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With these eight episodes, HBO's grand sitcom concluded, leaving untold numbers of women--and many men--feeling deprived. The six-year series certainly did not outlast its welcome; the final season is some of the best TV had to offer in 2004. In many ways, the eight episodes served as a single finale, with all four characters approaching a kind of destiny and happiness, the theme of this last half-season (which aired weeks after the first half). Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) continues her romance with Russian artist (Mikhail Baryshnikov), a flippantly arrogant man who's been around the block, but able to supply Carrie's needed desire for magic. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) has settled down with Steve (David Eigenberg), but there is more that will change with her, including her address. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) continues to make baby plans now that the husband slot is filled quite nicely (Evan Handler). Samantha (Kim Cattrall) brings a good sense of drama to the show with a breast-cancer scare. Going down the final stretch--and Samantha's cancer--gives the series a more serious tone, but there's always a jab to tickle the funny bone: Miranda's awkwardness with happiness, Charlotte's latest passion, Carrie typing someplace new, and Samantha getting into Paris Hilton territory. Like any series winding down, there is a wedding, a baby, old faces popping up, and some star-ladened new ones (like creative consultant Julia Sweeney as a nun). In the final two-part episode, "An American in Paris," Carrie faces her romantic destiny, but also solidifies herself as a fashion icon, an Audrey Hepburn for 21st-century television. In the penultimate episode, she asks her friends an emotional question: "What if I never met you?" Certainly fans can ask of themselves the same question and reminisce how much better TV became since they first tuned in these four women of the City. For the last of the DVD sets, the folks behind SATC give their fans a few more DVD extras. As we find out in the near-hourlong 2004 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Seminar (with executive producer Michael Patrick King, Sarah Jessica Parker, and the writing team), the alternate endings seen here were false leads to throw off the press. Thank goodness--what fan would want one of these endings? More enjoyable is the 11 minutes of deleted scenes from the run of the show. King's expert touches on the commentary are fun to listen to, if a lovefest. And speaking of love, the two farewell tributes are filled with reminiscences and favorite clips, all done with a beautiful fondness for this series. --Doug Thomas
 Customer Reviews 
Love Happy Endings
Rating: 5
I have wanted this particular set of episodes since the series ended. The additional features and expanded content are great. Glad that I finally made this purchase.
Oh great irony!!!
Rating: 1
After making me watch Sex and the City with her, my wife astutely observed that at the heart of this show is a great irony. Touted as a "breakout show" lauding feminism and female empowerment, Sex and the City ironically only managed to portray women as more shallow, superficial, petty and empty-headed than virtually any other television show in history (thank creator Darren Star). Far from challenging whatever backward notions might remain that women are not men's equals, all watching this show would actually do is effectively confirm everything about women that misogynistic chauvinists unfoundedly believe, especially but not limited to the beliefs that women are silly, adolescent, juvenile and totally unencumbered by any burdens of logic, adulthood or maturity. Great progress.
Tiring quickly of Carrie Bradshaw's infantile and meaningless ponderings--"Is New York all about change?" "Are new myths required for singles?" "Is life in Manhattan like a bagel with cream cheese?" Here's one: "Is life really all about perpetually asking meaninglessly vacuous questions and then posing witty but ultimately arbitrary responses?"--one is left to wonder what exactly happened to her in childhood that so effectively stunted her emotional development, seemingly forever cementing her personality at about a sixteen/seventeen-year old emotional age. Are we supposed to pity her that "Big" treats her like a little kid, regardless of the fact that she disturbingly acts like an unbalanced little child? I would say no, especially in light of the fact that in real life "Big" and Carrie would probably not be together in the first place.
Another of the show's many absurdities is the foursome of friends that comprise its main characters. Let's face it folks, unless these girls grew up together (and in the show they didn't), these four women would NOT be friends in real life. They would hate each other.
Great
Rating: 5
Wonderful DVD. Really good series. A superb acting cast with very real life issues sometimes with an added twist.
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