Sex and the City

 

Format  Comedy
Run time  30 Minutes
Creator  Darren Star
Starring  Sarah Jessica Parker
Kristin Davis
Cynthia Nixon
Kim Cattrall
Country  USA
Network  HBO
Original run  June 6, 1998–February 22, 2004
No. of episodes  94

Sex and the City is an American cable television program based on the book of the same name. It was originally broadcast on the HBO network from 1998 until 2004. Set in New York City, the show focuses on the sex lives of four female best friends, three of whom are in their mid-to-late thirties and one of whom, Samantha, is in her forties. A sitcom with soap opera elements, the show often tackled socially relevant issues such as the status of women in society. Sex and the City premiered on June 6, 1998, and the last original episode aired on February 22, 2004.
Contents
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    * 1 Overview
    * 2 Characters
          o 2.1 Main characters
          o 2.2 Recurring characters
                + 2.2.1 Friends
                + 2.2.2 Boyfriends
                      # 2.2.2.1 Carrie's boyfriends
                      # 2.2.2.2 Charlotte's boyfriends
                      # 2.2.2.3 Miranda's boyfriends
                      # 2.2.2.4 Samantha's boyfriends
                + 2.2.3 Cameos
    * 3 Episodes
          o 3.1 Season 1 (1998)
          o 3.2 Season 2 (1999)
          o 3.3 Season 3 (2000)
          o 3.4 Season 4 (2001-2002)
          o 3.5 Season 5 (2002)
          o 3.6 Season 6 (2003-2004)
          o 3.7 Clip Shows
    * 4 Quotations
    * 5 Broadcasters
    * 6 Criticism
    * 7 External links

 

Overview

The show's narrator is sex and love columnist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker). Her best friends are Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), a traditional and relatively conservative art gallery owner, Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), a cynical, career-minded lawyer, and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), a wild-living, fun-loving publicist who stops at nothing to get the men she wants.

The show consistently achieved both critical and popular acclaim. By the fourth season, many elements of the series, such as the overall tone and the characters, diverged considerably from the book. The show's girl talk, dating games, and fashion cemented it firmly in modern popular culture. The character Carrie is an oft-referenced fashion icon known for her fancy clothes and shoes (mostly Patricia Fields, Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahniks).

Season one of Sex and the City aired on HBO from June to August 1998. The second season was broadcast from June until October 1999. Season three aired from June until October 2000. The fourth season was broadcast in two parts: from June until August 2001, and then in January and February 2002. A fifth season, truncated due to Parker's pregnancy, aired on HBO during the summer of 2002. The 20 episodes of the final season, season six, aired in two parts: from June until September 2003 and during January and February 2004.

In the first season, each episode featured a short montage of interviews that Carrie supposedly conducted while researching her column. These continued through the second season, then were phased out.

Characters
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Main characters
Carrie Bradshaw
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Carrie Bradshaw
The women of Sex and the City
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The women of Sex and the City

    * Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) writes a weekly sex column titled "Sex and the City" for the fictitious New York Star. She provides the show's narration, which is structured around her train of thought while writing the column. Her columns are eventually turned into a book, and she is also a contributing writer for Vogue beginning at the end of season 4. Despite her apparently modest income, she always dons the latest fashions, in one episode spending over a thousand dollars on a pair of shoes. Her main addictions are her Manolo Blahnik shoes and cigarettes (which she sporadically tries to give up). She lives in a small 1-bedroom rent-controlled apartment in the Upper East Side, which she now owns with the help of Charlotte. In a later season episode, the audience briefly glimpses a much darker, more introspective Carrie, when she finally voices her long-held regrets about a snap-decision abortion she had in the 1980s after a one-night stand.
    * Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) is an art dealer with a blue-blooded upbringing. She is the most conservative and traditional of the group, and the one who places the most emphasis on emotional love in a relationship as opposed to sex, and is always searching for her "knight in shining armor". She gives up her successful career shortly after her marriage with Trey, and resides in a posh apartment on Park Avenue. She eventually divorces Trey due in part to his unhealthy, Norman Bates-type relationship with his mother, and ends up marrying a homely but saintly divorce attorney. She is the only one of the four girls that marries twice. She is also a graduate of Smith College.
    * Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) is a career-minded lawyer with extremely cynical views on relationships and men. She lives in the West Side but relocates to Brooklyn in the final season. She is Carrie's confidante and voice of reason. In the early seasons, she is portrayed as masculine and borderline misandric, but this image softens over the years. She participated in an on-again, off-again relationship with nerd Steve, whom she finally became pregnant by. After debating getting an abortion behind Steve's back, she eventually decided to have the baby, and in the final season married Steve. She is a graduate of Harvard University.
    * Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), the oldest and most promiscious of the group, is an independent publicist whose relationship pattern could be considered stereotypically masculine. She is a seductress who primarily engages in relationships purely for sex, avoiding emotional involvement at all costs. Her conquests are all based purely on physical appearance. She lives in the fashionable meatpacking district. During the entire six seasons, she only has three relationships: one with a playboy, one with a lesbian, and another with a sexy, young actor whom she finally ends up living with. In the episode in which Miranda contemplates an abortion, Samantha reveals that she's had two.

 

Recurring characters

Friends

    * Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson), a gay fashionista, is Carrie's best friend outside the group and often attends parties with her. He is a talent agent. He is partnered to Marcus, a Broadway dancer.
    * Anthony Marentino (Mario Cantone) is Charlotte's wedding planner who becomes a close friend. He often tries to cheer her up and encourage her to continue dating after her failed marriage.

 

Boyfriends

All the boyfriends listed below were the focus of a significant story arc spanning multiple episodes. Additionally, the four main characters all went on dates or had sex when they were single – often with male characters (and in Samantha's case, one female character) who appeared in only one, two, or at most three episodes of the program.

Carrie's boyfriends
Chris Noth as Mr. Big
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Chris Noth as Mr. Big

    * Mr. Big (Chris Noth) both excites and eludes Carrie through the run of the show, as she always believes he is the man for her but many times he's not able to fulfill her emotional needs. He is a wealthy financier (Samantha calls him "the next Donald Trump" in the first episode) who is several years older then Carrie, who never forgets to joke about their age difference. They meet in the first episode and soon begin a serious relationship. Carrie breaks up with Big at the end of season 1 because he refuses to open up his life for her. After they reunite, the intensity of their feelings is the same again with more romance, but eventually old patterns repeat themselves, and even when they try to resolve them, Big still is not ready to give Carrie the kind of love that she needs. They break up again towards the end of season 2 before he goes to Paris, where his company has temporarily assigned him. To Carrie's shock, Big, who had commitment issues with her, soon after becomes engaged to Natasha, a modelesque woman in her 20s whom Carrie refers to as "the idiot stick figure with no soul". They had a whirlwind romance in Paris, and she is the "simple" kind of woman he seems to want; they do not have the kind of intensity and drama that he and Carrie had. He stays in Carrie's life as a close friend until he realizes that he had made a mistake in getting married, feels that his new life is dull, and tells Carrie that he wants to be with her and he loves her. At first Carrie is enraged at him but gives into her feelings for him that won't go away. Emotionally torn between him and Aidan, she has a short love affair with Big. The effects are devastating to everyone involved and Carrie finds herself alone again. She and Big remain close friends, but Carrie says to him that their love is "a good idea in theory but doesn't work" and he bemusedly agrees. Their feelings linger below the surface though, so they remain flirtatious friends during the times when Carrie is between relationships. Eventually he moves to California, but returns to New York for an angioplasty and "opens his heart" to her as well, but soon closes his emotions again. Finally, at the very end of the series, Big flew to Paris to tell Carrie she was "the one". Throughout the show Big's name is never used, with the girls referring to him only as Big or Mr. Big. It is not until the last episode that his name is revealed to be John.

John Corbett as Aidan Shaw
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John Corbett as Aidan Shaw

    * Aidan Shaw (John Corbett) is one of Carrie's few long-term boyfriends. He is a furniture designer and he met Carrie when Stanford and Carrie went to his furniture store. They break up after her affair with Big, but rekindle the relationship. He eventually proposes to her, but later she realizes that she is not ready to commit to him on the same level that he needs. She wants to maintain their relationship and says she will be ready to marry him in time, but he ends it, assuming that she will never want to marry him. She loves Aidan, but perhaps not like she has always loved Big – not in that same "big" way. Aidan was the comfort and romance that she needed after tumultuous times and nurtured; he showed her the gentle, giving side of love. He cherished her in a way that Big was not able to most of the time. When Carrie ran into Aidan at the beginning of the last season (6), he is married and is father to a boy.
    * Jack Berger (Ron Livingston) is a writer who Carrie dates in season 6. At first, they seem like the perfect couple, but their relationship came to a screeching halt when Carrie's career heated up just as Berger's cooled down, something he was never able to deal with. He snuck out in the middle of the night and broke up with her on a Post-it note.
    * Aleksandr Petrovsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov) is a famous artist who becomes Carrie's lover in season 6. He sweeps her off of her feet, but eventually, she wants the relationship to be deeper than a storybook romance. She accepts Petrovsky's invitation to move to Paris with him, as she needs a lasting love in her life and irrationally fears that past a certain age love could be hard to find again. But after spending some time there, she realizes that he will never reciprocate the level of emotional involvement that she wants since his career will always come first, and she cannot keep her mind off Mr. Big.

 

Charlotte's boyfriends

    * Trey MacDougal (Kyle MacLachlan) fits Charlotte's knight in shining armor archetype to a tee, and eventually she marries him (after she proposes to him at dinner and he says "all righty"). They have marital problems from the beginning, mostly centered around his erectile dysfunction, and things escalate when Charlotte finds out it would be very difficult for her to have a baby, which she deeply desires. Eventually, they separate and divorce.
    * Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler) is Charlotte's divorce lawyer. Although he is not even in the ballpark of Charlotte's ideal man in that he is short, bald, hairy and often somewhat crude, they fall in love. Harry refuses to marry a non-Jew, so Charlotte the Episcopalian Princess converts to Judaism. After this, they have a falling out and break up. Eventually, Harry returns and proposes to Charlotte, and they marry. After that, they adopt a Chinese baby girl (after Charlotte becomes pregnant and has a miscarriage).

 

Miranda's boyfriends

    * Skipper Johnson (Ben Weber) is a geeky, sensitive twentysomething who is friends with Carrie, then becomes Miranda's boyfriend in season 1. The relationship doesn't last because Miranda does not want the same level of commitment.
    * Robert Leeds (Blair Underwood), a physician who moves into her building during the sixth season, is the seemingly perfect man: successful, sexy and utterly devoted to her. Robert and Miranda have lots of fun and great chemistry, but when he leaves her a giant chocolate chip cookie that says, "I Love You," Miranda panics, devours the entire thing, then tries to ignore it. She realizes that, despite all the idyllic aspects of her relationship with Robert, and all the flaws in her relationship with Steve (below), it's Steve who she loves. She breaks up with Robert.
    * Steve Brady (David Eigenberg) is a bartender Miranda has what appears to be a one-night stand with after being stood up by Carrie, who is at Big's home cooking veal (to which she responds "You ditched me for a piece of politically incorrect meat?"). He falls for Miranda depite her initial resistance, and the one-night stand morphs into a relationship. The difference in income and aspirations between the two becomes a serious issue, and they break up twice during the series. In season 4, he is diagnosed with testicular cancer and must have one testicle removed. He and Miranda have sex in what Samantha calls "a mercy fuck", and Miranda gets pregnant. She gives birth to a boy named Brady. They decide to raise the baby together, but separated. In season 6, they get back together, then marry in an small, intimate ceremony.

 

Samantha's boyfriends

    * Maria (Sonia Braga) is a sensual artist that Samantha meets at an exhibit while admiring her work. Samantha is drawn to Maria's strong aura but quickly steps back when she realizes Maria wants to more than just friends. The chemistry is too strong and it isn't too long before Samantha is introducing her lesbian lover to her stunned friends. This is Samantha's first step towards committement and while she greatly admires and respects Maria, they part ways a few episodes later because Samantha can't stand the monogamy and misses the 'penis'.
    * Richard Wright (James Remar) is a extremely wealthy hotel magnate who meets his match in bed with Samantha. He seduces her, and they have a no-strings sexual relationship. Their relationship eventually escalates, and both parties struggle to keep their emotional distance. Eventually, both profess their love for each other, and they try to have a monogamous relationship. Samantha's heart is broken when she catches him having an affair.
    * Smith Jerrod (Jason Lewis) is a young waiter Samantha seduces in a trendy restaurant. She finds out he is an actor and becomes his publicist. Her first advice is to change the awkward name "Jerry Jerrod" to "Smith Jerrod". After Samantha takes control of his publicity and gets him a gig posing nude for an Absolut ad, his career takes off. Ironically, Smith is an alcoholic and attends AA meetings. When Samantha is diagnosed with breast cancer, Smith sticks by her side, shaving his signature long hair as a sign of solidarity. At the end of the series, Samantha and Smith are still together and in love.

 

Cameos

As Sex and the City gained popularity, a number of celebrities had cameos on the show, some playing themselves and some playing characters. These include the following:

    * Nathan Lane
    * Amy Sedaris
    * Donald Trump
    * Jon Bon Jovi
    * Alanis Morissette
    * Matthew McConaughey
    * Vince Vaughn
    * Sarah Michelle Gellar
    * Carrie Fisher
    * Hugh Hefner
    * Margaret Cho
    * Alan Cumming
    * Heidi Klum
    * Ed Koch
    * Molly Shannon
    * Lucy Liu
    * Candice Bergen
    * Heather Graham
    * Tatum O'Neal
    * David Duchovny
    * Geri Halliwell
    * Carole Bouquet
    * Valerie Harper

 

Episodes

Season 1 (1998)
#  Episode Title  Director  Writer  Original Airdate
1  Sex and the City  Susan Seidelman  Darren Star  June 7, 1998 (HBO)
2  Models and Mortals  Allison Maclean  Darren Star  June 7, 1998 (HBO)
3  Bay of Married Pigs  Nicole Holofcener  Darren Star  June 21, 1998 (HBO)
4  Valley of the Twenty Something Guys  Allison Maclean  Michael Patrick King  June 28, 1998 (HBO)
5  The Power of Female Sex  Susan Seidelman  Jenji Kohan  July 5, 1998 (HBO)
6  Secret Sex  Michael Fields  Darren Star  July 12, 1998 (HBO)
7  The Monogamists  Darren Star  Darren Star  July 19, 1998(HBO)
8  Three's A Crowd  Nicole Holofcener  Jenny Bicks  July 26, 1998 (HBO)
9  The Turtle and the Hare  Michael Fields  Nicole Avril, Sue Kolinsky  August 2, 1998 (HBO)
10  The Baby Shower  Susan Seidelman  Terri Minsky  August 9, 1998 (HBO)
11  The Drought  Matthew Harrison  Michael Green, Michael Patrick King  August 16, 1998 (HBO)
12  Oh Come All Ye Faithful  Matthew Harrison  Michael Patrick King  August 23, 1998 (HBO)

Season 2 (1999)
#  Episode Title  Director  Writer  Original Airdate
13  Take Me Out to the Ballgame  Allen Coulter  Michael Patrick King  June 6, 1999 (HBO)
14  The Awful Truth  Allen Coulter  Darren Star  June 13, 1999 (HBO)
15  The Freak Show  Allen Coulter  Jenny Bicks  June 20, 1999 (HBO)
16  They Shoot Single People Don't They?  Allen Coulter  Michael Patrick King  June 27, 1999(HBO)
17  Four Women and a Funeral  Allen Coulter  Jenny Bicks  July 4, 1999 (HBO)
18  The Cheating Curve  John David Coles  Darren Star  July 11, 1999 (HBO)
19  The Chicken Dance  Victoria Hochberg  Cindy Chupack  July 18, 1999 (HBO)
20  The Man, The Myth, The Viagra  Victoria Hochberg  Michael Patrick King  July 25, 1999 (HBO)
21  Old Dogs, New Dicks  Alan Taylor  Jenny Bicks  August 1, 1999 (HBO)
22  The Caste System  Allison Anders  Darren Star  August 8, 1999 (HBO)
23  Evolution  Pam Thomas  Cindy Chupack  August 15, 1999 (HBO)
24  La Doleur Exquisite!  Allison Anders  Ollie Levy, Michael Patrick King  August 22, 1999 (HBO)
25  Games People Play  Michael Spiller  Jenny Bicks  August 29, 1999 (HBO)
26  The Fuck Buddy  Alan Taylor  Darren Star  September 5, 1999 (HBO)
27  Shortcomings  Dan Algrant  Terri Minsky  September 12, 1999 (HBO)
28  Was It Good For You?  Dan Algrant  Michael Patrick King  September 19, 1999 (HBO)
29  Twenty-Something Girls Vs. Thirty-Something Women  Darren Star  Darren Star  September 26, 1999 (HBO)
30  Ex and the City  Michael Patrick King  Michael Patrick King  October 3, 1999 (HBO)

Season 3 (2000)
#  Episode Title  Director  Writer  Original Airdate
31  Where There's Smoke...  Michael Patrick King  Michael Patrick King  June 4, 2000 (HBO)
32  Politically Erect  Michael Patrick King  Darren Star  June 11, 2000 (HBO)
33  Attack of the 5'10" Woman  Pam Thomas  Cindy Chupack  June 18, 2000 (HBO)
34  Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl  Pam Thomas  Jenny Bicks  June 25, 2000 (HBO)
35  No Ifs, Ands Or Butts  Nicole Holofcener  Michael Patrick King  July 9, 2000 (HBO)
36  Are We Sluts?  Nicole Holofcener  Cindy Chupack  July 16, 2000 (HBO)
37  Drama Queens  Allison Anders  Darren Star  July 23, 2000 (HBO)
38  The Big Time  Allison Anders  Jenny Bicks  July 30, 2000 (HBO)
39  Easy Come, Easy Go  Charles McDougall  Michael Patrick King  August 6, 2000 (HBO)
40  All or Nothing  Charles McDougall  Jenny Bicks  August 13, 2000 (HBO)
41  Running With Scissors  Dennis Erdman  Michael Patrick King  August 20, 2000 (HBO)
42  Don't Ask, Don't Tell  Dan Algrant  Cindy Chupack  August 27, 2000 (HBO)
43  Escape from New York  John David Coles  Becky Hartman Edwards, Michael Patrick King  September 10, 2000 (HBO)
44  Sex and Another City  John David Coles  Jenny Bicks  September 17, 2000 (HBO)
45  Hot Child in the City  Michael Spiller  Allan Heinberg  September 24, 2000 (HBO)
46  Frenemies  Michael Spiller  Jenny Bicks  October 1, 2000 (HBO)
47  What Goes Around Comes Around  Allen Coulter  Darren Star  October 8, 2000 (HBO)
48  Cock-A-Doodle-Do  Allen Coulter  Michael Patrick King  October 15, 2000 (HBO)

Season 4 (2001-2002)
#  Episode Title  Director  Writer  Original Airdate
49  The Agony and the 'Ex'tacy  Michael Patrick King  Michael Patrick King  June 3, 2001 (HBO)
50  The Real Me  Michael Patrick King  Michael Patrick King  June 3, 2001 (HBO)
51  Defining Moments  Allen Coulter  Jenny Bicks  June 10, 2001 (HBO)
52  What's Sex Got to Do With It?  Allen Coulter  Nicole Avril  June 17, 2001 (HBO)
53  Ghost Town  Michael Spiller  Allan Heinberg  June 24, 2001 (HBO)
54  Baby, Talk Is Cheap  Michael Spiller  Cindy Chupack  July 1, 2001 (HBO)
55  Time and Punishment  Michael Engler  Jessica Bendinger  July 8, 2001 (HBO)
56  My Motherboard, My Self  Michael Engler  Julie Rottenberg, Eliza Zuritsky  July 15, 2001 (HBO)
57  Sex and the Country  Michael Spiller  Allan Heinberg  July 22, 2001 (HBO)
58  Belles of the Balls  Michael Spiller  Michael Patrick King  July 29, 2001 (HBO)
59  Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda  David Frankel  Jenny Bicks  August 5, 2001 (HBO)
60  Just Say Yes  David Frankel  Cindy Chupack  August 12, 2001 (HBO)
61  The Good Fight  Charles McDougall  Michael Patrick King  January 6, 2002 (HBO)
62  All That Glitters...  Charles McDougall  Cindy Chupack  January 13, 2002 (HBO)
63  Change of a Dress  Alan Taylor  Julie Rottenberg, Eliza Zuritsky  January 20, 2002 (HBO)
64  Ring A Ding Ding  Alan Taylor  Amy B. Harris  January 28, 2002 (HBO)
65  A "Vogue" Idea  Martha Coolidge  Allan Heinberg  February 3, 2002 (HBO)
66  I Heart NY  Martha Coolidge  Michael Patrick King  February 10, 2002 (HBO)

Season 5 (2002)
#  Episode Title  Director  Writer  Original Airdate
67  Anchors Away  Charles McDougall  Michael Patrick King  July 21, 2002 (HBO)
68  Unoriginal Sin  Charles McDougall  Cindy Chupack  July 28, 2002 (HBO)
69  Luck Be An Old Lady  John David Coles  Julie Rottenberg, Eliza Zuritsky  August 4, 2002 (HBO)
70  Cover Girl  John David Coles  Judy Toll, Michael Patrick King  August 11, 2002 (HBO)
71  Plus One is the Loneliest Number  Michael Patrick King  Cindy Chupack  August 18, 2002 (HBO)
72  Critical Condition  Michael Patrick King  Alexa Junge  August 25, 2002 (HBO)
73  The Big Journey  Michael Engler  Michael Patrick King  September 1, 2002 (HBO)
74  I Love a Charade  Michael Engler  Cindy Chupack, Michael Patrick King  September 8, 2002 (HBO)

Season 6 (2003-2004)
#  Episode Title  Director  Writer  Original Airdate
75  To Market, To Market  Michael Patrick King  Michael Patrick King  June 22, 2003 (HBO)
76  Great Sexpectations  Michael Patrick King  Cindy Chupack  June 29, 2003 (HBO)
77  The Perfect Present  David Frankel  Jenny Bicks  July 7, 2003 (HBO)
78  Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little  David Frankel  Julie Rottenberg, Eliza Zuritsky  July 14, 2003 (HBO)
79  Lights, Camera, Relationship  Michael Engler  Michael Patrick King  July 21, 2003 (HBO)
80  Hop, Skip and a Week  Michael Engler  Amy B. Harris  July 28, 2003 (HBO)
81  The Post-It Always Sticks Twice  Alan Taylor  Liz Tucillo  August 4, 2003 (HBO)
82  The Catch  Alan Taylor  Cindy Chupack  August 11, 2003 (HBO)
83  A Woman's Right to Shoes  Tim Van Patten  Jenny Bicks  August 18, 2003 (HBO)
84  Boy, Interrupted  Tim Van Patten  Cindy Chupack  August 25, 2003 (HBO)
85  The Domino Effect  David Frankel  Julie Rottenberg, Eliza Zuritsky  September 7, 2003 (HBO)
86  One  David Frankel  Michael Patrick King  September 14, 2003 (HBO)
87  Let There Be Light  Michael Patrick King  Michael Patrick King  January 4, 2004 (HBO)
88  The Ick Factor  Wendey Stanzler  Julie Rottenberg, Eliza Zuritsky  January 11, 2004 (HBO)
89  Catch-38  Michael Engler  Cindy Chupack  January 18, 2004 (HBO)
90  Out of the Frying Pan  Michael Engler  Jenny Bicks  January 25, 2004 (HBO)
91  The Cold War  Julian Farino  Aury Wallington  February 1, 2004 (HBO)
92  Splat!  Julian Farino  Jenny Bicks, Cindy Chupack  February 8, 2004 (HBO)
93  An American Girl in Paris, Part Une  Tim Van Patten  Michael Patrick King  February 15, 2004 (HBO)
94  An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux  Tim Van Patten  Michael Patrick King  February 22, 2004 (HBO)

Clip Shows
#  Episode Title  Original Airdate
1  Sex and the City: A Farewell  February 22, 2004 (HBO)

Quotations

The following are quotations from the TV special, Sex And The City: A Farewell, that aired introducing the final episode:

Michael Patrick King, Executive Producer: "People thought, oh it's just about sex or it's just about fashion. And then slowly over the years people start to see it's really about love ... and relationships ... and sex ... and basically the battlefield of trying to be in love – whether it be with another person or with yourself."

Sarah Jessica Parker: "What the show has to have, and has had to have in order to survive six years, is a soul."

Kim Cattrall: "The show is a valentine to being single."

David Eigenberg: "They were honest about sex, they were honest about the humor of sex."

Kim Cattrall: "Being single used to mean that nobody wanted you, now it means you're pretty sexy and you're taking your time deciding how you want your life to be ... and who you want to spend it with."

Broadcasters

In the United Kingdom, Channel 4 and its digital sister channel E4 broadcast episodes of "Sex and the City", while older episodes are rerun on Paramount Comedy. In Canada, the show airs on Bravo! Canada and Citytv Toronto, and in Germany it is shown on Pro7. In the Netherlands, the show is aired by Net 5, and in Sweden it is aired by TV3 and ZTV. In Italy the show airs on La7. In Australia it was broadcast on the Nine Network. It is now shown on Ten, on Monday nights. In Japan, the show is aired by Lala.tv. In Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, and Pakistan the show airs on HBO Asia (season 1-6). Sex and the City was banned in Singapore until July 2004, when the government allowed the television series to be aired on cable after being censored. In Latvia this serial can be seen on TV3. In Denmark it is currently shown on TV3 as well.

Criticism

Some commentators have criticized the television show as promoting immorality by encouraging a hedonistic lifestyle and treating women as sexual objects. Additionally, they argued that it is at times mere pornography with a superficial plot. The characters are also wealthy and unabashedly elitist, which raises further questions about the morality of the show.

Others claim in response that Sex and the City is an attempt to realistically – yet artistically – portray sexual behavior in the urban United States. Others have noted that the show tends to portray its main characters as shallow and superficial.

When Sex and the City was run in syndication on TBS, some viewers organized boycotts of the station, arguing that this would put the program within access of young children.

Some commentators criticized Sex and the City's distorted presentation of female sexuality, claiming the sexuality is more akin to that of the allegedly gay, male writers of the show. The frequent obsession with penis size by one character is taken to be untypical of women and more typical of a phallocentric male focus. Others have charged that the ridiculing of modestly endowed men is sexist and harmful, contributing to body issues for men similar to that of young women over their weight or breast size.

External links

    * home of HBO's Sex and the City
    * Sex and the City episode guide at TVTome.com
    * Carrie's Diary - Sex and the City fan site
    * Sex and the City fan site (German)
    * Sex and the City at the Internet Movie Database