Padme Amidala and Clone Wars.
Just saw Friday's Star Wars: Clone Wars (via DVR). Loved it. The show has really learned how to balance its older and younger fans.
Often, younger fans, especially younger male fans, dislike Padmé Amidala (who was the episode's star, investigating corruption for her friend Duchess Satine). I get it: she's elegant, feminine, and though she knows how to shoot a blaster she's primarily a politician all about doing "boring" things: investigating and talking. Plus, after having her best scenes cut from Episode II and being as weak as she was in Episode III, even some fans turned away.
Early in CW the writers tried to make her palatable to kids/haters by having her shoot more and talk less, which was a terrible idea. It turned her into Generic Action Female. Haters didn't like her any better, and those of us who adore her were annoyed at how dull she seemed.
Thankfully the CW writers apparently agreed, because they've taken a different tack: having Padmé rarely appear, but when she appears, letting her be herself (and often, letting the episodes she's in be more adult overall). This is a much better idea; the haters moan when she shows up but as she doesn't appear that often, they're not too bothered. As a fan, when she does show, I feel like just about every time in Season 2 and 3 we've gotten to see a new side of her, so I'M pretty happy.
(That said, is anyone else amused by all the Padmé-copies they have running around CW now? Duchess Satine and Aayla even have similar hair. It's like the writers need Padmé but know they can't put her in too often, so they're trying to sneak her in under different names.)
"Zillo Beast Strikes Back" and "Senate Murders" in Season Two gave us Padmé at her best, intelligent, strong-willed, and respectful of life. However, I've really enjoyed the episodes that give us hints of the darker bits of her too. In "Senate Spy" she's a manipulator, seducing Clovis to get information out of him right under Anakin's nose--I noticed that at the end, she didn't ask Anakin what happened to Clovis. I think she knew what Anakin had done to him, or at least knew she didn't want to know.
In Friday's episode, "Corruption", we saw good and bad. Padmé's determination to help both her friend and strangers who needed help is very her, one of the best parts of her. On the other hand, she seemed to take for granted that she was qualified to order people she'd never met around in a situation she knew NOTHING about. Then she jumped into a gunfight when soldiers were taking too long for her taste to win a battle. What if she'd been killed? It would have been the excuse any number of hostiles needed to swoop down and whoop, there would go Mandalore's neutrality.
The episode made excuses for her: she was right in the meeting, won the gun battle, and the Duchess did ask for her help. But still--and I say this as someone who adores Padmé above almost all other fictional characters ever--I'd love to see an episode where Padmé's ego and willingness to do nasty things to serve the greater good comes back to bite her. She's so good-hearted and compassionate I'd like to see her wrestle with parts of her personality that she probably isn't proud of, and might even deny. The writers have been dancing with doing so, and though I doubt they'll go too deep, I hope they keep it up, and next time, without the excuses in her favor.