39SEX AND THE CITY

Aired: HBO, 1998-2004

Is the show over? Because the movies aren't. Creator Darren Star based his series on Candace Bushnell's book, adapted itself from her columns in the New York Observer. The recipe for the TV series show enough of the female anatomy to keep guys watching, make the relationship angst palpable, add a generous helping of uptown shopping with a pinch of female empowerment proved to be pay cable ambrosia. The first season was more of a referendum on urban singlehood (with people-on-the-street interviews), but under executive producer Michael Patrick King, subsequent seasons crackled with double-entendre and became more unapologetically about the culture's shame reflex toward sex. Whether or not this made the show daring or gratuitous was an ongoing debate, as was the notion that Sex and the City was a gay man's riff on the straight lifestyle; what couldn't be disputed was that audiences were deeply involved with the characters.