Funny fabulousness ... [with] a few too many talk-to-the-camera moments.

When the series moves away from stereotyping its main female characters into the slutty (Kim Cattrall), the savvy (Cynthia Nixon) and the sweet (Kristin Davis), and dives right into the muck of the boy-girl thing, it's laugh-out-loud funny. [6 June 1998, p.1C]

Almost none of the characters is particularly likable - unless he or she is angling for something. What's refreshing about Sex and the City is that it pushes to a darkly comic extreme the situations that already fuel the many urban-singles sitcoms on network TV, particularly those with female leads like "Suddenly Susan" and "Caroline in the City." More social satire than sitcom, it looks openly at relationships steeped in ambivalence, fear, and the games people play. [6 Jun 1998, p.C6]

Though stylishly directed, Sex and the City isn't especially funny, and it isn't as campy as Melrose Place in its prime. [6 June 1998, p.E1]

The series itself turns out to be less "candid and comic" (as HBO puts it) than tired and tacky. [4 June 1998, p.G6]

From the constant smoking to the constant whining, Star, who wrote several of the scripts, has again given his actors and directors dialogue and plot lines that make it virtually impossible for them to do anything but laboriously go through the motions of real life. [4 June 1998, p.104]

A dark, outrageously cynical, cold take on the lives of thoroughly unpleasant people living in present-day Manhattan...What's supposed to be entertainment is wearisome, whiny and annoying. [6 June 1998, p.E07]