“This is the season we sent all the men away,” says SATC showrunner Michael Patrick King on the commentary track that accompanies season five’s premiere.  The fifth year is significant for other reasons as well: it’s the shortest season in the show’s run (only 8 episodes–a side effect of Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon’s unexpected pregnancies) and the one in which Carrie is the least sympathetic.  No doubt reeling from the twin losses of Aidan and Big, she spends much of this season clinging more tightly to her three friends, all of whom are dealing with significant issues in their own lives.  Miranda is learning that being a single mom is harder than she ever imagined it would be, while Charlotte finds herself inexplicably attracted to the wrong kind of guy, her bald, loudmouthed Jewish divorce lawyer Harry.  Samantha follows Carrie’s season four path, briefly recoupling with Richard before breaking up with him to avoid getting hurt when his eyes start wandering again.  Although the scripts remains sharp, you can tell that the writers are spinning their wheels a bit, unsure of what direction they want their characters’ lives to take next.  And, for me at least, Carrie’s likeability (or lack thereof) became a big issue this season; in the past, her neurotic tendencies have been balanced out by an attractive pluckiness–she never gives up in the face of disaster, be it professional or personal.  That pluck is MIA for a large chunk of this shortened season though and in its place is a borderline psychotic need for the approval of Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, who, quite frankly, have more important things on their minds.  Clearly, the show was in need of a creative recharge and one sure-fire way of getting a series back on track is announcing that it’s coming to its end.  Which is exactly what King did at the end of season five, paving the way for the final–and best–year in SATC’s run.  Stay tuned…

Best Episode: “I Love a Charade” and not just because it brought this underwhelming series to a decent close.  An unlikely marriage between a socialite and a flamboyant lounge singer forces all of the women to re-evaluate their own feelings towards love and relationships.

Worst Episode: “Luck Be An Old Lady” in which Carrie drags her friends off to Atlantic City and then whines when they don’t want to spend every waking moment with her.