Sex and the City: The Complete Third Season

The third season was the charm for one of HBO's gold standard series, which earned its first Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series to go along with its Golden Globes for Best Comedy Series and Best Actress (for Sarah Jessica Parker). The writing is as sharp as ever, with more trendy product placement than a Bret Easton Ellis novel and ribald banter that's a cross between the Algonquin Round Table and the Friars Club. "Do we need drama to make a relationship work?" Carrie muses at one point. Sex and the City needs drama to make it work, and Parker and Cynthia Nixon (as career woman Miranda)--this quartet ensemble's better half--give the show its beating heart as they wrestle with commitment and, in the episode "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," sadder-but-wiser breakups. On the somewhat lighter side, one of this season's two principal story arcs concerns hapless-in-love Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and her pursuit of a husband: enter Kyle MacLachlan as the unfortunately impotent Trey. Meanwhile, sex columnist Carrie has a brief but memorable fling with a politician who's golden (but not in the way she anticipated), and the sexual dalliances of "rude and politically incorrect" Samantha (Kim Cattrall) also provide great fodder for comedy (not to mention nudity). Like I Love Lucy, the series benefited from a brief change of scenery with a three-episode jaunt to Los Angeles, where Carrie and company encounter, among others, Matthew McConaughey, Vince Vaughn, Hugh Hefner, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. At its best, to quote one character, Sex and the City is "sharp, edgy, brutal at times, always a little juicy." It may be "very New York," but the sex and relationship issues it tackles are universal. For its devoted fans, the release of this 18-episode, three-disc set is, to quote Gellar's clueless Hollywood junior development exec, "chick flick big." Highly recommended. (D. Liebenson)