How 'Sex' changed the face of TV
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"It's been a great ride," says Darren Star, creator of "Sex and the City"
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With its steamy storylines and frank discussion of sexual relationships, "Sex and the City" quickly became the show everyone loved to talk about.
Come Sunday night, viewers will have to find another show to discuss, as the ladies of "Sex and the City" call it quits, ending a successful six year run.
Darren Star, the show's creator, joined CNN's Wolf Blitzer to discuss the final episode and how the show changed the face of television.
WOLF BLITZER: Darren Star, thanks so much for joining us. Congratulations. We're all looking forward to this final episode or, shall I say, we're all sad that there's going to be a final episode. Why stop now?
DARREN STAR: Well, I think the attitude was, let's leave while the party is still happening, and, I think it's been a long -- it's been a great ride, six seasons.
And I sort of say -- everybody thought that, you know, it was -- it was a good time just to say goodbye. And the characters had reached a point in their lives when there were -- the stories that were told felt like -- not that they were coming to an end, but they were coming to a nice resolution.
BLITZER: Did the writers sort of come up dry and say, what else can we do that we haven't done yet? Because you've done so many remarkable things during these years.
STAR: You know what? I think there are always -- with characters that are this rich, there are always stories to tell. I think that everybody felt that creatively we had sustained such a great run and that we would just quit while we were ahead.
BLITZER: It was on HBO. It was on cable. But there is no doubt that you were at the cutting edge of certain trends. What was perhaps, looking back, the one or two most sensitive things that you wanted to get on that show that really broke new ground? (HBO is a division of Time Warner, as is CNN.)
STAR: You know, I think that what really broke new ground in this show was the attitude about -- the attitudes that we sort of presented about women and their sexuality and the idea that, you know, women were sort of these independent, sexual creatures that just weren't necessarily looking to get married and settle down.
And while that's not necessarily a revolutionary statement, it wasn't one that had been presented in sort of such a frank and outrageous kind of way.
BLITZER: There's no doubt that this could never have been done on broadcast networks, the kinds of statements, the kinds of things that we saw on HBO. Did you get complete authority from HBO to do what you really wanted to do? Did they ever say to you, you know, Darren, this is going too far?
STAR: You know, there might have been one episode with Charlotte and a golden retriever. But then I think they thought, well, maybe that's sort of like going past the boundaries of good taste. But then I think they sort of like got into that on "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
But I think we really did what we wanted, and we had carte blanche to do what we wanted. And I think that our own sense of good or bad taste guided us. And I think part of the fun of doing the show was sometimes it was in comic bad taste. And we had the freedom to do that as well. And I know there were situations in the show that were shocking and they were meant to be shocking, but that even the characters on the show reacted to in a way that, in fact, they were shocked.
So I think that was part of the impetus for myself for creating "Sex and the City," was to do a show about sex from a female point of view, where we could do sort an adult show and laugh at sex and have fun with the idea of sex and relationships and not take it too seriously and basically do an R-rated comedy that you couldn't do on network television.
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The women of "Sex" -- from left, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) -- stuck together through thick and thin.
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BLITZER: Are there four women sort of that you patterned these four women on? And we all know that there is a Carrie out there presumably that you patterned Carrie on. What about the three others?
STAR: I think there were more archetypes of women and what women are looking for. I think Charlotte was sort of more of this sort of romantic idealist. Miranda was more the sort of the workaholic who really didn't need men and focused on work to, you know, maybe the detriment of her personal life.
And Samantha was sort of the sexual adventurist who treated men the way men treat women. So, in a sense, there were all these archetypes of ways that women present themselves and way that women think of themselves. But I think, as the show continued, a lot of those archetypes or those ideas of even who these characters were got turned on their heads.
BLITZER: One final question, Darren. Will there be a movie?
STAR: I don't know. It's an interesting thought. I think that it's something that now that everyone is ready to say goodbye, I think everyone is sort of wondering like, should we say goodbye?
For me, it's -- I really created this show. The reason I brought the show to HBO was because I thought we could do a movie every week on HBO, and that was sort of the sensibility behind the show. So my feeling is that what's been done is pretty well self-contained and we've done something wonderful. If a movie comes in the future, you know, that could be great.
I think we would have to creatively have a great reason to do it that goes beyond what we could actually do on television. And on HBO, the wonderful thing was, we could do everything.
BLITZER: Darren Star, congratulations. You did one great work.
STAR: Thank you. Thanks, Wolf.
