Sex and the City was an American romantic comedy television series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of 94 episodes. Throughout its six-year run, the show received contributions from various producers, writers, and directors, perhaps most significantly from Michael Patrick King. Set and filmed in New York City and based on the 1997 book of the same name by Candace Bushnell, the show follows the lives of a group of four women—three in their mid-thirties and one in her forties—who, despite their different natures and ever-changing sex lives, remain inseparable and confide in each other. Starring Sarah Jessica Parker (as Carrie Bradshaw), Kim Cattrall (as Samantha Jones), Kristin Davis (as Charlotte York), and Cynthia Nixon (as Miranda Hobbes), the quirky series had multiple continuing storylines that tackled relevant and modern social issues such as sexuality, safe sex, promiscuity, and femininity, while exploring the difference between friendships and romantic relationships. The deliberate omission of the better part of the early lives of the four women was the writers' way of exploring social life – from sex to relationships – through each of their four very different, individual perspectives.