'Sex and the City' Returns to HBO

July 19 -- The Fab Four of casual sex are older, more anxious — but still blazing a fashionable trail through the uncertainty of single life in Manhattan.

HBO's Sex and the City returns for its fifth season Sunday night, with Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) back as Manhattan's foremost "sexual anthropologist." The new season finds our stiletto-shod heroine sans fiancé Aidan or her on-again, off-again romantic interest and Achilles' heel, Mr. Big.

Her sisterhood is likewise transformed. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) now totes around her newborn son, Brady. The sharp-tongued corporate lawyer is now changing diapers and breast-feeding while the gals yak about sex.

Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is coming to terms with single life after her once-seemingly storybook marriage crashed and burned. And Samantha, who traded in her hedonistic ways for monogamy, now grouses that her boyfriend is cheating on her.

‘Maybe It’s Not Advisable to Be an Optimist After 30’

Carrie reflects on the carefree days "before the baggage, breakups and babies began to weigh us all down," fearing the tick-tock of Father Time.

"Maybe it's not even advisable to be an optimist after the age of 30," she notes. "Maybe pessimism is something we have to start applying daily — like moisturizer."

The presence of a baby has some fans worrying whether the Emmy-winning show has run out of ideas — or "jumped the shark," as they say of programs past their prime.

Not so, Nixon said Tuesday night at a gala at New York's Museum of Natural History, where the first two episodes were screened. She may not be an impartial judge, but she is unambiguously enthusiastic. "I think they're really some of the best that we've ever done."

Manhattan’s One of the Gals

This is the first season of Sex and the City since the Sept. 11 attacks. The sitcom has famously showcased New York's trendy hot spots. Now, the ladies are unabashed boosters of the of the Big Apple.

"It's just in every scene that we shoot outside, whether we're walking on the phone or in a restaurant … It adds so much to every episode that we do," said Catrall."This is like the most amazing back lot you could ever ask for in the world … and it's so much a part of the show — it's like the fifth gal."