Sex and the City
HBO 1998-2004
As crucial to HBO’s rise as The Sopranos, this series began as clumsy social anthropology and ended as a pure drama, especially regarding Carrie’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) quest for true love. In between, though, it was a frothy cocktail of wordplay, romance, friendship, and refreshingly blunt talk about funky spunk and other peccadilloes of the dating class.