The best female friendships on TV

When Ann walked into the Parks and Recreation office in Pawnee, Ind., she just wanted the pit in her backyard filled in. What she ended up with was a new best friend in Leslie Knope. The pair supported each other through work ups and downs, a legendary flu, relationships and even the death of L'il Sebastian. 

The original TV girlfriends, Lucy and Ethel teamed up on all sorts of ridiculous adventures, including working at the chocolate factory, redecorating Lucy's home to try to help win her a part in Ricky's show and trying to win a new set of furniture for their homes. The show may have aired in the 1950s, but the jokes between the two women still make you belly laugh today. 

Khal Drogo may have been Daenerys' sun and moon, but Missandei becomes the friend who is always by her side as they aim to claim the iron throne. Missandei starts as a slave interpreter, but her kind, calm demeanor helps balance out Daenerys. 

If these two women had not ended up in Litchfield Prison, perhaps they would have never met. Perhaps we never would have heard their incisive Harry Potter analysis or their pitch-perfect impressions of affluent women. Most poignantly, we would not have seen Taystee's activism, inspired by Poussey's death at the hands of a prison guard. 

Anna may have been employed by Lady Mary, but that didn't affect the friendship between the lady and her lady's maid. When Anna suffered, Mary was there to support her, while Anna was one of the few people who could cut through Mary's icy exterior and see her inner kindness. 

Single women living alone and finding a family among friends are not rare on this list, but so few of the shows could have happened without Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern paving the way in the 1970s. As neighbors, they laughed, cried and wisecracked together through their dating lives, trouble at work and the day's hot-button issues. 

When Zoey from "Black-ish" went to college, she was worried about making friends. Never fear, as she found a tribe of diverse people who had her back through collegiate dramas, from Instagram haters to campus lockdowns. 

The four women, who found each other mostly by chance — except for mother and daughter Sophia and Dorothy — showed that friendship, cutting quips and romantic relationships aren't just for the young. They supported each other while also confronting pressing concerns of the late '80s and early '90s. Now let's eat some cheesecake and retire to the lanai. 

Everyone needs a friend who will speak up when you're being an idiot. Molly and Issa fulfill that role beautifully, but after speaking their piece, they happily support each other through romantic ups and downs, disappointment and success at work and dealing with friends' drama. 

Who says people from different planets can't be friends? Jadzia, a Trill carrying the experiences of seven lifetimes, and Nerys, a former freedom fighter for her home world of Bajor, both spend much of the show coming to terms with their pasts while figuring out their futures. The complexity of their lives, and their friendship, set the stage for "Star Trek" to continue to explore the lives of women in future shows, going boldly where no show had gone before. 

From the earliest days of television, Alice and Trixie were neighbors who became best friends as their husbands were best friends. While Trixie wasn't on the show as much as Alice, when we saw them together, they loved to respond sarcastically to their husbands and laugh together. 

Jess is the nerdy school teacher who loves crafting, while Cece is a model who feels comfortable dancing in a club with her fellow models. If they hadn't met in junior high, they admit, they might never have become friends. Still, the two aren't afraid to call each other out when they're wrong and then hug it out afterward. 

Raising kids in a housing project is not easy, so Willona and Florida's friendship was a source of strength for both women on the show based in 1970s Chicago. They are by each other's side as they struggle to make ends meet, finding joy and laughter even as Florida's husband, James, can't find work and as Willona's ex-husband tries to come back into her life. 

It's the relationship that made us learn what it meant to be someone's person. Both ambitious surgeons, Yang and Grey's relationship was at the heart of the series. No matter who they were dating or what had happened in a surgery, Yang and Grey could always return to each other at the end of the day to discuss what went wrong or right. 

Kelly Taylor's early relationship with Brenda Walsh may have brought the heat — love triangles, matching spring dance dresses — but it was Taylor's friendship with Donna Martin that was at the heart of the show. The characters grew up together, and Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling's real-life friendship continued well after the final episode. 

Xena carried with her the pain and guilt of being a warrior. As she moved around the ancient world trying to make up for her past wrongs, she had the perfect companion in Gabrielle, the naive and funny farm girl who joined Xena after she rescued Gabrielle and her friends from being kidnapped. 

Lorelai's relationship with her daughter, Rory, is at the heart of the show, as they grew up together. With Sookie, a grown-up Lorelai found a partner with whom to pursue her dreams, as they founded their own inn, and someone to share her child-raising wisdom with as Sookie started her own family. 

Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney danced in the opening sequence of every show to a tune about making their dreams come true, and with every episode they pushed each other to do just that. Their relationship made working at a bottling factory look like a blast. 

When the musical-comedy-drama starts, Paula is a legal secretary with a family and Rebecca has just left a high-powered law firm in New York to follow her camp boyfriend to West Covina, California, making for an unlikely friendship. But as the show goes on, the two enable each other to see a better life, even when they make major missteps. 

MTV's cartoon ode to the unpopular girls had at its heart Jane and Daria, two sarcastic friends who were never afraid to call out the hypocrisy, misogyny and downright dumbness of high school rituals. Their friendship even survived Daria's huge crush on Jane's older brother, Trent. 

Considering Amy Poehler's "Parks and Rec" character inspired this list, it's no surprise to see Ilana and Abbi, two women on the show Poehler produces, here. Their friendship is hilarious and silly and heartfelt, creating a show that is must-watch. 

Despite the name of the show, the core of "Sex and the City" wasn't the women's love lives, or even New York City. It was a friendship among four women, forged over years of dating, shopping, laughing at themselves and even speaking up when one of them was not being a good friend. 

Working as Gina's assistant at a PR firm, Pam was the wise-cracking friend who was the perfect foil to Gina's boyfriend, then husband, Martin. And it was a friendship that continued well after the show ended, as Tisha Campbell and Tichina Arnold are still friends and recently hosted the Soul Train Awards together.