Now that my feet are firmly planted back into the soil of reality (see http://www.epinions.com/content_3322912900 for details), I can now discuss with you something a little more understandable to the masses. This week, I plowed through the second season DVD set of Sex and The City, the HBO program about, in simple terms, four single Manhattan women attempting to survive the landmines of sex and relationships.

Essentially, little has changed since the first season (http://www.epinions.com/content_56491937412). Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is still the sex columnist with a screwed up love life of her own, and buys lots of shoes and cigarettes to keep her occupied. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is a lawyer, who is incredibly cynical about her own prospects for love. Charlotte (Kristen Davis) is a manager at an art gallery who still pines for Mr. Right to sweep her off her feet and propose marriage to her. And Samantha (Kim Catrall) has her own PR firm, and has long ago cut away the trappings of love and romance, to concentrate on an extraordinary (even for this show) life of sexual hedonism.

I say little has changed, because, of course, the show is still about these four women and their experiences with love and sex. Of course, a show called Sex and The City has a lot of sex in it, and these four women have more sex, and more sexual partners, than even a very active real-life person could ever have -- and I know that many people will say that these women are horrible so-and-so’s (but that says more about the accusers than the accused). But I never believed that the creators intended everything here to be an accurate portrayal. You have to sacrifice in the name of art -- and, if the whole point of the show is to deal with quirky aspects of the sexual arena, then of course, your characters are going to have to experience those aspects. And besides, the show is just so fun and over-the-top like a good sitcom should be. I also think that there are elements in this show that have some grain of truth in them, even if the results are more for entertainment purposes than for sociological ones. Certainly, while the characters are closer to symbols, stereotypes, archetypes, or what have you, some of the stuff they do and say is relatable.

Carrie has a maddening relationship with Mr. Big (why in the hell does this guy not have a real name? The scripts make pains to avoid this!) -- in the course of the 2nd season, they break up, then get back together again, and then... but I won’t reveal everything. Let’s just say that Carrie hopes that this time it will be different -- that Big will be closer to what she wants in a relationship. Someone who is more committal, someone who is more emotional... and someone who will let her move some of her knick-knacks to his house, so she’ll have her own hairdryer and toothbrush already there when she stays over. It’s pretty painful to watch these two sometimes, because it’s clear that Carrie is hopelessly neurotic over this guy, and is unable to either get over him (when they are apart), or blowing up at him whenever he’s done one “wrong” thing too many (when they are together). At the same time, you can feel for someone who feels so disappointed over a guy whom she, nevertheless, has strong feelings for. I know that I’ve been disappointed many a time with certain women, even while still wanting to have them in my life -- or maybe I’m just needy, like Carrie seems to be sometimes.

Miranda is the cynical one, who complains about her inability to find decent men, or get any real good dates (I don’t know, in one season -- hell, six or seven episodes -- she’s had more decent dates and sex than I ever had in twenty six years!) She has a one-night-stand with a bartender, and has internalized so much the notion that men who engage in one night stands don’t give a crap about the woman the next day, that she does all she can to ensure that the two never contact again. He is persistent, however, and later, gets upset with her when he’s had enough of her subsequent behavior. I think that her actions in this episode are as much a self-hatred as anything else -- she doesn’t want to believe that any guy would actually want to be with her, as opposed to just any old woman for a one-night-stand. But anyone who feels unlucky in love would probably experience similar feelings (I know that I have) -- considering some of the weirdoes that she has been with, including the macho, excessively volatile lawyer who p*sses her off at every moment, even as that same attitude is a service in the bedroom.

Charlotte wants to believe that the knight in shining armor is around the corner, and has the whole image of 1950’s style marriage in her head, even as she goes about it in very 21st century ways. She finds herself in many compromising situations, because she falls for both a cute face and her own idealistic expectations; a classic example being when she meets a guy at a wedding party, where, in the space of possibly a couple of hours, she discusses with him on what sort of life they would like to have (and how many kids they would like to raise), fools around with him on the wedding couples’ own bed, and meets his parents. No points for guessing that some stupid slight ruins yet another chance for Charlotte. It seems that Charlotte wants to be the optimist; she wants to believe that perfect love really exists -- although every experience seems to prove otherwise.

Samantha is, of course, the truly wild one of the group. It’s naturally always interesting to see what sort of situation she finds herself in next. If it’s not the guy with the small penis, it’s the guy with the very big penis. If it’s not agreeing to a threesome with a gay male couple who want to see what it’s like to be with a woman, it’s going out with a sports fanatic who won’t have sex with her until the Knicks win a game for once, much to her genuine dismay. It’s not too difficult for me to enjoy seeing such a woman on screen, who is truly the epitome of female sexual aggression -- here is someone who knows what she wants and has no problems in seeking it out. She hasn’t any shame. However, I also know that in real life, I would probably find a woman like that to be way too much to handle -- she focuses so much on sex, and doesn’t seem to want to connect with men on any other level. But then we learn that she has had her heart broken once, when she bumps into a long-lost love who betrayed her. Suddenly, it makes a lot of sense -- she fills the emotional void in her life with lots and lots of meaningless sex. Maybe it’s just me, but I envision Samantha to be an almost tragic-comic figure -- she is comic because of her full-throttle attitude toward sex, but tragic because you wonder if that same attitude will really make her happy in the end.

I am making the show sound more serious than it is, of course. Sex and The City is really just raunchy fun, with four sexy, unique women (although Kim Catrall’s performance is the most priceless of them all). One of the good things about this show is that it is so frank about sex, yet doesn’t really feel like soft-porn (to me, a show like Red Shoe Diaries is porn, while Sex and The City is just raunchy) -- the show isn’t really meant to turn you on, but meant to make you laugh. The sex scenes are always part and parcel of the storyline. Another great aspect is how every episode puts a somewhat novel spin on the relationship topic at hand. One episode begins at a S&M theme night at a restaurant, but the spin to the episode is that many people, including Carrie and Mr. Big, engage in an emotional version of sadomasochism.

To be truthful, the show is over-the-top, and all four characters are neurotic, and are not always likable. But it’s better to be consistent with your characters, than to go out of your way to make them totally acceptable to every single viewer. Yes, sometimes these women bug me, but at the same time, I understand. Love sucks, and it scars us all.

As with my last Sex and The City review, I will take a moment to gloat a bit about the state of television here in Canada. Unlike you guys in America, we don’t have the sort of blanket censorship that exists on the American over-the-air networks. I know that it’s pretty difficult to get a naughty word past the censors on the Big Four, and if you tried, religious groups, advertisers, and the FCC would be on your back. Shows like Sex And the City, The Sopranos, and Six Feet Under are only seen on a channel where one has to pay more than ten bucks a month to receive.

Now, look at Canada. Essentially, as long as a show is broadcast after nine pm, and if it doesn’t break the (quite liberal) code of broadcaster’s conduct, or any major obscenity laws, then it’s pretty much okay to air anything. Sex and The City airs here on the Canadian version of Bravo!, which is basic cable, which means you get commercials, but still get all the sexy and vulgar content of an HBO program.

The Sopranos, on the other hand, is even more interesting, because new episodes did air on The Movie Channel, which is basically a low-rent HBO. But the reruns are available for anyone with a television and a set of rabbit-ears; that’s right -- free television, on one of the major Canadian networks. And of course, the big deal was the fact that it was uncensored -- HBO was in fact a bit upset at us, until they realized that, unlike in America, we can get away with airing this stuff on free TV.

One of my favorite shows from years ago, The Larry Sanders Show, one of the first high-profile HBO productions, also aired on free TV -- on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the public broadcaster, which means that our tax dollars actually assist in allowing such programs, with all the motherf*ckers and horsesh*ts intact, on the air. Isn’t Canada great???

In the end, however, it’s great to have the DVD sets of these shows, especially since, now, I live in my own apartment, and am too cheap to spring for cable, basic or otherwise. All I can say is that I’m hoping to get around to renting Season Three of Sex and The City -- that’s if I’ll have time to watch nine hours of a TV show, in one week, on top of a full-time job. Wow, isn’t my life grand?

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening