Joss Whedon rocks
I'm too cheap to get cable. This means I also don't have TV reception. Which all puts me in an alternate, time-delayed universe devoid of the dramatic tension of American Idol, deprived of the antics of Emeril--the cooking Ewok, and the very important discussions lead by the women on The View.
More relevant to this post, it also means I am years behind my fellow geeks on the Joss Whedon bandwagon. No, it wasn't Buffy or Angel that sucked me in. It was Firefly/Serenity. Firefly was a GREAT show that only ran on season. Outraged fans launched a campaign that eventually resulted in Serenity, a feature length movie based on the show. Whedon also wrote the Astonishing:X-Men series which is the one that is the basis for the latest X-Men movie. I'm told Whedon really draws out the mutant/queer people analogy a lot more than the movie does. Go Joss.
Anyway, Whedon always has strong female characters and here's a clip of him chatting about that.