Product Description

For six seasons Carrie Bradshaw and friends Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte offered us their hilarious, outspoken and outrageous look at dating, mating and relating in the big city. Celebrate the show that explores the day-to-day -- and night-to-night -- world of single women in this, the definitive collector's edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20184 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2005-11-01
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 20
• Dimensions: 3.40 pounds
• Running time: 2820 minutes

Amazon.com
Sex and the City is based on Candace Bushnell's provocative bestselling book. Sarah Jessica Parker stars as Carrie Bradshaw, a self-described "sexual anthropologist," who writes "Sex and the City," a newspaper column that chronicles the state of sexual affairs of Manhattanites in this "age of un-innocence." Her "posse," including nice girl Charlotte (Kristin Davis), hard-edged Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and party girl Samantha (Kim Cattrall)--not to mention her own tumultuous love life--gives Carrie plenty of column fodder. Over the course of the first season's 12 episodes, the most prominent dramatic arc concerns Carrie, who goes from turning the tables on "toxic bachelors" by having "sex like a man" to wanting to join the ranks of "the monogamists" with the elusive Mr. Big (Chris Noth). Meanwhile, Miranda, Cynthia, and Samantha have their own dating woes.

The second season builds on the foundation of the first season with plot arcs that are both hilarious and heartfelt, taking the show from breakout hit to true pop-culture phenomenon. Relationship epiphanies coexist happily alongside farcical plots and zingy one-liners, resulting in emotionally satisfying episodes that feature the sharp kind of character-defining dialogue that seems to have disappeared from the rest of TV long ago. When last we left the NYC gals, Carrie had just broken up with a commitment-phobic Mr. Big (Chris Noth), but fans of Noth's seductive-yet-distant rake didn't have to wait long until he was back in the picture, as he and Carrie tried to make another go of it. Their relationship evolution, from reunion to second breakup, provides the core of the second season. Among other adventures, Charlotte puzzles over whether one of her beaus was "gay-straight" or "straight-gay"; Miranda tries to date a guy who insists on having sex only in places where they might get caught; and Samantha copes with dates who range from, um, not big enough to far too big--with numerous stops in between.

The third season was the charm, as the series earned its first Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series to go along with its Golden Globes for Best Comedy Series and Best Actress (Parker). One of this season's two principal story arcs concerned hapless-in-love Charlotte and her pursuit of a husband; enter (if only...) Kyle McLachlan as the unfortunately impotent Trey. Meanwhile, Carrie has a brief but memorable fling with a politician who's golden, but not in the way she anticipated. She then sabotages her too-good-to-be-true relationship with furniture designer Aidan (John Corbett) by having an affair with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), who himself has gotten married. 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 encountered, among others, Matthew McConaughey, Vince Vaughn, Hugh Hefner, and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

The fourth season is just as smart and sexy as ever, mixing caustic adult wit and sharply observed situation comedy on the mean streets of Manhattan, though this time the quartet of singleton city girls must endure even tougher combat in the unending war of love, sex, and shopping. Carrie finally seems to have found her ideal life partner when she is reunited with handsome craftsman Aidan. But can their relationship survive trial by cohabitation? Meanwhile Charlotte seems to have both her dream Park Avenue apartment and a solution to her marital problems with Trey. But when the subject of babies comes up, everything starts to unravel for her, too. It's not just Charlotte who has baby issues either: after what seems like an eternity of enforced sexual abstinence Miranda is horrified to discover she's pregnant. And as for the sultry Samantha, she's on a quest for monogamy, first with an exotic lesbian artist, then with a philandering businessman, with whom to her utter dismay she just might have fallen in love.

It was a short but sweet fifth season, as HBO's resident comediennes found themselves affected by forces beyond their control--the pregnancies of both Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon. A truncated shooting schedule to accommodate the actresses forced this season to be reduced to a mere eight episodes, but they and creators forged ahead, creating a handful of episodes that if short in content were long on emotion and laughs. Carrie and Miranda wrestled with their solitary lifestyles, albeit with new attachments--Miranda had new baby Brady and single motherhood, while Carrie found herself in the world of publishing as the author of a real-life book of her columns. Charlotte wondered if she'd ever find another man, while Samantha finally got rid of the one that had been vexing her far too much. If the season as a whole felt less than the sum of its parts, those parts were some of the best comedy in the show's history. The season's climactic episode, "I Love a Charade," was one of the series' best episodes ever, equally touching and funny, and grounded the show in an emotional maturity that announced that after all their wild travails, these women had truly grown up.

After a long wait--like the entire fifth season--Carrie is dating again. The sixth season starts with Carrie and her sparkly new potential, Berger (Ron Livingston), trying to leave past relationships and hit it off, with mixed results. Meanwhile Carrie's friends seem to be settling down, relatively speaking. Miranda decides that her affair with TiVo cannot compete when Mr. Perfect (Blair Underwood, at his most charming) moves into her building. Charlotte's feelings for her "opposites attract" boyfriend (Evan Handler) deepen, but they still have a few things to iron out. Most surprising is Samantha's hot relationship with waiter-actor-stud Smith Jerrod (Jason Lewis) taking on something resembling love, despite Samantha's best intentions. Before the sixth season started in the summer of 2003, a bombshell hit: it was announced that this would be the finale. But it would be a long season, and these 12 episodes plant the seeds for the final 8 airing the following winter. These dozen episodes illustrate the maturity of the show: there's not a bad one in the bunch, and the show is still flat-out funny. The comedy blends serious points of how we perceive singles, couples, and parents (and the gifts we lavish on the latter two). Carrie's method of celebrating her singlehood is just another gem in this treasure of a series.

With the last eight episodes of the sixth season, 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). Going down the final stretch--and Samantha's (Kim Cattrall) 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. 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.

Customer Reviews

Finally the First Class Treatment!
Holy moley, I'm so happy to see one of the best television series of all time to receive the DVD set it's always deserved! According to 'TV Shows on DVD', the special features on the 20th DVD will include:

"- Sex Essentials - a video jukebox for advice, quips and quotes on dating, sex, fashion and more.
- Location, Location, Location - a guide to the restaurants, clubs and boutiques frequented by Carrie and friends.
- Naughty or Nice? - the ultimate test to find out which character from the series you are most like.
- You Can Quote Me On It - a "finish that phrase" game that tests your knowledge of the show.
- En-SEX-lopedia - an all encompassing guide that takes a look back at the defining moments in dating, fashion, friendship and relationships."

All this is in addition to a book that is incorporated to the interior layout, and some sweet, sweet packaging... This will truly be the "fine China" version of 'Sex and the City' for those of us who already own all the seasons! (And for those of you who don't already own it, let's just say that this is being released right in time for the holidays!)

PS: I do recognize that a lot of people are upset about this release. I am a little bit unhappy as well considering I can't really seem to justify shelling out $200 for a television series I already own. It doesn't make sense to me, however, to blame HBO because this is just how the DVD market is nowadays. Sure it's a ploy, but HBO didn't create it. Nor will complaining about it do anything to stop this practice because let's face it, people still end up buying it twice. Obviously that won't happen to this release because of its (relatively) high price tag to anyone who already owns the series. My advice is to follow Sheryl Crow's advice in Soak up the Sun... "It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got." So you may already have the show. That just means you've been able to enjoy it how much longer than anyone who doesn't have it yet? I really don't think waiting a few years for this edition would be worth the loss of all the good times I've had hanging out with friends and watching 'Sex and the City'. But that's just me.

Poor quality of discs
Apparently there was a problem wherever these discs were manufactured, because I, like many other shoppers on here, have had to return my set due to malfunctioning Season 3.

Which basically means that, if you order this set, you need to watch every disc in its entirety within the 30-day return window.

Substandard Packaging
What the description for this box set doesn't tell you is that it is half again as tall and half again as wide as a standard DVD, so it won't even fit on the same shelf as the rest of your DVDs. And as nice as the suede album cover might look, inside it's just a ring binder with cheap cardboard DVD holders. Definitely not the high quality boxed set I was looking forward to. And I really was looking forward to having a decent box set of Sex and the City, since the individual season DVDs had such flimsy plastic cases (very prone to ripping at the edges if you open them at all frequently).

Now I'm kicking myself for having sold my individual DVDs to buy this boxed set. Maybe in another few years they'll come out with a box set in which they do *not* skimp on the packaging. SatC is the only series I've seen that has such consistently shoddy packaging. I really don't understand why.