The Sex and the City spinoff – which ends this week – is so bizarre it has barely made sense as a television show. Unless you think of it as an attempt to redefine the whole genre …
Sex and the City’s divisive spin-off And Just Like That is set to end after three bizarre seasons and a deluge of critical contempt, with bemused fans losing it on Reddit, and articles about how the programme became a hate watch. There has been little heartache in the discourse after the announcement of the show’s demise, the general consensus being: good. But to these people, I say – you’re wrong! But also, I understand. There is always an element of fear in contemplating change, in engaging with the rapid advancement of modernity, and I would like to make the case for And Just Like That being a product of exactly that.
It feels analogous to a comment a friend of mine once made during a conversation about the best oven pizzas, when someone posited Dr Oetker pizzas as a contender: “It’s delicious, it’s something different, I don’t know what it is … but it’s not pizza.” This is how I feel about And Just Like That. It’s a pleasure to watch, it’s fun, it’s compelling, I don’t know what it is – but it’s certainly not TV drama. And Just Like That is something new; I genuinely believe the show has reimagined what television drama is, and how we might engage with it.
