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Sex and the City
(3rd Season)
Click the
picture to order this whole season on DVD!
(Original review posted
10/15/00; updated in 2002 due to DVD release)
The season:
There are some things in
the universe that are best left unexplained. This includes the alleged need to
make a third Sex and the City season on HBO. Sure, it was
unique and inspired, in its first season (now available on DVD/VHS), though is now
way behind all other HBO fare.
It's hardly more raunchy than a Real Sex special, and it hardly talks
more about sex than a Taxi Cab Confessions Special. Last of all,
puh-leeze, it's not half as entertaining as The Sopronos
(don't even think about debating that one!). Worst of all, would these
neurotic chain smoking bimbos please quit their petty whining?!? Still, people are glued
to their sets, and are even pondering what to watch on Sundays, now that
it's gone. To be totally honest, I myself missed only one or two episodes
this season. However, that doesn't keep me from admitting it sucked.
The series is based on writings by Candace Bushnell, who seems to have written
some good work, when based on the first
season. The problems with making a series based on a collection of stories
is this; in order to keep the original plot alive, you have to stretch the
concept like cheap taffy, which may or may not be so believable after 3 years.
As a result, the once-short story of Mr. Big and Carrie
now seems overdrawn, lame and overdone. Would an allegedly
successful, intellectual journalist/writer for a NYC newspaper still be
pining over one guy, like some sort of little lost puppy? Carrie, sweetie; if he's
married, and the wife isn't you, get over it, and move on. Even if the
marriage isn't working, that doesn't mean you have to be the slut to wedge
them apart; get over it, and move on. Oh, and by the way; yes, dear, his
wife was cuter than you; get over it, and move on! The same
request goes to the current scriptwriters: get a life, and give
Carrie one, too. Please...?
The rest of the current story arcs, involving all four
women, are no better than the Carrie/Big cliché. These four
"muskateerettes" have reasons for leaving their lovers this
season, that are too pathetic to be laughable. Miranda, for example, leaves
this totally terrific, caring guy, because a puppy he bought kept her up at night.
Gosh,
sweetie, you really have your problems, don't you? Meanwhile, Carrie is
forced to break up with an equally terrific guy (played by John Corbett), because
she can't keep from thinking about Mr. Big, has an affair with the
now-MARRIED Mr. Big, then confesses it to her boyfriend like the total,
fertilizer-for-brains moron that she is. As for the caricatures of Samantha
and Charlotte, well, Sam has a lot of sex, and Charlotte doesn't. Seriously,
you know a series is desperate for "plot twists" when the slut of
the series keeps her clothes on nearly all season, while the
"pristine" Kirsten Davis does her first topless scene.
Will the wonderfully imaginative writing never cease on this show?
 Sarcasm
aside (though no less blunt), I think the real problem I have with SatC
is that these four "independent" ladies are just one or two
decades away from being The Golden Girls. No, that's rude to
the Golden Girls; at least they all were senior citizens, who had a life.
These girls have yet to get one. Carrie seems to constantly moan about her
troubles, rarely caring about her lovers' feelings at all. Miranda,
for all her flaunting of her job as a lawyer, never seems to have time to be
in the courtroom for one single day; she's too busy whining about little puppy
dogs who whine for attention in the middle of the night (much like herself).
Charlotte is peeved because her husband doesn't give her enough sex, then
when he improves, she passionately kisses the gardener anyway, piffling her
entire newlywed marriage away. As for Samantha, the ex-"star" of
movies like Porky's simply had a lot of sex. All four
"ladies" are probably the feminine equivalent of Freaks
& Geeks, yet are too busy buying shoes and matching purses to
care.
By
the series finale, it seems apparent that another season would be a very
tough sell. When the only thing the series hasn't done yet is a story about
black male transvestite hookers --and the finale makes a whole story about
them-- you know that the series is desperate for new plots. It's even more
distressing to note that this subplot is acceptable, if only because
it keeps the viewer from gagging themselves over yet another story where
Carrie "must" see Mr. Big...again. Get over it, girl, and maybe we might not get over Sex and the City. For now, I
probably have...
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