It's time to bring back the TV working gals of the '90s.

After inhaling the entire first part of Emily In Paris in one sitting, I couldn't stop thinking about one thing. 

No, not how Emily Cooper manages to make the wrong decision at any given moment. 

No, not how I literally don't remember the names of any of these characters despite dedicating hours of my life to this show.

And no, not how Emily manages to simultaneously dress like a high fashion supermodel and the Hamburglar at the same time. 

I kept thinking how nice it was to watch Emily at work. 

Because despite all the chatter that surrounds Emily In Paris — is Camille a villain or is Emily in the wrong? Are you Team Gabrielle or Team Alfie — most of the episodes are dominated by Emily and her colleagues actually... doing their jobs. 

Every episode of season four revolves around what Emily, her boss Sylvie, and colleagues Louis and Julian get up to at high-end marketing firm, Agence Grateau, which began the series as Savior. 

Emily Cooper actually works throughout the series. What a concept! Image: Netflix. 

The series obviously depicts an overly glamorous and romanticised view of the industry, which is just a reality of any TV show or film. For instance, the amount of fictional journalists in rom-coms who can afford apartments in Manhattan boggles the mind when I can barely afford rent in Sydney. 

Emily In Paris' emphasis on the main character's career shouldn't be something particularly noteworthy — but it's a relative rarity in the TV landscape these days. 

Not since the late-90s has it been normalised to have a TV show revolve around working women. 

Sure, there was a momentary blimp in the late-2010s with Younger and The Bold Type, which featured the magazine and publishing industries respectively, along with The Mindy Project which revolved around a quirky medical clinic.

But long gone are the days when the TV guide was dominated by shows set in a working environment and circling the working life of a leading lady.

If you grew up through the '80s and '90s, you know exactly the shows I'm talking about. They had a formulaic structure: a sassy female protagonist juggles life and love while working at some glamourous job in the city. 

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was the first instance of a TV show centred around a career woman but it was Murphy Brown that arguably reigned in the '90s working gal era. 

First premiering in 1988 (my year of birth?? coincidence??), the series starred Candice Bergen as the eponymous Murphy Brown, a journalist and news anchor for a morning news show.

Candice Bergen's Murphy Brown was a game-changer. Image: CBS. 

The show aired for 11 seasons which is practically unheard of in 2024. 

The Nanny was a staple of everyone's evening plans, airing seemingly every night for its six seasons on air from 1993 to 1999. The long-running series followed Fran Drescher as Fran Fine, a working-class fashionista from Flushing in Queens who became the nanny of three children for a wealthy family in New York. 

Then came a stream of working gal shows that were basically the same TV concept in different fonts. 

In Veronica's Closet, Kirstie Alley played Ronnie Chase, the owner of (you guessed it) Veronica's Closet, a lingerie company in New York City which was a clever parody of Victoria's Secret. 

Moving on to Suddenly Susan, this time Brooke Shields portrayed a woman named Susan Keane, a San Francisco magazine writer with a weekly column titled (you guessed it) 'Suddenly Susan'.

Brooke Shields played Susan Keane for four seasons. Image: NBC. 

And to round out the shows that still occupy way too much of my brain space, there was the largely forgotten Caroline in the City which saw Lea Thompson as Manhattan cartoonist Caroline Duffy with a popular strip called (you guessed it) 'Caroline in the City'.

The late-90s' welcomed some iconic ensemble casts that revolved around a work environment

My personal favorite was Just Shoot Me, an unjustly overlooked show that was just as seething in its criticism of the fashion industry as any passing scene in The Devil Wears Prada. 

Starring Laura San Giacomo, David Spade and Wendie Malick, the cast of perpetually chaotic staffers at the fictional high fashion magazine Blush literally made me want to be a journalist. 

But above all, my ride-or-die working gal TV show was Ally McBeal. 

This show was huge. Like, they just don't make TV like this anymore: it was sexy, silly, at times ridiculous, completely unique and utterly addictive. 

Calista Flockhart played the titular Ally McBeal, a young lawyer working at the Boston law firm Cage and Fish. It might have been Flockhart's show, but it was a team effort with career-making performances from Lucy Liu, Portia de Rossi and Robert Downey Jr.

Ally McBeal was on a whole other level. Image: Fox. 

These were the golden days of television.

In the current TV climate, women in TV shows are most often dating or well, dying. 

Women-led shows are a rarity, but even in an all-female cast like And Just Like That, the storylines are dominated by the women's partners, husbands and romantic pursuits.

Then there are the other big shows of 2024 featuring women, like House of Dragon and Baby Reindeer, which are more about women discussing men than anything else. 

Almost 40 years since its invention, it's unlikely any of these offerings would pass the Bechdel test.

By contrast, there are countless male-dominated shows where work is at the forefront, such as The Bear, Masters of the Air, Succession and Apple series, Presumed Innocent. 

Listen to The Spill's host discuss the most bittersweet TV show finales. Post continues after podcast.

Sure, there's The Morning Show, Industry and Grey's Anatomy which feature female leads working, but these are not a light-hearted, stress-free watches, like watching Emily Cooper frantically try to brainstorm a feminist marketing brief for crotchless panties in Emily In Paris.

I'm certainly not watching people die on Grey's Anatomy to fill the Suddenly Susan-sized hole in my heart.

This is why Hacks is so refreshing. A rare exception to my 'there are no working gals anymore' rule, Hacks is focused on the careers of comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and comedy writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder).  

It's light, it's hilarious and it's exactly what we need. The latest season was critically acclaimed and received the highest ratings to date, leading to another season getting commissioned. 

There is clearly an increasing appetite for shows like this. 

In 2018, Murphy Brown was revived for a standalone 13-episode season. 

With the resurgence of '90s nostalgia, there have been consistent calls for shows like The Nanny and Ally McBeal to be rebooted for a new generation. 

So hop to it, TV ladies! Go get a job! 

In the eternal words of workaholic Kim Kardashian "It seems like nobody wants to work these days." Amen, Kimmy. 

Get your f**king ass up and work!!!

Feature image: Fox/NBC.