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Sci-fi and fantasy are blessed with a wealth of kickass female characters, from urban teen vamp slayer Buffy to professional barbie soldier girl Sam Carter.

But there's a dark side to the sci-fi and fantasy heroine that fans are often particularly drawn to, and while Legend of the Seeker's Cara is making mince meat of whole D'Haran armies with a single sarcastic eye roll, we felt it was time to draw attention to these deliciously dark bad girls of genre TV.

The coolest thing about most of these ladies is that given a slight twist of plotting, they'd probably be playing for the dark side. In fact most tend to have a shady past dabbling with the enemy. They will also, consequently, be emotionally detached and often engage in highly anti-social or self-destructive behavior. Attempt friendship with them and you may get a punch in the face. But that badass and slightly broken vibe is why we're so drawn to them. 

10. Kate - Sanctuary

"I've done things I'm not proud of. How are we so different?"

A former Cabal gun for hire caught and interrogated by the Sanctuary team in their hunt for Magnus's kidnapped daughter, Kate was an overly-sarcastic, loud, opinionated, untrustworthy rebel when we first met her. But after a cunning escape from Henry's clutches involving a well-placed chocolate bar, a frantic car chase and a subsequent assassination attempt by the Cabal to eliminate her as an operative that new too much, Kate turned up on the door of the Sanctuary badly wounded looking for refuge.

She would go on to use her Cabal insider knowledge to help Magnus hunt down the evil organisation and was ultimately adopted into the Sanctuary's ragbag collection of abnormal misfits. But coming from a family embroiled in crime and with a propensity to point out exactly how much things are worth on the black market, she remans an unknown quantity and her fast and loose attitude to both the laws of the land and the laws of the Sanctuary frequently get her into trouble. But despite her past, she has become an increasingly vital, if unpredictable, member of the Sanctuary team.

9. Seven Of Nine - Voyager

"Guilt is irrelevant"

Originally acting as an ambassador between the dreaded Borg and the Voyager crew, Seven Of Nine found herself trapped aboard the ship and separated from her collective when Captain Janeway caught her in a secret plot to try and assimilate everyone onboard. From these inauspicious beginnings, the valiant Voyager crew attempted to adopt her as one of their own, removing much of her cybernetic Borg implants and helping her come to terms with the terrifying prospect of life as an individual entity.

Still requiring a cortical node to sustain the remnants of her implants and left with the slightly sinister ability to sense when the Borg are near, Seven struggled with a lack of human emotion. Her blunt, condescending attitude was a source of perpetual conflict aboard Voyager and whenever the crew encountered the Borg, there was always the worry she would turn and betray them in order to be re-assimilated into the cybernetic hive mind. But despite her coldness and apparent superiority complex, we grew to love her need to belong and increasingly desperate desire to make up for the evil things she had done in her past.

8. Number Six - Battlestar Galactica

"Don't make me angry, Gaius. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Whether coercing Gaius into some new treachery, strangling human babies in their prams, or attempting to flat out annihilate the entire human race, the Number Six cylon model is arguably the most deadly to make our list, not least because there are many, MANY copies. But tracing which Six you were with - Caprica Six, Gaius's hallucination of Six, Pegasus Six - was never difficult, as their individual experiences began to shape and change them in a very human way - driving all of them to question their own existence, search for meaning and ultimately win our hearts and respect, despite the odds.

Deadly in hand-to-hand combat, and indestructible due to the cylon resurrection capacity, she haunted the minds of fans in much the same way she haunted poor Gaius. But from turning against her cylon sisters to align with the crew of Galactica (Caprica Six), committing suicide to escape the horrifying experiences at the hands of humans (Pegasus Six) or desperately clinging to a one true God for guidance and salvation, Number Six was clearly way more complicated than a monstrous killing machine with an alluring waistline. Her desire to come to terms with her own inner evolution, find love (even if it is with the most ethically-flawed egomaniacal man ever created - Dr Gaius Baltar) and lead the fight to align humans and cylons ultimately made Six a complicated and unlikely hero.

7. Vala - Stargate SG1

"My own mother used to say to me 'Vala, happiness is not something you can buy.' Or in my case, steal."

Adopted late in the day by the SG1 team, Vala was a complete change of direction  for the honorable-to-the-core Stargate explorers with her feisty, double-crossing ways. A shameless mercenary, thief and master manipulator, she was a fan favourite (of course it helps that she's played by Farscape's Claudia Black - formerly Aeryn Sun) long before any of the Stargate command were inclined to think she could be trusted.

Growing up with a con artist father before spending the majority of her adult life as a Goa'uld host, the freed Vala emerged with serious trust issues. But through a growing friendship with the initially reluctant Daniel Jackson and assimilation into the SG1 team, she was able to call on her shady connections and thievery skills to aid the fight against the Ori and find an uneasy sense of belonging.

6. Adelle - Dollhouse

"I'm not planning on presiding over the end of Western civilization. This is a one-time situation."

She may not don the tight-fitting leather outfits or brandish weapons to match many of the other women who make our list, but there's no sharper tongue or morally-questionable personality than Adelle DeWitt, the head of the LA house of subservient dolls for hire. Whether condemning traitors to the attic or sending innocent actives off to fulfill the desires of the most perverted, Adelle remained cool, clipped and disturbingly stoic. You were never really certain if she was the dolls' protector or executioner - perhaps both.

As the series progressed we began to see cracks in the ice queen exterior hiding behind that third alcoholic beverage of the morning as the pressure on the dollhouse intensified. Grappling with an immense loneliness we learnt she was utlising the services of her own house, perpetuating an imaginary relationship with doll Victor to try and escape her isolation. An indulgence she was reluctantly, and somewhat tragically, forced to abandon.

But despite her apparent cold-hearted aloofness, she ultimately developed a strangely twisted mother-son bond with her similarly socially-challenged head programmer Topher and grew increasingly attached to the ever-evolving rogue doll Echo. In the face of apocalyptic meltdown in a world of technology gone mad, Adelle finally woke up to the vast wrong she has perpetuated in working for the Rossum Corporation and fought alongside her former dolls to try and undo the damage done and save humanity.

Forward to places 5 to 1

Written by Talitha Bee

Sci-fi fantasy geek girl. Bred on Star Trek, honed on X-Files. Avid reader - bonus points for dragons, eschatology or cybernetic revolts. Favourite TV: Carnivale and Galactica. Favourite films: Dark Crystal and Primer. Guilty pleasures: Anything with stargates or powerful magic.

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