TV’s 10 Butt-Kickingest Babes

From Covert Affairs to Nikita to Undercovers, this season boasts a bumper crop of ladies who aren't afraid of a little action. Shannon Donnelly talks to them about what it's like to fight in high heels.

galleries/2010/08/22/tv-s-10-butt-kickingest-babes/action-tv-women---nikita_woggcj — La Femme Nikita, the highly rated cable drama that starred Peta Wilson and ran from 1997 to 2001, will be rebooted as Nikita this fall by the CW. Maggie Q stars as the titular rogue assassin who's on the run from the shady government agency that turned her into a killing machine. The show isn't afraid to mix sex appeal with action, and a racy billboard promoting the series has already drawn criticism from mall owners.
Ben Mark Holzberg / The CW

galleries/2010/08/22/tv-s-10-butt-kickingest-babes/action-tv-women---xena_kovtpl — You wouldn't want to find yourself on the wrong end of a broadsword wielded by warrior princess Xena (Lucy Lawless) in the cult series that ran for six seasons in syndication. Xena battled her way across ancient Greece, locking horns with Gods and all manner of mythical creatures.
G. Short / Ap Photo

galleries/2010/08/22/tv-s-10-butt-kickingest-babes/action-tv-women---fringe_xuhdoi — Fringe flips the gender mold for action shows, leaving the guys (Joshua Jackson and John Noble) behind to figure out the mysteries while the woman—Anna Torv's Olivia Dunham—goes out and knocks some heads together in the field. But don't count Dunham out of the brains department, either; she has a keen understanding of the wacky mysteries plaguing the Fringe world and psychic powers she's only starting to understand.
Ben Mark Holzberg / FOX

galleries/2010/08/22/tv-s-10-butt-kickingest-babes/action-tv-women---charlies-angels_baquiz — Charlie's Angels made its debut in 1976 and ran for five seasons with six different Angels. Since it's downright impossible to pick one favorite Angel, we'll go with the original trio: Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Jaclyn Smith. The private investigators managed to bust bad guys and make polyester look good. Now that is badass.
ABC / Getty Images

galleries/2010/08/22/tv-s-10-butt-kickingest-babes/action-tv-women---battlestar-galactica_lemt2l — When the classic sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica was rebooted in 2003, the producers decided to make the character of Starbuck, played by Dirk Benedict in the original, a woman, played by Katee Sackhoff. The new Starbuck was more rough-and-tumble than the original, proof that girls kick as much—if not more—butt as boys.
Justin Stephens, SciFi Channel / Everett Collection

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