Cynthia Nixon

HBO set a new standard of dominance in American television yesterday with 124 Emmy nominations - almost twice its nearest competitor, NBC, which had 65. Not even CBS in the early days of television, when it was known as "the Tiffany of networks," owned the high ground of programming the way these nominations say HBO does today. The numbers across the board for individual HBO productions are eye-popping: 21 nominations for Angels in America, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play that HBO made into a miniseries; 20 for The Sopranos, television's most acclaimed drama series; 11 for Sex and the City, the sitcom that dared to get serious in its farewell season; and nine for a single film, Something the Lord Made, about a white surgeon and a black lab technician who together pioneered heart surgery in the 1940s at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

NEW YORK - Stick Sarah Jessica Parker in a room filled with reporters, all men, and the first question they ask isn't about co-starring alongside Matthew McConaughey in her new film, or her marriage to actor Matthew Broderick, or her six years starring in HBO's Sex and the City, or the Golden Globes and Emmys she's won, or even her three decades in showbiz. No, what these guys want to know is: "Who designed your outfit?" "Oh, thank you," gushes Parker, either grateful for the attention or -- more likely -- glad to get the obvious question out of the way first.

MAYBE you've heard of HBO's hit comedy "Sex and the City." Maybe you've seen it. But have you lived it? Filmed on location in Manhattan, the show puts a shrewd, ironic spotlight on the busy lives and even busier love lives of its four liberated leading ladies: sympathetic sex columnist Carrie, cynical red-headed lawyer Miranda, insatiable PR exec Samantha and optimistic WASP art dealer Charlotte. The heroines meet their men at some of the city's most sleek spots. They all look stylish and sultry, and so does their city.