the­atre show per­formed and writ­ten by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Fleabag instant­ly res­onat­ed with an audi­ence starved of gen­uine­ly mul­ti­fac­eted female char­ac­ters and their strug­gle to keep it all togeth­er behind their per­fect­ly paint­ed lips and con­fi­dent demeanours. Here Waller-Bridge taps into a very spe­cif­ic feel­ing: it is a woman’s dec­la­ra­tion of inde­pen­dence, heav­i­ly taint­ed by lone­li­ness and the over­whelm­ing immen­si­ty of unre­solved grief. The title character’s fam­i­ly his­to­ry is steeped in repres­sion and basic human con­nec­tion is often depict­ed as awk­ward or forced. But she doesn’t wal­low in self-pity, and nor does she keep her lewd behav­iour and crass insights to her­self. She is deter­mined to con­vince her­self and the world around her that she’s doing fine and, as long as she’s on the move, she appears to be just that.

Ear­li­er this year Waller-Bridge also released Crash­ing, in which she plays chief pro­tag­o­nist Lulu. The show fol­lows a group of wild­ly dif­fer­ent peo­ple who live togeth­er as legal squat­ters in an aban­doned Lon­don hos­pi­tal. Each char­ac­ter is well fleshed out but the women are par­tic­u­lar­ly fas­ci­nat­ing. Their abil­i­ty to tru­ly own their dis­tinct, com­pli­cat­ed per­son­al­i­ties makes for some bril­liant, touch­ing sto­ry­lines. Waller-Bridge clear­ly under­stands all the sta­ples of female rela­tion­ships and explores them hon­est­ly with­out ever shy­ing away from show­ing us the inse­cu­ri­ties, unspo­ken com­pe­ti­tion and emo­tion­al con­flicts they can entail.

Sharon Hor­gan had her major break­through in 2006 with the BBC com­e­dy Pulling, which she co-wrote with Utopia cre­ator Den­nis Kel­ly. Hor­gan had grown tired of only ever see­ing female char­ac­ters sup­port­ing male pro­tag­o­nists and took it upon her­self to cre­ate the kind of pro­tag­o­nist she wished to embody. Pulling paved the way for Cat­a­stro­phe, in which Hor­gan stars as the impos­si­bly stub­born but entire­ly love­able Sharon Mor­ris. The show fol­lows Rob (Ron Delaney) and Sharon, whose sev­er­al-night stand becomes some­thing more seri­ous when she becomes preg­nant. You won’t hear any over-the-top dec­la­ra­tions of love here: Cat­a­stro­phe is a crass, to the point and won­der­ful­ly can­did rela­tion­ship drama.

This year Hor­gan pre­miered Divorce, star­ring Sarah Jes­si­ca Park­er in the lead role of Frances Dufresne, a mid­dle-aged woman in the throes of a nasty break-up. The com­e­dy here is a lot more sub­tle com­pared to Cat­a­stro­phe, lend­ing itself per­fect­ly to the slow build-up of the painful­ly reliev­ing col­lapse of a failed mar­riage. It exam­ines the fears of a woman who finds her­self at a cross­roads. The doubt and anx­i­ety she strug­gles with, as well as the immense sense of relief she feels now that she has freed her­self from her husband’s rigid shack­les, are all man­i­fest­ed through point­ed dia­logue and the strange­ly twist­ed sup­port she receives from her friends Diane (Mol­ly Shan­non) and Dal­las (Talia Balsam).

HBO’s hit show Inse­cure is based on cre­ator Issa Rae’s YouTube series Awk­ward Black Girl and depicts the life of Issa (a fic­tion­alised ver­sion of Rae), a woman in her ear­ly thir­ties try­ing to fit into society’s def­i­n­i­tion of an adult. She feels stuck – in her rela­tion­ship, her job and her own awk­ward inse­cu­ri­ties – but remains opti­mistic about her future. Build­ing on Awk­ward Black Girl’s use of inter­nal mono­logues and dream sequences, Inse­cure feels per­son­al and nat­ur­al; a fresh new com­e­dy that does not depend on the ​“angry black woman” clichés so many oth­er shows abide by.

Instead, the series address­es entrenched social atti­tudes regard­ing race in an intel­li­gent and wit­ty man­ner, as when Issa finds her­self hav­ing to school her pre­dom­i­nant­ly white col­leagues about their stereo­typ­i­cal world views. Inse­cure speaks to all women approach­ing or liv­ing their thir­ties in a way few cur­rent shows do. Issa’s reg­u­lar con­ver­sa­tions with her mir­ror reflect just how much she strug­gles to tune in with her gut-feel­ing; she’s always ques­tion­ing her own desires and deci­sions and, while she’s con­fi­dent when removed from out­side pres­sures, she caves under her own uncer­tain­ties when­ev­er she feels challenged.

Hav­ing recent­ly wrapped up its third sea­son, Trans­par­ent con­tin­ues to explore pre­vi­ous­ly unchar­tered ter­ri­to­ry with a host of intri­cate char­ac­ters cap­tured with an art­ful, ten­der female eye. Inspired by Jill Soloway’s per­son­al expe­ri­ences of her own ​“Moppa’s” com­ing out, the shoe is a stun­ning tale of iden­ti­ty, fam­i­ly, love and all the con­tra­dic­to­ry emo­tions that come with it. And it’s not only Transparent’s female char­ac­ters who are per­mit­ted to roam out­side of the social­ly accept­ed realms of human tem­pera­ment – and not just Jef­frey Tambor’s Mau­ra. Josh (Jay Duplass) is a shin­ing exam­ple of a male char­ac­ter unashamed­ly giv­ing in to his inner state with­out hav­ing to fear persecution.

The Pfef­fer­mans are an extreme­ly self-absorbed bunch who crave love and secu­ri­ty but are unable to offer it them­selves. We love them because they’re entire­ly unlike­able. Each character’s sto­ry­line feels inde­pen­dent from the over­all jour­ney due to their reluc­tance to remove the blink­ers that are stop­ping them from see­ing what’s hap­pen­ing on the side­lines. The show has estab­lished a clear sto­ry­telling style that relies first and fore­most on feel­ing, mak­ing Trans­par­ent one of the most sen­si­tive and thought-pro­vok­ing series on TV today.

Which female TV char­ac­ter have struck a chord with you this year? Let us know @LWLies