Four women in New York — between friendship, work, love, and sex, between chic outfits, stiletto heels, and Cosmopolitan cocktails. That was the winning formula that made the series Sex and the City a worldwide sensation at the turn of the millennium — especially within the queer community.
Six seasons were followed by two feature films, and in 2021 there was another sequel series with “And Just Like That…” — but after three seasons of this continuation, it’s now set to end for good.
On Thursday the final episode of the HBO series premieres in the United States and on Friday in Germany on Sky and WOW. “It is really the end of a television era,” commented Cosmopolitan magazine.
Fans worldwide grew up with the four friends
So open, relaxed, and funny, as well as independent and self-determined as Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) had perhaps never before in television spent so much time talking about their lives in general and their sex lives in particular.
In the United States, the first episode of “Sex and the City” aired in 1998, and from there it took the world by storm. It arrived in Germany in 2001. The series, based on Candace Bushnell’s books about sex and dating, was award-winning and became a cultural phenomenon.
Millions of fans followed the ups and downs in the lives of the four friends, identified with them, or often with one in particular, and basically grew up alongside them.
Even after the six seasons of “Sex and the City” ended in 2004, the mourning among fans was immense. Two films in 2008 and 2010 offered consolation, even if the reviews for the second film were partly devastating.
However, there was also criticism of the negative portrayal of bisexuality or of transgender people in the original series. This was commented on by the main cast. Cynthia Nixon said, for instance, in May that some of the queer stories are “hard to watch” today.
sequel series with an “even more complicated reality” after 50
The surprising announcement of a sequel series in 2021 sparked a wave of enthusiasm. In “And Just Like That…” the friends are no longer navigating the “complicated reality of life and friendships in their thirties” but the “even more complicated reality” of being over fifty.
And they were down to just three. Cattrall had exited. Her sex-obsessed character Samantha had been especially celebrated within the gay community. Rumors of behind-the-scenes feuding, particularly with Parker, persisted.
Queer topics, such as non-binary identities and bisexuality, took up more space in the new series (TheColu.mn reported). Yet the portrayal of queerness was criticized at times, especially the somewhat contrived way Miranda’s relationship with the much-disliked nonbinary Che Diaz (Sara Ramírez) was shown. In the third season, Che Diaz therefore disappeared.
“I’m not ready to say goodbye yet”
Now the farewell again. “I’m not ready to say goodbye to Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte,” lamented a columnist for Harper’s Bazaar — and likely spoke for many fans from the heart.
Producer Michael Patrick King, however, saw it differently. While he had written the final episode of the third season, he made it clear that he considered this a good moment to bring the story to a close.
“Carrie Bradshaw has dominated my professional heartbeat for the past 27 years. I think I loved her more than any other character,” commented lead actress Sarah Jessica Parker, and colleague Kristin Davis said she was “deeply saddened.”
Will the series only ever be a “Hate-Watch”?
Whether the farewell was truly voluntary remained open. The reviews for the third season were mixed, and viewer numbers declined. Many fans commented on social media that they were watching the show mainly as a “hate-watch” — to mock it.
“It’s time for a relieved sigh,” also commented The Guardian. One simply has to admit that “And Just Like That…” was never as good as “Sex and the City” — and that deeply disappointed genuine fans of the four friends.
Is there still hope for the “Sex and the City generation”?
“We’ll just keep going,” Parker had claimed as the recipe for “And Just Like That…” But perhaps the world around them has changed too much in the past roughly 30 years.
In a way that the original fans aren’t reaching them as easily anymore, and they haven’t managed to attract new audiences from a completely different generation either.
To the still-loyal fans of the “Sex and the City generation,” there remains the hope that the storyline could continue at some point — after all, that hope has already been fulfilled twice before.
And fans will likely continue to flock to the original shooting locations in New York. In recent years, so many have done so that the owner of the main actress Parker’s TV house in the West Village even applied to the historic preservation office for a gate at the staircase.
