Sex and the City

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Sex and the City is an American cable television program based on the book of the same name. The show, set in New York City, focuses on the love lives of four female best friends who are reaching their forties (although the "Samantha" character was supposed to be older than the other 3 women and as such was already in her forties). A sitcom with soap opera elements, the show often tackles socially relevant issues such as the status of women in society. Produced by the HBO network, the series premiered on June 6, 1998, and the last original episode aired on February 22, 2004.

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 woman, Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), a cynical, career-minded lawyer, and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), a wild-living, fun-loving woman who stops at nothing to get the men she wants.

As time progressed, so did the characters and situations. 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 girl talk, dating games, and fashion attracted much attention from the audiences. The fancy clothes and shoes (mostly Patricia Fields, Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahniks) that Carrie wears made her a fashion icon in many fashion magazines.

In the first season, every 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.

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.

Characters

Main characters

Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) writes a weekly sex column titled Sex and the City for a newspaper. She provides the show's narration, which is structured around her train of thought while writing the column.
Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) is an art dealer with a blue-blooded upbringing. She is the most conservative and traditional of the group, and is always searching for her "knight in shining armor".
Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) is a career-minded lawyer with extremely cynical views on relationships. She is Carrie's confidante.
Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), the oldest 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.

The characters, Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda, are the same age, ranging from 32 to 38 during the series. Samantha's character was 39 years old when the series started and 45 when it ended.

Recurring characters

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

Friends

Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson), a gay fashionista, is Carrie's best friend outside the group and often attends parties with her.
Anthony Marentino (Mario Cantone) is Charlotte's wedding planner who then becomes her best friend outside the group. When she is down, he often tries to motivate her to get out there and date again.

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

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. 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 returns to Carrie. 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.
Aidan Shaw (John Corbett) is one of Carrie's few long-term boyfriends. 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.
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. 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.
Steve Brady (David Eigenberg) is a bartender Miranda has what appears to be a one-night stand with after a bad breakup. He falls for Miranda, and the one-night stand morphs into a relationship. The difference in income between the two becomes a serious issue, and they break up. 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 extremely small, casual ceremony.

Samantha's boyfriends

Richard Wright (James Remar) is a extremely wealthy hotel magnate who becomes Samantha's prey. 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 posing nude for an Absolut ad, his career takes off. 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 loving it.

Cameos

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

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)

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 the Paramount Comedy Channel. 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. In Japan, the show is aired by Lala.tv. In Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, and Indonesia 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.

Sex and the City was heavily advertised – even on highways – which offended some Americans.

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.

Sex and the City

Overview

Characters

Main characters

Recurring characters

Friends

Boyfriends

Carrie's boyfriends

Charlotte's boyfriends

Miranda's boyfriends

Samantha's boyfriends

Cameos

Episodes

Season 1 (1998)

Season 2 (1999)

Season 3 (2000)

Season 4 (2001-2002)

Season 5 (2002)

Season 6 (2003-2004)

Quotations

Broadcasters

Criticism

External links