Wildly incoherent, utterly flummoxing, blissful: how And Just Like That rewrote the rules of TV

The Guardian

a day ago

Sex and the City's divisive spin-off And Just Like That is set to end after three bizarre seasons and a deluge of critical contempt, with bemused fans losing it on Reddit, and articles about how the programme became a hate watch. There has been little heartache in the discourse after the announcement of the show's demise, the general consensus being: good. But to these people, I say – you're wrong! But also, I understand. There is always an element of fear in contemplating change, in engaging with the rapid advancement of modernity, and I would like to make the case for And Just Like That being a product of exactly that.
It feels analogous to a comment a friend of mine once made during a conversation about the best oven pizzas, when someone posited Dr Oetker pizzas as a contender: 'It's delicious, it's something different, I don't know what it is … but it's not pizza.' This is how I feel about And Just Like That. It's a pleasure to watch, it's fun, it's compelling, I don't know what it is – but it's certainly not TV drama. And Just Like That is something new; I genuinely believe the show has reimagined what television drama is, and how we might engage with it.
I wonder whether And Just Like That represents the end point of television drama's evolution into content – pure content, no longer a strictly narrative format. Many have wondered whether it was covertly written by AI, and I understand this line of thinking, as none of the characters behave like their original characters. In fact, they don't behave like human beings. The dialogue is bizarre (repeated references to comedian Che's 'comedy concert'), while the editing is flummoxing, unnatural and awkward; scenes are abandoned at peculiar moments, new storylines introduced four-fifths of the way into an episode, before quickly fizzling out. The camera moves in jarring sweeps. The minor characters have their own minor characters, and everyone gets a (ridiculous) storyline, with one episode even featuring a monologue by the assistant of the dad of one character, Lisa Todd Wexley. Recently, many pointed out that the show accidentally killed off her dad twice. Watching And Just Like That mirrors the jarring rush of scrolling through Instagram: a wildly incoherent, meaningless and disorienting experience that is distracting enough to ensure you come back for more.
Perhaps part of what makes the show such a joy is that it feels as if you've entered a dream – right down to the fact that plotlines seem to be fuelled by a nonsensical dream logic that flows happily if illogically along. Sure, Charlotte experiences debilitating vertigo that has never been mentioned or referenced previously! Miranda suddenly throws Charlotte a karaoke party after mistakenly believing her dog has cancer – why not?!
The closest experience I can liken watching And Just Like That to is a 'digital art museum' I visited on holiday in Tokyo. You moved between colourful inflated balls the size of zoo animals, and waded through calf-deep warm water, while DayGlo cherry blossoms were projected on to the walls. It was baby sensory play but for adults, and it was heaven. I think perhaps this is what And Just Like That is – a pleasurable sensory experience, intended to induce a sort of ASMR-like bliss.
In my more generous moments, I wonder if some comment is being made, regarding an atomisation that occurs in late middle-age, or regarding the alienation these characters are experiencing as a symptom of being hideously rich, given their drifting apart from one another. Is its lack of narrative throughlineand absence of basic coherence mirroring the dislocating experience of life online? Unfortunately, I'm pretty certain it is not that controlled (Sarah Jessica Parker, lead actor and executive producer, doesn't even watch it). Either way, it has been a pleasurably mindless experience, and at a time in which I have received a very scary diagnosis for my son, I have welcomed my weekly lobotomy with full force. And when it comes back, as I'm almost certain it will, I will feel much the same about it as Donald Trump does about Coca-Cola: I'll still keep drinking that garbage.