Three seasons and four years, and like that… we have sex and City fans hostages, but now that the final episode has aired, we are finally free again. I know a lot of fans like me who lightly sped the series but couldn’t put it. Mostly to see what our beloved women do in middle age. It was the equivalent of the whole milk latte I order every morning, despite it inevitably causing. People either love to hate it, or both at the same time.
Just a few weeks ago, I made new friends at a birthday party. A band of women who didn’t know each other formed a circle just to talk about the show and the sudden announcement of its cancellation. We had agreed to scrape off the aforementioned gut, but we all knew that films and TV studios have checked all the boxes they consider to be safe and profitable bets recently.
Showrunner Michael Patrick King claimed the series was over just because the series was in a “great place to stop”, but as a friend of my birthday party, I agreed that it had some major issues that could have lost enough viewers to justify the end. Its biggest writings were notable for obvious plot holes, lack of meaningful character development, and fans of many plotlines and side characters were unrelated or annoying fans (sorry, chedias, but you know it’s true). The wardrobe choice, a critical feature of the show’s predecessor, also sparked criticism and influenced many online debates. But just like that… there was another, mean-looking issue that I think played a big part in that downfall. That was the approach to beauty.
In a nutshell, the character was polished to a pointless degree, even in situations where it didn’t make sense to be refined at all. That may not be a big deal for some people. And yes, I can point out a lot of TV series that are fun to watch despite taking the same approach. But the problem was very painful once we realised such a problem. I realized that it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
