And Just Like That- people hate it, why?

[PotatoWafflerWrites]

Wanted to start a thread regarding And Just Like That. I loved SATC and personally also have greatly enjoyed watching AJLT. I totally get that this is my personal taste, and a lot of criticism has been fairly made towards the characters, plots and scripts being not what many viewers wanted. But seeing so much dislike and vitriol directed at the program has made me think, is the real thing that people hate (upper) middle aged women? I just get a real sense of people disliking women, mature women. There's a sneering dislike that reminds me of hearing my younger colleagues talking about 'karens'.

I think I saw an article advertised that argued this point, but it was behind a paywall and I now can't remember where I saw it.

I wondered what the fwr mumsnertters think? I know this is a largely GC space, so realised that some storylines and themes on AJLT are not really compatible with that, but nevertheless, I think the show still stands out as being female centric and about female friendship and women's lives. SATC was a controversial and divisive show, but AJLT seems to really upset people, and I am intrigued by that.

Any thoughts?

Should add, I meant (upper) middle aged as older middle aged. Sorry, not clearly written!

I loved SATC and wanted to love this. I persevered through two series but had to stop when Aidan was telling Carrie to touch herself ‘like I touch you’. The character of Aidan gives me such bad ick I had to switch off.

It just became so, so bad. Miranda morphing into an entirely new character who, despite being a high flying New York lawyer, is homeless? Carrie saying ‘yeah, sounds fine’ to Aidan when he told her to wait five years and they’d just exchange blank postcards?

It was just so bad. So so bad. The writing. The characterisation.

The acting was as good as always.

But the show was just so bad.

Sorry, just to add, I think it upsets people because of the hatchet job they’ve done on the characters.

I gave up long before that, but agree with Navy that they've written something that makes no sense. Not on its own terms, and particularly as a continuation of the original characters. They've taken a series of talking points and tried to jam them all in randomly, rather than looking for coherent development. Very disappointing.

There's a lot they could have done with the basic plot lines - widowhood, divorce, getting to grips with changing ways of working. And given the demographic it's very likely that one of Charlotte's children would have been caught in the trans contagion (I liked - and was surprised by the inclusion of -Anthony's response of 'She's 13! She doesn't know what she wants. We'll deal with it later, if there's something to deal with.'). But Miranda in particular responds.to these things in ways that just make no sense.

And no Samantha.

Aiden was always a bit of a creep, though, so although I didnt watch that far it makes sense he'd just have got worse.

I managed about three episodes. It just seemed boring. And although I loved S&TC when I was in my 30s, now I’m in my 50s the characters irritate me. And with the humour of Samantha missing, well overall it just doesn’t work.

I actually think that comedy with a sexual element is very hard to get right, there are scores of bad sex comedy movies, SATC got it just right at one moment in time but it is very hard to maintain

I saw it suggested a different way, that the creator or writers hate women, maybe older ones particularly, for them to have created this series the way they have and putting the actresses in humiliating positions.

If it was an excellent show and got low ratings or was ignored by awards etc I think you could say misogyny but I think the show is just rubbish. Viewers support the characters but not the vehicle they’ve been put in.

SPOILERS

A female centric show ended with men shitting, pissing and talking endlessly about their penises. Plus an overflowing toilet.
The 3 women were reduced to bumbling idiots who couldn't handle tech, talk to a black woman, or indeed do anything right.
Miranda was smart, sarky, ambitious in SATC and a daft, lovesick puppy in AJLT who had to clean shit of the floor. How did it centre women? It centred everyone else.

I wouldn't say I hated it

I know a lot of people here did hate it

I don't think it's about class or anything. We know we're watching a bunch of rich people in New York - that's fine.

What wasn't fine was the dreadful writing, seeming lack of editing and lack of characterisation

And if you watched Sex and the City, there was a real lack of content in AJLT. S&TC had hooks, emotions and many thought provoking points.

The second two seasons of AJLT seem to have zero links between the friends at all.

Depressingly, I wondered if that was some kind of point they were trying to make.

I won't go on about the bad writing, because I'll be here forever.

there wasn't any reason why this shouldn't work. There were any number of storylines they could have gone with. They touched on some of them. But barely.

I only hate watched series 1 and based on that, I don’t plan to watch the next 2 series.

While some of the ideas were good - becoming a widow, changing career paths, divorce, difficulty raising teens etc , it’s no longer cutting edge stuff that the original series was. The new characters were written badly and sometimes I wondered if the writers even watched the original series. Samantha’s humour is sorely missed and if I hadn’t watched the original then I’d be wondering how or why this group were even friends.

I really wanted to like it but it was a mess imo.

I don’t think it’s class. I’ve enjoyed plenty of US drama where the main woman is a character like a wealthy beautiful professional which is the kind of programme that the US does best. Charlotte’s obvious cosmetic procedures did distract me in s1 but her character was a wealthy SAHM so it kind of makes sense story wise.

The Che character was dull, poorly acted and utterly uninspiring. And supposedly a comic? I never laughed ONCE at Che's jokes. How could witty, intelligent, critically thinking Miranda fall for that sap? They really did Steve dirty.

The botox isn't unsurprising, but it was hard to watch these actresses' faces unable to make the comedic expressions we used to love. I wanted to age with them, not lose them to a ghost of the frozen tundra.

And the loss of Samantha? Unforgivable.

I wanted to like it but when Aiden said he'd slept with his wife Carrie just said 'ok' and that was pretty much it. I know they're supposed to be in a weird situation and I know that we're all supposed to be mature and understanding in our 50s but I'd have been pissed off. I certainly wouldn't have been shagging him a couple of hours later.

It's not the viewers that hate middle aged, middle class women, it's the writers

I loved satc and watched and just like that all the way through. Initially, I think I watched it bc I felt I had to but I was still a bit upset by the writing. I mean, 3 super strong, social and independent women in NYC now can't navigate a meal with some black people, wtf? That was a bit ugh, but I do think it got better despite no Samantha who was always my favourite and most relatable. I did also love Seema and the fact that they replaced Samantha's character with a beautiful Indian woman who gave no fucks. Yes, we aren't all sexually repressed and submissive women, despite what western and Indian media seem to love to portray.
Overall, it was entertaining. It was no satc, but nothing ever will be.

This is all absolutely correct but yet I’m still inexplicably sad it was cancelled.

The whole mean girls vibe by SJP to Kim cattrel ,really put me of it
It wasn't sex and the city without Kim in it ,she carried the whole show and made sex and the city the success it was
Without her AJLT was bound to fail.
Plus it was trying to hard ,to woke .
They killed of big ,on hearsay ,no trial,no arrest,..just jumped the gun
What happened to innocent until proven guilty..
It was a disaster of a show ,
Had they kept big and Kim in it and lost the woke extras ,it could of been a huge success

I find all these shows very narcissistic and self centred they are women they are not doing anything special and this need to applaud women just because they were born gets tiresome no one deserves a medal just because they are female

Slightly intrigued ..
What is SATC and AJLT ??

As for the meme ‘Karen’s’… it’s so sexist .. and just another way of putting women down and telling them to STFU

I watch TV to be entertained, not lectured at in a massively clunky manner.

It was just cringe really, bad acting, bad storylines. It was sort of glam and aspirational in its time but with the reboot, nobody would want to be these women.

This is very unhelpful as I've never seen AJLT and I've only vaguely watched a few episodes of SATC and the first film - despite being bang on target demographic.

The main reason to watch it was Kim Cattrall as Samantha - she was brilliantly comic, charismatic, memorable and fully rounded. The other female characters to me were one note, wall-paper and just not main characters. They remind me of US versions of Bridget Jones' friends - not that memorable - just 1D archetypes to provide local colour - the Popular Girl, the Posh Girl and the Hard Nosed Career Woman.

I really wanted to like it. But it was just so bad. I’m sure plenty of the criticism comes from misogynism, but there are also lots of people like me, who loved SATC and who wanted to love AJLT, but just couldn’t.

I enjoyed it. I didn't mind the stuff about Charlotte’s daughter being non binary. It's a challenge we will be facing potentially so why not? I didn't mind Chavez either. Her stand up routine was abysmal but I didn't find her unlikeable. I also really liked the reason she dumped Miranda.

Miranda’s character was butchered. She became needy and whiny. But still, people evolve. Even her being gay is realistic to an extent. We never know what will happen.

Charlotte’s character became extremely boring but that’s literally what Charlotte wanted, she wanted the white picket fence and all her dramas being about her kids, and she got that. I also found her relationship with Harry lovely to witness. I am happy for them. I love happy couples who are just 100% on each other’s side.

Carrie was as obnoxious and self-absorbed as ever. That’s her! Why would that change?

I loved seeing her get all that money from Big and using it to buy herself her own personal bliss. I also loved seeing her dump wet wipe Aiden.

I found Seema settling for that cheeseball labouror quite disappointing though. I enjoyed the last season’s ending better where her and Carrie took a relaxing beach holiday together.

I found it a fitting end to the characters actually. There was too much fluff. Charlotte’s friend was boring and as I said, Seema’s arc was ruined for me. Perhaps the producers knew that single independent women in their mid 50s was not believable, and they had to change it to at least some of them ‘finding love’.

Wouldn't that be a cool little meta tie in?

I m currently watching it. It's like they asked chat gbt to come up with the storyline, that would appeal to the widest audience. It's all quite anoyingly woke, clunky storylines. with a twist of thinly disguised traditional storylines.

Carry the spoilt brat, endless fashion and free time.

Charlotte the SAHM, return to art dealing, how convenient she was able to rejoin the working world so smoothly.

Miranda, why would she be with someone so immature as the comic.

Its trying to appeal to a new audience, but it's net is cast too far and too loosely. It's not brave enough.

I really dislike the Aidan character, but only seen a few episodes of him. He seems like a man child and a flight parent. He s had bad surgery, I think too. There doesn't seem to be any real passion between any of them.

I liked AJLT. I felt it was true to SATC. The films, esp the second, were not.