Hilarious and Excellent, Regardless of Your Gender, HBO’s Landmark Comedy Changed the Landscape of TV Comedy

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Network television pretty much ruled the world from the inception of the TV until the late ‘90s. What happened in the late ‘90s? HBO showed up. Specifically, two HBO shows showed up – one that would redefine TV drama, and another that would redefine TV comedy. 

 

The drama game-changer was a little show about a mob boss balancing his family with his criminal responsibilities, called “The Sopranos.” And the comedy game-changer? That would be a little show about four gal pals navigating relationships in New York City, called “Sex and the City,” which I, only just now, twenty freaking years later, had the pleasure of watching from beginning to end, and now can justly and properly hail as one of the best comedies in TV history. 

 

Granted, it’s not perfect – the first season has a really dreadful mockumentary, fourth-wall breaking approach that, thankfully, they ditch five or six episodes in. There’s also a pretty stunted penultimate season, where Sarah Jessica Parker essentially demanded a short season because of her being pregnant, resulting in an awkward run of episodes that feels out of place. 

 

But the rest of the show’s run is awesome, centering on four characters who are extremely well-fleshed out, complex, and impeccably cast – the charismatic Carrie Bradshaw (SJP), romantic Charlotte York (Kristen Davis), cynical Miranda Hobbes (a killer Cynthia Nixon) and, in legitimately one of the great sitcom roles and characters of ALL TIME, sex-positive and flippantly independent Samantha Jones, played with magnificent gusto by Kim Catrall, who should have won like 7 Emmys. 

 

And while these characters are known for their niches, some praise definitely needs to be given for their realism. “Sex and the City” has a really cool ability to have these characters arguing with each other, or with the parade of men they interact with, and have both sides be just in their argument and both sides also be wrong. The show overall handles relationships, drama, and friendships in an authentic way, let alone a comedic way, that makes it so much more than the “show for girls” reputation that it seems to have, and, whatever gender you assign to yourself, just a bona fide great show and a total classic. 

 

The modern expanse of premium channel/streaming service comedy, in all its raunchiness and daring and realism, owes a lot to “Sex and the City,” just like the landscape of TV drama owes to “The Sopranos.” To quote Samantha Jones, it’s fabulous.