Has it really been seventeen years? Unbelievable how time flies! Instead of younger women living in NYC looking for love and careers that fulfill them, now we have a whole different kettle of fish. Those fish are no longer guppies but grown ass middle-aged women settled in relationships and jobs. That does not mean that there is no longer any struggle or strife. Just a different sort.
Right off the bat, there is a big difference. No Samantha. For me, the dynamic is off. Like one side of a perfectly calibrated square is missing. Throws all else off kilter. The reason why Sex and the City worked is because you had four different types of women. They all played off of each other. Completed one another. Without Samantha, the series is at a disadvantage. Then there is the whole Mr. Big thing…but that is a whole other thing. Moving on…
We start off getting reacquainted with Carrie (played by Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (played by Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (played by Kristin Davis). Like a favourite old shoe, you slip it right back on. We start seeing the characters we fell in love with around the turn of the century until its last season in 2004. Miranda is just as uptight, Carrie is just as sarcastic, needy and filled with anxious energy. Charlotte is just as proper and concerned with how things look to others. We step right into the lives of women in their 50s and what love and friendship look like at that stage in life.
What Sex and the City was known for was its fashion, great guests, romantic ups and downs, crazy situations the four women got into that led to plenty of discussions between women the following days after watching it, and the witty dialogue. A lot of what made it work in the past was not there in the present. Or at least in the first season. Maybe they will correct that for season two.
Still a thirty-minute show, the ten episodes seem to have forgotten that women around the world turned to it to escape with some serious topics sprinkled in to balance things out. Now they are just trying too hard. You see it and feel it.
After watching season one I totally understand why they changed the title as it really is just a shadow of its former self.
