And Just Like That: One-liners turned into drizzle, writes LIZ JONES 

And they’re back! Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda are back on our screens for the second series of Sex And The City spin-off show And Just Like That…

There’s plenty of sex. The very first scene shows a tousled Carrie striding towards a new man in her bed. A year of widowhood (Big dying of a heart attack on a Peloton in season one) having worked wonders for her skin and hair, apparently.

Charlotte (Kristin Davis), meanwhile, also stalking purposefully into the bedroom, has a new face entirely (think Jack Nicholson as The Joker). While Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) gives us full-frontal nudity within the first few minutes as she frolics with her new partner Che in a swimming pool.

Then there are the clothes. Instagram-worthy in every scene, particularly the final denouement in episode one. (Spoiler alert: Yes, and just like that, Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie is Miss Havisham, back in her Vivienne Westwood wedding gown.)

So, in terms of sex and style, plus ca change with the second series of the Sex And The City sequel. Or so they are at pains to convince us in the first two episodes – the only ones to be released so far.

But where is the much-hyped reappearance of Kim Cattrall as foul-mouthed Samantha? And what about the even more hotly anticipated, incredible hot hunk that is Carrie’s ex-fiance Aidan, the ultimate Mr Nice Guy whom Carrie cheated on with Big while Aidan was sanding her floors?

It’s rumoured to get better, but all we’ve seen so far is a still image from a future episode (new episodes will be drip-fed on Thursdays), where Aidan (John Corbett) looks even more like Carrie’s Care in the Community worker. He always seemed younger; no amount of tweakments can change that.

As impatient as we may be to see how that pans out, first we must wade through a whole host of newer characters. We may have been introduced in the first series but they are yet to win me over. I find myself yelling: ‘I am too old to gain new friends and learn new names! I want my old ones back!’

There is even a family with children! I don’t want to see children! This is a nuclear-family-free zone about drinking Manhattans, not, ‘Did you brush your teeth?’

Incidentally, there are far too many scenes without the Fab-Four-Now-Fab-Three – something that never happened in the six Sex And The City seasons and two spin-off movies.

So are there any positives? Um. Miranda is no longer grey, as she was in the first series. There is the odd funny line. Carrie to GBF (gay best friend) Anthony, ‘Get over it, you’re a man.’ Him: ‘Says who?’ But the sharp wit used to come at us scattergun, like hailstones. Remember Carrie being mugged? ‘Hand over your handbag.’ ‘It’s a Fendi Baguette.’ Now it’s a lukewarm drizzle.

And where’s the pathos, the gravitas? The original shows – which should have remained preserved in aspic – dealt with breast cancer, loneliness, ageing, infertility, betrayal, penury… This episode was all about – wait for it – getting ready for the Met Ball. Seriously, post Covid, we don’t even care about the real event let alone a fictionalised version.

Fondness, nostalgia, loneliness made me reach for the first season of And Just Like That during the pandemic like a rubber ring. I was forgiving, awash with feeling safe with a world I knew like the back of my collagen-boosted hand.

But, as with most relationships, on the evidence of what we’ve seen so far, this series will let me down. Like Charlotte’s face and Carrie’s apartment, it has changed beyond recognition. I fear these women, late 50s all, have tipped into the ridiculous.

The only lesson it has taught me so far? Unlike Carrie and Aidan, never, ever go back…