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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: June 28, 1998
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Sex and the City, “Valley of the Twentysomething Guys” (Season 1, Episode 4) [Stream on HBO GO]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: The first season of Sex and the City featured a fair bit of the show figuring itself out. The central concept of the show was strong — sex and dating from the perspective of four single women in Manhattan — but the execution took a little time to iron out. Still, by the fourth episode, amid the weird interstitial talking-head bits and Miranda’s aggressively androgynous wardrobe (we get it, she’s a career gal), Sex and the City was already hitting its stride, with Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) straying from the be-suited charms of Mr. Big (Chris Noth) in order to partake of guest-star Timothy Olyphant and his tongue stud.
The idea here was that Carrie was vacationing in the titular valley of twentysomethings, trying to recapture some of that youthful energy. In 1998, Olyphant was halfway between his breakthrough role (in 1997’s Scream 2) and his sexiest role (in 1999’s Go), and thus at his youthful peak. (It’s also probably worth knowing that Olyphant and Ben Weber, playing semi-regular Miranda love interest Skipper, would both play gay best pals in 2000’s The Broken Hearts Club.)
“Valley of the Twentysomething Guys” is probably the first classic, memorable Sex and the City episode, delivering on two of the show’s strongest suits: observational sex-and-relationships comedy (Carrie waking up amid Olyphant’s squalor) and serial relationship content (love or hate Mr. Big, that relationship helped the series blow up). The presence of a future TV leading man in Olyphant is what makes the episode memorable, but the show was already on very solid footing.
