I hate the name. Sex and the city? sounded so cheesy and not attractive at all, and all I could think of is rich, beautiful NYC girl talking about shoes, bags or well, sex. But I was beyond surprised after I finish watching the first episode. It was sharp, stylish and accompanied by great acting. I like the first episode, it was done well. Sarah Jessica Parker might not be the hottest TV female star of the 90's, but she surely steal every scene she is in. I think the series reputation as 'chick flick' might be damaged on the eyes of male viewers, though its not as great as football games or X-files but for a romance and comedy genre series? It sure has class!
10 Reviews
Jazz and Sex
risingtides8828 February 2014
We're introduced to the four main protagonists for the first time here and it's a competent beginning. We catch a glimpse of each of the girls' different personalities and ideas about love and relationships. While I get that Miranda is supposed to be the 'feminist' of the group, she's such a ball buster that it's hard to believe any guy would bother to take any interest in her at all. She treats Skipper like dirt and he still pursues her. Not believable. Her abrasive personality and clear disdain of men is a complete turn off. And it's not like she's so beautiful that her looks make up for her prickly nature. A bone of contention: the 'English girl' at the beginning of the episode is supposed to be from London, however, she is clearly Australian with her accent. Not sure why they couldn't have made her from Sydney, or simply cast an actual British actress. The jazz that accompanies this episode is a perfect complement to the seductive themes of sex, lust and attraction. It's a pity it's not woven throughout the entire series. It feels like it could have been another character, like New York. Loved the freeze frame on Carrie at the end. Coupled with the soundtrack it felt very film noir.
An Introduction to Dating in New York City
nycritic8 June 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Candace Bushnell's column "Sex and the City" was compiled into a best-selling book, and this book became the basis for this hit HBO series which told the overlapping stories of four thirty-somethings living and dating in the Concrete Jungle.
The stories were never intended to be deep, or emotionally shattering, but presented a Jane Austen-like universe of social manners. It's been considered part of a genre called chick-lit, which specializes in lightweight romance with an emphasis in contemporary settings and plucky heroines.
One of these heroines is Carrie Bradshaw, who narrates the entire series, and as such serves as its omniscient conscience. She starts out by telling the ill-fated romance between an Englishwoman and a New Yorker and ponders if romance is something people have run away from like if it were the plague.
With faux-interviews, we're introduced to the other three women -- Charlotte York, Samantha Jones, and Miranda Hobbes. While Charlotte decides that playing it safe is the best way to go, and Samantha has risen to a position where she can be as aggressive as a man when it comes to sex, Miranda comments on the fate of an acquaintance who one day awoke to find that she was forty-one, single, and childless and realized that it was time to pack her bags and return to Wisconsin to live with her parents.
There's a cute rebuttal -- an indirect dialogue of sorts -- between inter-cutting with the opinions of the women, particularly Miranda, and two "toxic bachelors" who couldn't be bothered with settling down, at least not with thirty-somethings. It's almost as if there were this unspoken battle of the sexes taking place within these five odd minutes that take up this sequence, ending with the fact that maybe it was time women had sex like men, a thought Sarah Jessica Parker addresses to us, the viewer. It a great montage, and one that would be the quirky staple of the series up until the second season when it would be dropped altogether for a more linear style of narration.
"Sex and the City" has another great moment, and it occurs fairly late in the episode: it's the moment when the mysterious stranger known only as "Mr. Big" enters the picture. I can't imagine any other actor playing this role other than Chris Noth. While in reality, the man whom "Mr. Big" was based on was completely different and quite unattractive, the series has to sell the "tall, dark, and handsome" type, and he embodies it to the hilt. With his piercing green eyes and his smoldering voice, it's a wonder anyone would resist him. His presence serves as the unattainable romantic ideal that any woman would want and initiates one of the series' longest story lines.
As an introduction, it's a great episode, but not spectacular. None of the actresses are yet in their skins as much as testing their roles, but show glimpses of what their characters would become in later episodes. Sarah Jessica Parker clearly knows her part already because in previous films she'd already played variants of her character. Her interaction with Chris Noth is fantastic, and bubbles with unspoken eroticism. Kristen Davis is the easiest to see because her character, Charlotte York, is all sweet idealism even when she's put in a place when that might not work well. Kim Cattrall walks away with the episode with her sensual interaction with Noth, although the then-unknown Cynthia Nixon is sharp and aggressive in an androgynous way as the go-getter who is cynical about relationships.
The episode begins one part of a parenthesis with Chris Noth's unforgettable closing line in answering Parker's question "Have you ever been in love?" This is one of the great opening pilots of one of the most modern of series.
The stories were never intended to be deep, or emotionally shattering, but presented a Jane Austen-like universe of social manners. It's been considered part of a genre called chick-lit, which specializes in lightweight romance with an emphasis in contemporary settings and plucky heroines.
One of these heroines is Carrie Bradshaw, who narrates the entire series, and as such serves as its omniscient conscience. She starts out by telling the ill-fated romance between an Englishwoman and a New Yorker and ponders if romance is something people have run away from like if it were the plague.
With faux-interviews, we're introduced to the other three women -- Charlotte York, Samantha Jones, and Miranda Hobbes. While Charlotte decides that playing it safe is the best way to go, and Samantha has risen to a position where she can be as aggressive as a man when it comes to sex, Miranda comments on the fate of an acquaintance who one day awoke to find that she was forty-one, single, and childless and realized that it was time to pack her bags and return to Wisconsin to live with her parents.
There's a cute rebuttal -- an indirect dialogue of sorts -- between inter-cutting with the opinions of the women, particularly Miranda, and two "toxic bachelors" who couldn't be bothered with settling down, at least not with thirty-somethings. It's almost as if there were this unspoken battle of the sexes taking place within these five odd minutes that take up this sequence, ending with the fact that maybe it was time women had sex like men, a thought Sarah Jessica Parker addresses to us, the viewer. It a great montage, and one that would be the quirky staple of the series up until the second season when it would be dropped altogether for a more linear style of narration.
"Sex and the City" has another great moment, and it occurs fairly late in the episode: it's the moment when the mysterious stranger known only as "Mr. Big" enters the picture. I can't imagine any other actor playing this role other than Chris Noth. While in reality, the man whom "Mr. Big" was based on was completely different and quite unattractive, the series has to sell the "tall, dark, and handsome" type, and he embodies it to the hilt. With his piercing green eyes and his smoldering voice, it's a wonder anyone would resist him. His presence serves as the unattainable romantic ideal that any woman would want and initiates one of the series' longest story lines.
As an introduction, it's a great episode, but not spectacular. None of the actresses are yet in their skins as much as testing their roles, but show glimpses of what their characters would become in later episodes. Sarah Jessica Parker clearly knows her part already because in previous films she'd already played variants of her character. Her interaction with Chris Noth is fantastic, and bubbles with unspoken eroticism. Kristen Davis is the easiest to see because her character, Charlotte York, is all sweet idealism even when she's put in a place when that might not work well. Kim Cattrall walks away with the episode with her sensual interaction with Noth, although the then-unknown Cynthia Nixon is sharp and aggressive in an androgynous way as the go-getter who is cynical about relationships.
The episode begins one part of a parenthesis with Chris Noth's unforgettable closing line in answering Parker's question "Have you ever been in love?" This is one of the great opening pilots of one of the most modern of series.
The first episode from this excellent TV series
Lady_Targaryen4 April 2006
Warning: Spoilers
''Sex and the City'' is the first episode of the ''Sex and The City's series''. Here we see a small introduction of all the main characters (Charlotte,Miranda,Samantha and Carrie) and their reasons to give up on love. Carrie sees Mr. Big for first time,but even founding him handsome,they are just strangers to each other. We also see Skipper Johnston and Stanford Blatch, two of Carrie's best friends, the first starts to go out with Miranda and the second one, the gay one, is totally dedicated to the only model and client of his business,Derek. Samantha tries to have Sex with Mr. Big, but she doesn't have success. And Carries tries for the first time to have ''sex like a man'' enjoying and hating at the same time.
aka "Sexo e a Cidade" - Brazil
aka "Sexo e a Cidade" - Brazil
Great show? Abso-f*cking-lutely!
MaxBorg895 May 2008
"Why are there so many great unmarried women, and no great unmarried men?" asks thirty-something Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), directly addressing the camera. That is one of the several questions she, as a newspaper columnist, tries to answer in the 94 episodes of one of the most fascinating TV shows of the '90s.
Her doubt stems from an encounter with a British woman (Sarah Wynter) who was inexplicably dumped by a New Yorker despite having looked at a house with him, which actually mean something in London according to her. Of course, Carrie readily informs her (and us), the same rules don't apply in New York, where romance appears to be dead. To prove her point, she interviews some of her acquaintances, dividing them in three categories: Toxic Bachelors (all the male interviewees except one), Hopeless Romantics (the guy who was left out earlier) and Unmarried Women (Carrie's best friends). It is with the latter that the protagonist subsequently has a cup of coffee, allowing the audience to know these ladies a little better: Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) is a cynical lawyer who has lost nearly all faith in the male gender; Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), an art gallerist, shares Carrie's belief that true love does exist; and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), a PR woman, is arguably the "worst" of the group, as she sleeps with a different man every night and claims women should be able to have sex like men, i.e. without any feelings involved. Carrie sets out to test this theory, eventually running into a handsome stranger known only as Mr. Big (Chris Noth)...
Based on the eponymous book by Candace Bushnell, the show also owes a lot to Jane Austen (the sharp female wit) and Woody Allen (the reflection on love in the Big Apple), combining the two aspects in a practically flawless exercise in smart comedy. If a complaint has to be made, it would be that the straight-to-camera asides (used in early episodes) come off as a little distracting from the main narrative flow, which is marvelous: dealing with a familiar yet interesting topic through the eyes of four wonderful "heroines" (all perfectly defined in less than five minutes - very remarkable), it generates 23 minutes of solid, heartfelt laughs.
The cast is quite simply astounding, especially the more pessimistic, and therefore funnier, Miranda and Samantha, with Nixon's cold intellectual ideally counterbalanced by Cattrall's feisty man-eater. Astonishingly, though, considering the latter's foul mouth in the remainder of the series, it is a bit of a surprise to find out that the pilot is the show's least profane episode, the F-word being spoken only twice: once by Nixon as the girls discuss The Last Seduction (one of the reasons they believe emotionless sex is possible), and once by the irresistibly charming Noth (the program's best male cast-member) in the last scene, which acts as the beginning of the serial's juiciest storyline. Absolutely fabulous.
Her doubt stems from an encounter with a British woman (Sarah Wynter) who was inexplicably dumped by a New Yorker despite having looked at a house with him, which actually mean something in London according to her. Of course, Carrie readily informs her (and us), the same rules don't apply in New York, where romance appears to be dead. To prove her point, she interviews some of her acquaintances, dividing them in three categories: Toxic Bachelors (all the male interviewees except one), Hopeless Romantics (the guy who was left out earlier) and Unmarried Women (Carrie's best friends). It is with the latter that the protagonist subsequently has a cup of coffee, allowing the audience to know these ladies a little better: Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) is a cynical lawyer who has lost nearly all faith in the male gender; Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), an art gallerist, shares Carrie's belief that true love does exist; and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), a PR woman, is arguably the "worst" of the group, as she sleeps with a different man every night and claims women should be able to have sex like men, i.e. without any feelings involved. Carrie sets out to test this theory, eventually running into a handsome stranger known only as Mr. Big (Chris Noth)...
Based on the eponymous book by Candace Bushnell, the show also owes a lot to Jane Austen (the sharp female wit) and Woody Allen (the reflection on love in the Big Apple), combining the two aspects in a practically flawless exercise in smart comedy. If a complaint has to be made, it would be that the straight-to-camera asides (used in early episodes) come off as a little distracting from the main narrative flow, which is marvelous: dealing with a familiar yet interesting topic through the eyes of four wonderful "heroines" (all perfectly defined in less than five minutes - very remarkable), it generates 23 minutes of solid, heartfelt laughs.
The cast is quite simply astounding, especially the more pessimistic, and therefore funnier, Miranda and Samantha, with Nixon's cold intellectual ideally counterbalanced by Cattrall's feisty man-eater. Astonishingly, though, considering the latter's foul mouth in the remainder of the series, it is a bit of a surprise to find out that the pilot is the show's least profane episode, the F-word being spoken only twice: once by Nixon as the girls discuss The Last Seduction (one of the reasons they believe emotionless sex is possible), and once by the irresistibly charming Noth (the program's best male cast-member) in the last scene, which acts as the beginning of the serial's juiciest storyline. Absolutely fabulous.
Perfect Pilot
KatherinePetersdorf30 June 2013
The Sex and the City Pilot "Sex and the City" is probably the best pilot I have ever seen. It is was interesting, had a great rhythm, I loved the way she interacted with the audience, and it followed the first three articles featured in the book so very well.
The girls looks a little older in the pilot than the series, which is odd because it was pilot and is filmed long before episode two.
I thought that this episode was Sarah Jessica-Parker's best hairstyle in the series. It fit her face perfectly.
I wasn't a fan of Charlotte wearing glasses, and her hair in the pilot, they were trying to hard to make her look the same age as the other girls.
The girls looks a little older in the pilot than the series, which is odd because it was pilot and is filmed long before episode two.
I thought that this episode was Sarah Jessica-Parker's best hairstyle in the series. It fit her face perfectly.
I wasn't a fan of Charlotte wearing glasses, and her hair in the pilot, they were trying to hard to make her look the same age as the other girls.
25 Years And Still Fabulous!
ccs-967287 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I just finished rewatching Sex and the City 25 years to the date of the airing of the first episode (June 6th.) What a great trip down memory lane with Carrie and company! For me, a nearly 65 year old woman, this show still entertains, still surprises, still delights, and still makes me laugh. I also loved how the writers chose to end the series, with Mr Big finally realizing his love for Carrie and the two coming back to NY, where they belong. I know some have criticized the ending, saying it was a rescue, but I don't see it that way. I think Carrie refused to settle for a relationship where she played second fiddle, and took a chance on real love with the man she'd always wanted.
Sex and the City
Prismark102 February 2020
There was a time especially with female viewers. Sex and the City was smart, hip and brazen. My wife enjoyed watching it. I think the audience of non gay male viewers was rather small.
In this first episode. Carrie Bradshaw talks to the camera about romance Manhattan style. The age of un-innocence. Her friends Miranda and Charlotte are thirtysomething professionals looking for love. They hope to find it before they get too old. Their other friend Samantha just has promiscuous sex and enjoys it, just like a man.
Carrie decides to have an experiment with someone who previously let her down. Have sex with him and just get up and go. No strings.
There is a cheesiness about this show and it is very much evident in this first episode. It just does not ring true and the characters do not come across as real people. It certainly was not edgy or even funny.
These are rich people and I am not even sure how Carrie, a not so highly paid tabloid columnist can even afford to live in Manhattan or have this lifestyle. It is certainly not as smart as it thinks it is, it does come across as smug. Then again I was never the prime audience for this show. However the first episode does have a peppiness to it.
In this first episode. Carrie Bradshaw talks to the camera about romance Manhattan style. The age of un-innocence. Her friends Miranda and Charlotte are thirtysomething professionals looking for love. They hope to find it before they get too old. Their other friend Samantha just has promiscuous sex and enjoys it, just like a man.
Carrie decides to have an experiment with someone who previously let her down. Have sex with him and just get up and go. No strings.
There is a cheesiness about this show and it is very much evident in this first episode. It just does not ring true and the characters do not come across as real people. It certainly was not edgy or even funny.
These are rich people and I am not even sure how Carrie, a not so highly paid tabloid columnist can even afford to live in Manhattan or have this lifestyle. It is certainly not as smart as it thinks it is, it does come across as smug. Then again I was never the prime audience for this show. However the first episode does have a peppiness to it.
Sex
bevo-136783 December 2020
90's sexual psychology fare
Blueghost16 February 2017
Films are typically designed to inspire and help people reflect, and serve as warnings. Having just seen my first actual "Sex in the City" episode, I can't really say that I found it too entertaining, but it was professionally done enough.
The whole New York upper mobile sex scene seems like a mish mash of crime drama and soap opera without the crime and without the sex. It's a show designed to help men and women (mostly women) find satisfaction in a singles mating hub like New York.
To be honest its an look into an alien environment that seems wholly boring and unattractive all at once. And yet the gloss given to it makes the pop-psychology themes relayed in this show somewhat palatable. That is you can not like it, but still watch it because it has a professionalism that keeps the visuals ... eh, not interesting, but rather "non-boring" (if that's a term). Even so, the story is not that interesting.
Watching my second episode as I write this review, so far the show seems to be focused on psychological power through sexual conquest, and what titillates a man about women to give women insight into how men seek and exercise power through sex.
To this extent, this viewer thinks the show interesting for what it is, but otherwise it's not material that's interesting to me.
Police shows are about formulating and exploring criminal plots and possibilities thereof. Family sitcoms explore familial issues; relationships between parents, kids, friends and neighbors. Other situational comedies explore (usually urban) issues among singles, and "Sex in the City" is a kind of light-drama with comedic overtones minus the laugh track. So it is that "Sex and the City" targets the sexually active single who may be seeking more than just one night stands.
I guess the thing that really gets me about this show is that there's really nothing new here, unless you happen to have not paid attention in biology or some basic natural science about animals. Because if you've done that, then there is absolutely nothing here that should surprise anyone save the naïve and those wanting to be naïve for the sake of personal thrills. That, and the cast could have been a bit more diverse. I mean, where's the young sexy Inuit girl from Alaska, or Chinese single immigrant female seeking passion, or the Latina who wants all kinds of sex? Well, New York commercial film making circles have their prejudices, and token Anglos do not a series make.
If you've never seen it, have read my previous tirades, prattle and other musings, and want my advice, maybe see the first couple episodes out of curiosity, but otherwise pass it up.
Watch at your own risk.
The whole New York upper mobile sex scene seems like a mish mash of crime drama and soap opera without the crime and without the sex. It's a show designed to help men and women (mostly women) find satisfaction in a singles mating hub like New York.
To be honest its an look into an alien environment that seems wholly boring and unattractive all at once. And yet the gloss given to it makes the pop-psychology themes relayed in this show somewhat palatable. That is you can not like it, but still watch it because it has a professionalism that keeps the visuals ... eh, not interesting, but rather "non-boring" (if that's a term). Even so, the story is not that interesting.
Watching my second episode as I write this review, so far the show seems to be focused on psychological power through sexual conquest, and what titillates a man about women to give women insight into how men seek and exercise power through sex.
To this extent, this viewer thinks the show interesting for what it is, but otherwise it's not material that's interesting to me.
Police shows are about formulating and exploring criminal plots and possibilities thereof. Family sitcoms explore familial issues; relationships between parents, kids, friends and neighbors. Other situational comedies explore (usually urban) issues among singles, and "Sex in the City" is a kind of light-drama with comedic overtones minus the laugh track. So it is that "Sex and the City" targets the sexually active single who may be seeking more than just one night stands.
I guess the thing that really gets me about this show is that there's really nothing new here, unless you happen to have not paid attention in biology or some basic natural science about animals. Because if you've done that, then there is absolutely nothing here that should surprise anyone save the naïve and those wanting to be naïve for the sake of personal thrills. That, and the cast could have been a bit more diverse. I mean, where's the young sexy Inuit girl from Alaska, or Chinese single immigrant female seeking passion, or the Latina who wants all kinds of sex? Well, New York commercial film making circles have their prejudices, and token Anglos do not a series make.
If you've never seen it, have read my previous tirades, prattle and other musings, and want my advice, maybe see the first couple episodes out of curiosity, but otherwise pass it up.
Watch at your own risk.
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