Agreed. I do think there has been (and still is) a tendency to expect female leads to be perfect, while male leads are allowed to be more flawed, since there’s less appetite for perfect male leads than there was in the past. But a lead character regardless of gender needs to be likeable on some level: if I don’t like them and I don’t like what they’re doing and I don’t care about why they’re doing it, then why exactly would I watch?

So the big question that comes to mind with this article (bearing in mind I have no familiarity with the novel the proposed series was based on) is was the series not made because the female lead was intended to be actively unlikeable, or was she considered unlikeable because she wasn’t a perfect paragon? If she was actively unlikeable, then I don’t think sexism is at play: unlikeable characters are just unlikeable, and the market for those is limited. If she was considered unlikeable due to not being perfect, and the same show would have been made if it was about an imperfect (but still likeable) male lead, then that’s a different matter.