'SEX AND THE CITY' A LITTLE BETTER BUT NO FUNNIER.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

'SEX AND THE CITY'' has been a pop-culture phenomenon, the first cable series to win the Emmy for outstanding comedy and a show that decidedly has tapped into the Zeitgeist, but its charms have always eluded me.

Maybe I've just had the bad luck to always tune in when a dodgy episode is on, but I've never heard Kim Cattrall, who plays voracious man-eater Samantha, say anything half as funny on the show as the first line of her Golden Globe Award acceptance speech: ``You wouldn't believe how many men I've slept with to get here.''

And while the series begins its sixth and final season, the show doesn't seem any funnier, but its characters have grown richer (except, of course, for Samantha) and their woes more relatable. But Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) still seems awfully callow in her column-writing: ``Why is it always something?'' her penetrating episode-two insight, seems dumber than usual. Were her topic not sex, it's hard to imagine any newspaper running her writing.

Samantha's puns, too, aren't any funnier. Eyeing an SUV on steroids, she says, ``I love a Hummer.'' (What were they thinking when they named it that in the first place?)

But the women's woes resonate more - Carrie is with a guy she likes, but the sex is lousy; recent mom Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) likes the father of her child yet isn't attracted to him, preferring TiVo instead; and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is considering converting to Judaism to please a boyfriend who won't marry a non-Jew, but she can't really get a rabbi to take her seriously.

Meanwhile, Samantha's frequenting a restaurant with a really hot waiter (as, it seems, are a lot of other women). If you reversed that subplot and made it a bunch of pathetic guys flirting with their Hooters waitresses, it wouldn't seem very funny, and it's not terribly comic here, either.

But the show with Miranda's TiVo obsession manages a pretty good parody of BBC America programming, the performances are good, fans will find out what became of the victim of one of Carrie's most tortured relationships - Aidan (John Corbett) - and of course the show boasts plenty of pulchritude for those of any sexual preference.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

SEX AND THE CITY - Two and one half stars

What: Final season of the pop-culture phenomenon about the New York singles scene.

Where: HBO.

When: 9 tonight, also Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday; HBO2: Monday.

In a nutshell: Characterizations are running deeper; still not all that funny, though.

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Photo:

(color) Kim Cattrall, left, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis return for HBO's ``Sex and the City.''