'Sex and the City' Begins Final Fling

L O S   A N G E L E S, Jan. 3, 2004 -- If "Sex and the City" puts its fans in the mood for anything these days, it might just be a good cry.

The final episodes of HBO's series about four high-flying NewYork women start airing 9 p.m. EST Sunday, and after that it's goodbye to Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha. In six seasons, the pals have run through men like disposablerazors while keeping a tight grip on their friendship, provokingdebate about how they stack up as symbols of contemporarywomanhood. The series became one of HBO's trademark shows, the kind it canrightly claim isn't duplicated by the broadcast networks. It's not just the cable channel and devotees who are reluctantto see the end of the comedy-drama based on Candace Bushnell'sbook. The cast is feeling a bit blue as well. "It's just really sad," said Cynthia Nixon, who playslawyer-mom Miranda. "We all have emotional moments and a lot ofnostalgic moments on the set nowadays." As the end of shooting approaches, "we keep having the lastcoffee shop scene, Stanford's (Willie Garson) last day, all ofthese last scenes," said Nixon. Shooting was scheduled to end inFebruary. Kristin Davis, who plays newly married (for the second time)Charlotte, was employing her own avoidance technique. "I'm trying to create a list of things that will be good aboutit (ending), so when I feel sad I have that list," she said. "Andthe list is small, including not having to have my hair driedstraight every day." Both Nixon and Davis said they would have happily continued withthe show. But Sarah Jessica Parker, the series' star and anexecutive producer, has said she believes it's best to quit whileit's still beloved. The cast is tight-lipped about how the finale will play out,partly because they're not quite sure. Each was only given scriptpages concerning her character, and multiple endings of the finalencounter for the friends were shot. Plot leaks had occurred and executive producer Michael PatrickKing wanted to clamp down, according to Davis: "He started gettingreally paranoid." The series' sixth and final season was broken into two parts,with a dozen episodes that aired through fall and the final eightwrapping things up now through February. When last seen, Miranda had reunited with Steve, her son'sfather. Charlotte had tied the knot with Harry. Carrie (Parker) wasstarting a red-hot romance with an artist played by MikhailBaryshnikov. And Samantha (Kim Cattrall) appeared in danger ofbeing tied down - emotionally, that is - by one man, the hunkySmith. From the outset, the series provoked as much discussion aboutits social messages as it did its trendsetting fashion. Was itpre-feminist, post-feminist or anti-feminist? And why did the NewYork of "Sex and the City" look so unfailingly white despite thereal city's ethnic diversity? Even the cast's lingerie habits were analyzed, with one articlequestioning why one actress (Parker) wore a bra in her bedroomscenes while the other actresses generally went without. How did the actresses feel about such microscrutiny? "I'm amused but flattered as well by any in-depth analysis ofthe show," Davis said. She recalled talking to Parker before theseries' debut about how the emphasis on romance and sex would bereceived. Happily, she said, "we were not drummed out of town" byfeminists. How does Davis read the series' message, if any? "To me, it's very feminist because the whole thing has been toshow women in different situations with different choices, and notto have there be one right choice and judging other choices," shesaid. Nixon, who says she and Parker had pushed to for more ethnicdiversity, welcomed a brief romance this season with a blackphysician, played by Blair Underwood. "It was an insulated, isolated group," Nixon said of thefictional characters and their world. "We came up with somethings, although it was still not what we were imagining."

On the Net: http://www.hbo.com/