Anonymous wrote:Avatar: the Last Airbender. There's a strong female lead.
My kids really liked this, but the brother character is super irritating and kind of rude to the girl, to my mind. It was not my favorite.
My kids and I really liked:
Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix (really great, the acting is amazing, even by the baby)
Mysterious Benedict Society on Disney (sooooooo good)
Ruff Ruffman on PBS
Jeopary and Wheel of Fortune on ABC
Merlin on Netflix (might be a little mature for the 8 year old?)
The Dragon Prince (netflix -- really good, and I liked this strong female character and the male characters weren't jerks to her)
Master Chef Junior (not sure if this is still on?)
Mythbusters (not sure where this is airing now, but was really fun and educational. altough some of the myths are kind of gross/disturbing so you may want to check the episode before watching)
Disney -- the short films about Dug, the dog from Up are hilarious. I think it's called Dug's Days.
Disney Behind the Scenes at Animal Kingdom is great.
Also, a little random, but if you can still find it streaming, my kids erally liked Dr. Dee: Alaskan Vet from Animal Planet. She is a really nice lady, which shines through on the show, and she does absolutely amazing things with both pets and wild animals, and flies her own plane to service hard to reach areas of Alaska. They have to be okay with the fact that some of the animals don't make it, though it's presented really sensitively because Dr. Dee is so respectful to both the animals and the owners. (She's sort of my hero!)
I also sort of wanted them to watch Shaun the Sheep which looks good, but they declared themselves too old.