Sex & The City First Season: Just Bad Writing.

I am a big fan of Sex and the City.  

Have been since 2000, when I moved to NYC, got HBO and watched the first episode of season 3...  You know, the one where the four girls go to Staten Island (ugh!) to watch Carrie judge the firemen's competition?  I loved everything about the show... The characters, the fashion, the attitude, and most of all - the writing.

It wasn't until after season five that I got around to catching up on the first two seasons of the show - which I had never seen.  And now, I own every single season and have watched all the DVDs so much that some of them don't work anymore.  It may be time to upgrade to the pretty box set.  But while watching season one yesterday afternoon, I realized something...

Season one of the show was a complete mess writing-wise!

Now, to be fair... I only made this assessment after watching the rest of the seasons so many times and seeing the superb writing... I mean, it's clear that the first season - which has the  standard level of witty writing you see in other TV shows - was just where they were trying to establish the characters and find the flow of the show...  But it's just difficult to watch now.

I mean, how can you go from watching, in season six, a story line that involves The Russian being overly present with the romance and "ick factor" where he scores her a designer dress and takes her to the opera...

... To an episode in season one where Carrie whines on and on about how Big won't introduce her to his mother...  Constantly wondering, "Where is this going?"  Yet, he wants to whisk her away to the Caribbean for an romantic holiday.  He seems like a pretty romantic guy to me.

It really shows the spectrum of the character's journey...  But watching that first season yesterday... Especially the first episode...  It shows that Carrie and her friends really lack self-confidence when it comes to romance.  And by the time the six season rolls around, they really have things under control... And are more aware of who they are and what they want. 

Maybe it's just that I don't like who the girls are and the decisions they make in the first season? I don't know, but the writing makes me want to slap all of them.

I myself am about to turn 32 in a few months - the same age Carrie was in that first season. I guess I am just being super critical of myself lately, hoping that I am doing a better job of defining who I am moving forward.  And not basing it solely around what I have and don't have. Because I don't want to do that. And I don't want to be that girl.  I do not want to be Carrie.

Unless I can have her shoe collection from seasons three, four, five and six.  Because those were damn fine shoe seasons.