‘Sex,’ Act III

Writing about “Sex and the City” is awkward because so much of its bleeping dialogue is unprintable in this newspaper. The F-word that most applies, though, is “funny.”

It’s the prerequisite for comedy. Regardless of IQ, a comedy without laughs is no comedy at all. At that point, its network renames it a drama.

Is “Sex and the City” funny? Very, very. And as a bonus, smart and sophisticated, too, as it enters the second week of its third season, extending HBO’s tradition of superlative half-hour comedies, namely “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Dream On” in the 1990s.

Spun by Darren Star from a book by Candace Bushnell, “Sex and the City” recounts the highly sexual mating adventures of four single career women and close friends in New York City through the eyes of one of them, newspaper columnist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker). The title of the series is the theme of her column, which she notes appears beside ads for penile implants and is not necessarily a must-read for the city’s literati.

“Sex and the City” is not the nostalgic New York of Woody Allen, its rhythms being more Giuliani than Gershwin. Yet these women, and the males intersecting their lives, are not only erotic and rhapsodically funny, but growing more seductive as characters all the time.

Carrie, who’s addicted to smoking, shoes and deep introspection, and tightly coiled corporate lawyer Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) are the brainiest, most complex of the four. They’re also the show’s works in progress you’d most want to monitor if you weren’t in this just for the laughs. Art dealer Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) is the most naive and old-fashioned, and PR executive Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) the most sexually driven and quickest to swing and swoon. Lust and obsession apply here.

Not cat fights, though. Part of the show’s appeal is that these friends are sisterly and sweet to one another, providing mutual support while hashing over their aspirations, relationships and men. And also their men’s body parts, with “Sex and the City” becoming that rare series to mention the C-word when it doesn’t precede “a-doodle-doo.”

Double and triple entendres explode orgasmically here. The new season has already had Samantha riding a pole in the firehouse of her favorite nude firefighter, and Carrie in the throes of “bad break-up” after painfully splitting from magnetic Mr. Big (Chris Noth). That nickname pertains to his stature as a person in her eyes, by the way, not the stature of anything else.

In Sunday’s episode, Carrie tries to get a grip, extending her romance with an amiable candidate for New York City controller (John Slattery), whose yen for kinkiness after initial sex is a jolt that pays off uproariously. Get outta here. What a hoot.

Although Fox’s admirably risky “Malcolm in the Middle” has been heroic in its first season, “Sex and the City” has become the funniest comedy in prime time. And while growing older and wiser, and adding traces of crow’s feet, it’s also the most layered and thoughtful.

Credit:

* The acting, notably Parker’s seamless fusion with urbane, independent Carrie despite looking callow enough at times to step right back into pubescent roles. And Cattrall, so beguilingly over the top, being just a sketch as the vamping, hot-blooded Samantha. There’s no better comedic actress in television.

* The city. Shot in New York and resonating New York, the series is undeniably Big Applecentric. “Sex and the City” in Cleveland somehow wouldn’t cut it, and it remains to be seen whether the series will lose something in a scheduled swing west to Los Angeles to shoot the season’s last two episodes.

* The sex. These characters not only talk about it incessantly, but at times vividly simulate it, as in Samantha becoming a human piston with her firefighter. Also in her hilarious future is a short lover--he comes up to her earlobes--who is not short everywhere. And a coming episode, set largely in a spa, probably sets a record for female frontal nudity, top to bottom, on mainstream TV, as a way of forcing Charlotte to feel better about her body.

* The writers, including executive producers Star and Michael Patrick King. The latter’s script Sunday had Miranda improving her vision and perspective with laser surgery on her eyes. She awakened the sunlit next morning, glanced over at her poetically tender boyfriend, Steve (David Eigenberg), toward whom she’d been ambivalent, “and for the first time in her life, saw things clearly.”

Loving, free-spirited Steve is everything the meticulous, dust-free, rigidly controlled Miranda has avoided in a man, from his unglamorous job as a bartender to his untidiness to his baggy boxer shorts. She makes love with him but fears loving him. “What if someone better comes along?” she asks Carrie. It’s her melting resistance and their deepening bond in coming weeks, though, that defines the maturation of “Sex and the City” beyond mere action in the sack.

There’s no reconciling this series with Star’s lower-brow hits, “Beverly Hills, 90210” and recently departed “Melrose Place” (where Kristin Davis played a hussy, by the way) that ran on Fox. “These [“Sex and the City” episodes] are much more handcrafted shows,” said Star recently. “ ‘Melrose Place’ was much more dispensable television. It was get as much out there as you can.”

Although “Melrose Place” had a gay character, he wasn’t allowed to kiss his boyfriend, Star said. “There’s always this fear of offending people that constrains your material. Why fight those battles? They’re so ridiculous.”

That’s why he took “Sex and the City” to HBO, he said.

Although both Parker and her series were nominated for Emmys last year, it would be an upset if she or “Sex and the City” ever wins, given the show’s ribald tone. Star noted the irony of “Sex and the City” being aired uncut on regular commercial broadcasting in England, Australia and France, yet being ineligible, because of its language and sexual content, for noncable TV in the U.S.

HBO has never sought to censor the series, he said. “We self-censor ourselves. I don’t think we do anything in extremely poor taste. You can’t put on R-rated material for the sake of it. This harkens back to movies I love, like ‘Shampoo.’ It had adult content, but also exposed me to the world a little bit. The networks don’t seem to be taking on many adult themes.”

Yet here he is in partnership again with those Mad Hatters, having a pair of series set to debut on Fox and the WB network in the fall. “Both shows are edgy for TV,” Star said. Network TV, that is, not HBO.

* “Sex and the City” can be seen Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO, with repeats Tuesdays at 11 p.m.; Wednesdays at 9 p.m.; and Saturdays after the 10 p.m. movie. The network has rated it TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17).

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be reached via e-mail at calendar.letters@latimes.com.