And Just Like That… will be back, at some point, with a third season. When the show will return to Max completely depends on the SAG-AFTRA strike. In the meantime, we’ve done some thinking. Seasons 1 and 2 of And Just Like That fell flat for many original Sex and the City fans. We think there are some changes that the production team could make to entice fans of the original series to fall in love with the reboot.
Nicole Ari Parker is a great actor, as is Christopher Jackson. While the actors certainly do the characters of Lisa Todd Wexley and Herbert Wexley justice, the fictional couple still haven’t found where they “fit” in the overall show. We saw more of LTW and Herbert in season 2 of And Just Like That… and it still didn’t help fans feel connected to them as they relate to the rest of the group.
While we’d happily watch a show centered entirely around Lisa Todd Wexley, Herbert Wexley, and his disapproving mother, we don’t see them bringing anything to And Just Like That… season 3. A smaller cast might make original Sex and the City fans feel more connected to the series, too. After all, the original was about four women and the men they date. The reboot attempts to stuff the stories of 7 major characters and their partners into 40-minute episodes. It’s just not working because it’s too cluttered.
Carrie Bradshaw was the undeniable focus of Sex and the City. Most episodes revolved around Carrie’s voiceovers and how everyone’s romances inspired her column. And Just Like That.. dropped that aspect of the original and turned the reboot into a true ensemble production, where no one character garnered more attention than the others. While that worked great in series like Friends and The Big Bang Theory, it isn’t working for And Just Like That…, most likely because it isn’t staying true to the source material.
Original Sex and the City fans might be more accepting of season 3 of the reboot if it veered closer to the original show’s style and tempo. Adding Carrie back in as a narrator would certainly make the series feel more nostalgic and could help Sex and the City fans reconnect with Carrie. Despite the missing voiceovers being a stylistic choice, as Michael Patrick King once explained to Variety, it didn’t have the intended effect. Instead of fans seeing Carrie as “in it and relatable,” many found that she lacked the warm connection to the audience that she had during the show’s original run.
No matter which side of the line you stand on in the Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker feud, most original Sex and the City fans agree that the absence of Cattrall’s beloved character, Samantha Jones, made And Just Like That… feel contrived.
While Cattrall reprised the role briefly in the final moments of season 2, fans want to see more of her. Actual interactions between Samantha and her former besties would liven up season 3. Without Samantha and other major changes, we can’t see the reboot holding the attention of original Sex and the City fans much longer. That’s not to say that And Just Like That… if refined a bit, couldn’t draw in an entirely new set of fans, though.