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I know this is a few pages back but I'm just getting caught up with the thread. I can't believe you of all people Felicia would want to stick up for Kate right now. After all of the crap she has put your poor Jack through. Now he finally seems to have gotten over her and she's all slanty eyed and spiteful about it. All she does is bounce back and forth between him and Sawyer using them for whatever she can and then splitting when they don't follow her wishes anymore. I understand that it's the writers fault that her character has become this way but that doesn't change the fact that her character is where it is and she as a person now just sucks. She supposedly went back to find Claire but I have not heard a peep from her about that since the episode where she said it. Now she's going to try and mess up Sawyer's happiness again and as soon as he's back with her (I hope to gawd that doesn't happen) she'll decide for some off the wall reason she needs to go tag along with Jack for awhile. She tries to be strong but is actually very weak.

I'm gonna jump on the Felicia bandwagon (and trust me, Felicia, it will take longer than 8 minutes . . . how about 108 minutes?). Why can't she be in love/lust with Jack and still feel sorry for Kate. Merrillin's last statement above is true, but that's what makes her a flawed character, who in my view is worthy of a little empathy. If I wanted to watch sappy, perfect people who always say and do the right thing I'd be watching a Hallmark movie of the week.

I've been on a rant for a number of years now about how Hollywood TV writers haven't written a decent, interesting, strong female character since Dana Scully. I'm come to accept that writers will not ever give us a smart, competent career woman who is a good leader, acts professionally, and doesn't cry in the office on a daily basis. (I know these women exist, I'm married to one.) But maybe the writers have us all pegged. After seeing all of the knee-jerk Kate bashing going on here, week after week, without putting her actions in the context of her upbringing and all the shit she was handed, I'm beginning to think that it's the TV audience that just won't accept any female character with traditional male traits. With Ana Lucia, who was essentially written as a man trapped in the body of a hot, latin woman, the viewers (including the majority of posters here) called her a royal bitch who deserved to die. With Kate, who also possesses certain male traits (vigilante, runs from responsibility, uses a guy for sexual gratification, knows how to read sign in the jungle, etc.), the audience criticizes her to no end and acts as though she just murdered Mother Theresa (assuming this board represents the general audience in some fashion).

While I think it's a shame the writers didn't go with their original plan (Kate as the leader, with Jack dying in the pilot), I try to see her character as what the focus groups or producers suggested it become . . . a foil to Jack's personal and moral struggles as a leader, and the always out of reach love interest. But I also seem to recall that her life was pretty messed up before she even got to the island. Let's see, her stepfather may have molested her for many years, she takes him out with a big explosion, then her mother takes his side and turns her in to the cops, childhood boyfriend gets killed because of her actions, and she makes the wrong choice to keep running and ends up crashing on a goofy island, where people get kidnapped, shot and tortured on a regular basis. To top that off, she falls for a hunky doctor, realizes she's not good enough for him, falls for the bad boy and gives him what she thinks is his last nooky, then gets off the island only to figure out that the bad boy never wanted to settle down with her after all and is willing to jump out of a moving helicopter to avoid it. Now she is trying to do good and find Claire (there is no evidence that she has abandoned that quest), and the damn island and Dharma are thwarting that chance as well. Not to mention the fact that Jack now tells her that he wishes they never met, and is perfectly willing to let her rot in prison.

Has she caused misery, and screwed up, and missed many chances for redemption? Of course, just as she has been treated poorly and screwed with ten times over. Is she still driven in part by self-interest, on top of her desire to do the right thing? Yes. Big deal. Right now her purpose on the island seems to be to remind Jack, Sayid and others that they have all fallen pretty far down the moral scale, and that right and wrong are not always black and white. She is attempting to assert her free will where Jack is taking a Locke-like approach to his destiny. What did she say in last night's episode? Something like: "Oh, and shooting children and detonating bombs is now okay?" Only on a Sucks message board could she get such universal hate after trying (in her pathetic Hollywood-written female way) to be the voice of reason.

*** waits quietly while this post falls on deaf ears ***

kate is NOT a strong woman character.

I didn't say she was strong. I actually agreed with the statement that she tries to be strong and ends up being weak. My point is that somewhere along the line the tv viewers have encouraged that by supporting all the shows with blubbering, spastic women leads, in the mold of Ally McBeal, Meredith Gray, and all those women on Brothers & Sisters.

There are a lot of strong female leads out there, and as a woman, I appreciate them when I see them.

As a man, I would appreciate them too, but I'm just not seeing them. Juliet may be an example of a once strong woman (though she is certainly not a lead), except she was beaten down and confined to being the hostage/sheepdog for Ben, Goodman and now Sawyer. She is essentially defined by the man she is with at the moment. Some scientist.

Having watched "V" at a young age

Now there's a show with a badass female villain. I remember seeing Jane Badler in that skin tight, crotch-hugging jumpsuit . . . it was instantly clear why they called the series "V". And it didn't stand for "Va-va-va-voom".