Carrie and co are set for a comeback — but can a late-1990s drama really be rebooted?
It was the week when Jeff Bezos put on a cobalt jumpsuit and launched into orbit aboard a spacecraft that looked exactly like a penis. But while the more eccentric foibles of the world's most powerful made for some diversion, this Earth-bound creature was fixed on far more quotidian things. Such as: should Carrie still be wearing such implausible stilettos? What persuaded Charlotte to switch the Cavalier King Charles spaniel for a bulldog? And since when did Stanford Blatch become so elevated that he might be promoted to share a girlie brunch?
I am talking, of course, about Sex and the City, official title And Just Like That, the new television reboot of the premillennial drama about single women in Manhattan, now updated to find our heroines at the mid-50 mark. Filming is currently ongoing on location, prompting a rash of frenzied speculation, costume analysis and press coverage.
I have tried vainly to resist it, but whoever is doing the publicity has laid down a compulsive trail of crumbs. First came the publicity still announcing the commencement: a reunion that has gathered cast members Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis and Sarah Jessica Parker, but in which, it is said, Kim Cattrall will not be playing a part. Then came the fees (the principals will each receive US$1 million for every episode), a flurry of on-set images in which we saw Sarah Jessica Parker marching through Manhattan in her custom Carrie garb, and, last Monday, the appearance of "leaked scripts".
Naturally, the SATC community has been as attentive to each new revelation as devotees attend the holy scrolls. According to the watermarked documents, Carrie has matured from column writing at newspapers to become a podcaster; their stature is imperilled to the point that they now sit at "a cramped table" in a restaurant, "by the DOOR TO THE KITCHEN"; and Stanford (aka, Carrie's Gay Best Friend) has replaced Samantha (Cattrall) to make the foursome whole.
