SATC & TV & NYC @ 20

Twenty years ago this week marked a key moment in the history of television.

And it happened on HBO. 

On May 31, 1998, the comedy The Larry Sanders Show aired its final episode. The creation of brilliant comedian Garry Shandling about a narcissistic talk show host, Larry Sanders was one of the great, defining shows if the 1990s. More than that, it looked more like what is on TV now than then: it broke down the barrier between reality and fiction, it was single camera, its humor had more "cringe" and less punchlines, it was funny but also dark, it was deeply human. Today, most comedies on TV are like this but, in a time when wild, hyper sitcoms like Seinfeld and Home Improvement were ruling the air, Larry Sanders was quietly revolutionary -- and influential. 

Then, on June 6, 1998, along came Sex and the City.

The show about four female NYC friends -- a sort of East Coast, female-centric Larry Sanders -- easily became one of the most popular shows about NYC but, more importantly, one of the first great "Golden Age of Television" cable shows. Six months later The Sopranos hit the air and the "Golden Age" had officially begun.

As this article indicates, without SATC, the culture as we know it today would be quite different.  

Think about everything that SATC influenced. There would have been no Girls, no Broad City, and a whole universe of shows and culture dedicated to the professional and romantic lives of women. It was a cultural trailblazer. Also, without SATC, there's be no Cynthia Nixon for Governor, no cupcake culture -- and, arguably, less gentrification in NYC. 

TV as we know it was largely shaped in that week back in the spring of 1998 -- and, today, we live in its wake -- as does NYC.