LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - It's set in the "city that never sleeps," but "Sex and the City" soon will be put to bed.
The Emmy-winning HBO comedy about the lives and loves of four female friends in New York starts its sixth and final season Sunday, June 22, with the first of 12 episodes airing weekly through the summer. Then, the series will return in January with its last eight tales, making for the most stories the show ever has done in one season -- partially to compensate for last year's abbreviated run, which accommodated the pregnancy of star and co-producer Sarah Jessica Parker, and also because the cast and crew know this is the end.
The season begins as columnist Carrie Bradshaw (Parker) debates whether a fellow writer (Ron Livingston, held over from the end of last season) is worth enduring the rites of new romance. Publicist Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) fears her neighborhood is getting too trendy, and lawyer and single mom Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) reconsiders her relationship with her baby's father, Steve (David Eigenberg). Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) frets over the refusal of her Jewish boyfriend, Harry (Evan Handler), to marry a non-Jew ... like Charlotte.
While she knows she'll greet the end of "Sex and the City" with mixed emotions, Parker claims she doesn't know certain details of just how it will end. "Of all the characters' endings, Carrie's is the one that's not really defined yet," she says. "The other women have very specific endings in place, but Carrie's depends on whether she makes a certain decision, and how that matures. She is approaching her life in much the way the city feels right now; it's recovering, and similarly, Carrie feels optimistic and very hopeful."
"She's feeling perfectly fine and not as emotionally charged," Parker continues. "I think her philosophy is, 'I have a successful book and potentially successful relationships to experience.' It feels pretty good and nice and breezy, but it's possible that just when she's gotten comfortable with that, something big will happen."
As for the other ladies? Parker reports, "Samantha meets a new person with whom she has a really nice and long and colorful relationship. Miranda reconciles some feelings that are surprising to her, and Charlotte consciously makes a fundamental change and moves forward in her relationship with Harry."
"Sex and the City" fans are familiar with Carrie's past suitors, including former fiance Aidan (John Corbett, now the star of the FX series "Lucky" ), and the apparent love of her life, Mr. Big (Chris Noth) who will certainly reappear this season, per Parker. "With 20 episodes, there's no way you won't see Mr. Big. It would be impossible not to."
Parker isn't looking forward to the "Sex and the City" staff disbanding at the end of the season, though she knows there's also an "up" side. "The only time I really think about it is when I'm asked about it," she reflects. "And my answer is pat but true: We still have a daunting amount of work ahead of us. This is our longest season ever, which involves an enormous amount of time, but we're also trying to produce 20 of our best episodes ever. I'm also not thinking about the ending because it's too hard, too sad."
A winner of three Golden Globe Awards for "Sex and the City," Parker maintains that having a new son with her husband, Matthew Broderick, hasn't altered her approach to the show, which is well-known for its verbal and physical candor. She says, "Because he's such a young baby and not really cognizant of content or context, I'm not worrying yet about whether he sees this. The only way the baby has affected my work is in how I feel about the hours I put in, rather than being at home. He comes to the set with me every day, though, so I still get to spend a nice amount of time with him." The same goes for co-star Nixon, who also recently had a baby boy as well.
"Sex and the City" has been more than a TV show to many devotees who consider it a virtual anthem for the modern, single American woman. "It's been completely unexpected and wonderful and special," Parker notes of the experience. "It's also been creatively satisfying, artistically challenging and financially nice. It'll be hard to find another job I feel the same way about, in terms of the people and the process, but change is very important and very good for actors. That also goes for producers, writers and everybody else on a series. We don't know that we have that many stories left to tell, and we don't want to tell them in a mediocre way."
For now, Parker is just happy to keep going with "Sex and the City" until "Cut" is yelled for the last time. "That's going to be very complicated, emotionally," she predicts, "but I'm grateful that I'll feel sad, because so many people have jobs they don't like. I think it's going to be very hard for all of us to not continue to be with this particular group of people for so many months of the year. We're really having fun this year, laughing a lot and just enjoying each other. We want to run across the finish line like champions."
