How Sex and the City changed TV as we knew it

Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis and Kim Cattrall shot to fame in Sex and the City. Photo / Supplied

Twenty-three years ago, a show about four fashionable women living in New York City burst on to our screens – and everything changed.

It was the series that bravely went where no woman had gone before, changing the face of television in the process.

When Sex And The City arrived on the scene in 1998 it was unlike anything we had seen before. For starters, here we had a bona fide movie star, Sarah Jessica Parker, doing TV, and cable TV, at that.

Sure, television is now awash with Oscar winners – think Meryl Streep in Big Little Lies, Nicole Kidman in The Undoing and Reese Witherspoon in Morning Wars – but in the 1990s, the small screen was still seen as the lesser medium to cinema.

Shows like Sex And The City, Six Feet Under and The Sopranos changed all that. Their groundbreaking storytelling attracted big-name actors and huge audiences to boot.

When Sex And The City came to its climax back in 2004, series creator Darren Star – the man also behind Melrose Place and Emily In Paris – said, "I think that what really broke new ground in this show was the attitudes that we sort of presented about women and their sexuality, and the idea that, you know, women were … these independent, sexual creatures who weren't just necessarily looking to get married and settle down.

The show was a bona fide success. Photo / AP

"And while that's not necessarily a revolutionary statement, it wasn't one that had been presented in such a frank and outrageous kind of way."

So, what's so groundbreaking about four fashionable women sipping cocktails and talking about their sex lives? A lot, actually.

It may seem hard to believe now, but back then, aside from The Golden Girls, you didn't really see women over a certain age enjoying the single life, let alone exploring their sexuality and sex in general.

Sex And The City gave us four women – shoe-obsessed Carrie (Parker), sex-positive Samantha (Kim Cattrall), hopeless romantic Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and no-nonsense Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) – who weren't afraid to talk about, and have lots of, sex.

Plus, the women were in their mid-30s to 40s and (shock, horror) unmarried.

While the show has in more recent years been criticised for its lack of diversity, it found a loyal fanbase for its fabulous fashion, frank portrayal of sex and focus on female friendships.

To this day, there are tour buses filled with devotees visiting the New York locations where it was filmed.

While some shows that followed – such as Cashmere Mafia (starring our very own Frances O'Connor and Miranda Otto) and Lipstick Jungle (with Brooke Shields) – felt like poor imitations, more recent incarnations such as Girls, starring Lena Dunham, fared better.

With that in mind, it's easy to see why some question whether the Sex And The City revival And Just Like That – which hits streaming with a double episode premiere on Neon this Friday – can live up to the legacy of its predecessor, especially without Cattrall and stylist Patricia Field on board for the ride.