Sex and the City captured something unique about modern womanhood at the turn of the century by exploring questions about love and independence that felt especially relevant in the early 2000s. Featuring four women with wildly different perspectives opened a whole new window into the sunny, brunch-filled world of Sex and the City.
Unfortunately, the Sex and the City revival series, And Just Like That…, demonstrated that it’s hard to capture lightning in a bottle. Even though it managed to reunite three-quarters of the original cast (four-fifths if you count NYC as a character), And Just Like That… tried too hard to overcorrect criticism of the original run, losing its identity in the process. The sequel introduced too many new characters. While the added diversity was necessary, the expanded ensemble cast diluted the three core women’s friendship that was central to the original run.
However, there is another series that isn’t technically in the Sex and the City universe, but it functions as a spiritual prequel, capturing the essence of what made SATC a cult hit. It’s not The Carrie Diaries, the charming official prequel series starring AnnaSophia Robb and Austin Butler as a high-school Carrie Bradshaw and her love interest, respectively. While the show was based on another book by Candace Bushnell, it is ultimately too YA to scratch the same itch as Sex and the City.
Freeform’s five-season series, The Bold Type, on the other hand, centered on a trio of young women who work at a fictional women’s magazine. The Bold Type has the relatable messiness, high fashion, true drama, and love for NYC that made people fall in love with Sex and the City in the ’90s and early 2000s, reworked for the modern era, with unattainable apartments and all.
The three women are each on their own journeys in terms of their careers, sexual discovery, health, and love, but their friendship is what anchors the series. That is why The Bold Type is ultimately the best (if unofficial) spiritual successor to Sex and the City.
The Bold Type Should Have Been Bigger Despite Running For 5 Seasons
Despite running for five seasons on Freeform, The Bold Type never quite broke into the mainstream conversation the way it deserved to. Part of that comes down to perception. The series was marketed as a glossy workplace rom-com aimed at younger women, emphasizing fashion, romance, and social media-savvy twenty-somethings living aspirational lives in New York City.
While those elements are certainly present, The Bold Type consistently tackles surprisingly complex issues without losing the aspirational fantasy that makes it such an easy watch. Sex and the City was an iconic show about friendship, and The Bold Type modernizes the template.
Where Sex and the City focused on four women with separate careers and intersecting social lives, The Bold Type streamlines the formula by placing its protagonists under the same roof, at Scarlet magazine. Because Jane (Katie Stevens) works in editorial, Sutton (Meghan Fahy in her breakout role) in fashion, and Kat (Aisha Dee) in social media, the show naturally integrates writing and fashion into its storytelling in a cohesive manner.
The series also updates many of the conversations that Sex and the City helped popularize for a new generation. Across its five seasons, The Bold Type tackles subjects including sexual identity, coming out, workplace inequality, women’s health, breast cancer, and the impact of the #MeToo movement.
Yet it never loses sight of the aspirational qualities that made viewers fall in love with shows like Sex and the City in the first place. The wardrobes are enviable, the apartments are unrealistically spacious, the romances are dramatic, and New York City remains a vibrant backdrop.
The difference is that the show’s worldview is more inclusive, reflecting cultural conversations that have evolved significantly since Carrie Bradshaw first sat down at her computer. Ironically, the qualities that make The Bold Type feel so contemporary may have contributed to it being overlooked.
Airing on Freeform limited its potential audience, while its weekly release schedule wasn’t the best way to consume it. As a comedy-drama with serialized character arcs, The Bold Type is arguably best experienced as a binge, allowing viewers to stay immersed in the characters’ personal and professional journeys rather than waiting weeks for storylines to unfold.
For Sex and the City fans still searching for a worthy successor, The Bold Type captures the friendship, ambition, romance, and New York energy that defined HBO’s cult hit while reimagining those themes for a new generation. With all five seasons of The Bold Type available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu, there has never been a better time to discover the show.