For some Must readers, the passing of Sex and the City in 2004 was like someone turned up and removed their favourite bathtub. Where else could you put the cares of the world behind you and drift away on a dream of Manhattan banter, glossy fashion, and rollercoaster romances. They may have made do with a decent rain room, and the subsequent movies were like a good soak in a hotel tub. But there was no substitute. At last, 17 years on, the show is back, though feeling a little ‘vintage’. With Kim Cattrall’s oversexed Samantha now sadly over here (London), the fab three are left to fend for themselves in a city no less sexy, even if changed in many ways since they set out in their twenties to conquer it.
+ Uptown and down dirty: Lady Boss – The Jackie Collins Story
We catch up with Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), lunching and true love-hunting with as much of a vengeance as ever. Carrie is now representing cisgender womanhood on a podcast fronted by an altogether different generation. Charlotte’s eyes are wandering from her dependable but all-too-real husband Harry. And Miranda can only wish she was getting half the action of her teenage son. “At least he’s using protection,” Charlotte offers. “Now that is seeing the condom as half-full”. Zingers like this are alas not in over-abundance. And the most bizarre twist happened off-screen, when (limited spoilers here) something involving one of the characters on a Peloton bike sent shares in the company tumbling.
+ The original, unputdownable saga of romance later on: The Golden Girls
The New York Times’ James Poniewozik doffs a cap for the all-too-rarity of an ensemble comedy about women in their fifties. But “that’s an art with little margin for error”, and while the series may not have aged worse than say Girls or Girlfriends might a couple of decades hence, “too often its already off before it hits the plate”. Rolling Stone’s Alan Sepinwall finds it “light on the sex, charm and chemistry of the original”. But in the Independent, Adam White doubles Rolling Stone’s two stars to four, calling it “a return to form… a minor miracle. It’s so good, in fact, that Kim Cattrall must be kicking herself.” Must advises you not to decorate your bathroom with Lucy Mangan’s review in the Guardian, if you simply won’t hear a word against SATC.
First shown December 2021.
