As Sex invaded the culture, attention focused on its glam portrayal of the single life in New York City — filled with cosmos, expensive shoes, and tutus-as-daywear. But there was something deeper, something that kept viewers coming back, hosting viewing parties, speaking in Sex-isms. Those flawed but lovable women at its center? They were relatable in a way that single girls on TV had never been before. ''It was such validation for what we were all living,'' Bicks says. ''A woman would come up to you and say, 'That happened to me.' It's like, Okay, I'm not a freak.'' The resulting subliminal message to single gals over 30: Yes, you do lead fascinating lives. Yes, your problems do matter. Yes, you can look fabulous even as you fret over that guy who didn't call. Why wouldn't female viewers want to keep staring at that reflection in their TV screens for as long as possible?
Viewership grew, with 4.7 million tuning in for October 2000's third-season finale, and networks, naturally, began looking for their own slice of that demographic pie. Finding the next Sex and the City should be easy enough, they figured: Just create a group of well-dressed female characters, plop them in a glamorous setting, and stir. ''It seems like there's a recipe,'' says Terri Minsky, a Sex and the City writer who now works for Cashmere Mafia. ''But if there were, why hasn't somebody done it again?'' Early contenders like Minsky's The Geena Davis Show (a 2000 sitcom in which Davis spent as much time with her girlfriends drinking cocktails as she did with her family) and Bicks' Leap of Faith (a 2002 comedy starring Sarah Paulson as a girl who breaks off her engagement before, essentially, embarking on Carrie Bradshaw's life) suffered from comparisons to the original right when it was peaking. ''The expectation on us, especially those of us who came out of the inner sanctum, was, 'You're going to bring us the next Sex and the City,''' Bicks laments. The bevy of female- (and male-) driven shows that tried to pick up where Sex left off didn't fare any better (e.g., Emily's Reasons Why Not, Jake in Progress). ''TV is just timing and casting,'' Minsky says. ''If you go back to watch the pilot of Sex and the City, you get that show right from the beginning, and that is so hard. But it looks so easy.''
The few Sex-y shows that didn't fizzle worked by tweaking the formula. The CW's eight-seasons-running Girlfriends became a favorite of African-American audiences not just because of its all-black cast, but also because its execution is so genuine and funny that you forget the four-gal-pals angle is played out. Entourage carried on HBO's hot-and-heavy legacy with a sometimes squirm-inducing look at guys' sex talk, and Desperate Housewives became a phenomenon mere months after Carrie signed off by employing a Sex and the Suburbs approach — four hot women, four archetypes — and adding an undercurrent of dark comedy and intrigue. Its success drove ABC to build its schedule around programming for women — but for all the female appeal of Desperate and Grey's Anatomy, they lack that aspirational quality that Sex oozed. (Do we really want to hang out with the moody Seattle Grace gang in our free time?)
NEXT PAGE: ''[Sex] gave voice to single women in their 30s. The question is, Who is the next group who hasn't had a voice yet? I don't think it's anyone sipping a cosmopolitan in a bar.''
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