Just Enough For <i>The City</i>

There's a television show that sets tongues awaggin' with its racy look at the joys and frustrations of the New York singles scene, reports CBS This Morning Contributor Eleanor Mondale.

Sex and the City is an HBO series that focuses on four women who date a lot, gallivant around town in great outfits, and whose girl talk makes some people blush. Fortune usually shines on these beauties, who live mostly glamorous, sometimes frustrating, lives.

The four friends are Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), a sex columnist who is the voice of the show; Charlotte (Kristin Davis), an uptight art dealer; Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), a level-headed lawyer, and Samantha (Kim Cattrall), a promiscuous public relations executive.

"I think it resonates with people," says Parker. "These are real emotions that are in the environment of a very colorful city. And men and women of all ages, and sizes and varieties, and body type and colors and ethnicities; it's just wild."

Parker, who is married to actor Matthew Broderick, says she enjoys the challenge of playing Carrie. "Her lifestyle is so different than mine, so unfamiliar and so foreign and so thrilling to play," she explains. "I never led a life like this, and I'm a married woman now, so it's like sanctioned legal behavior all day long that you would never do if you were a married woman."

Davis, on the other hand, plays Charlotte, a misty-eyed romantic who plays by the rules. And she says many women, especially in New York, identify with her character. But, adds the actress, "I would say, 'Go on out there. Take some more risks.'"

Nixon plays the more cynical Miranda, but she says she is distinctly different from her character. "Perhaps if the things that happened to me in my life that have happened to Miranda, I might have a little more [of a] chip on my shoulder," she explains. "I don't think I have a chip on my shoulder."

Cattrall's Samantha is the most provocative of the group.

"There's very few women around like Samantha," she says. "I think that's why she's striking a chord, because she's so much fun. She enjoys her sexuality. She enjoys life. Most people are just picking at the appetizers, and Samantha's having a banquet."