For I come to defend AJLT from the braying hordes, the smirkers and the cynical. I am here to remember the good and not pile on like so many before (I’m looking at you, Michael Idato!). I am the silent majority. Just ask all the other mums on the soccer sideline. I’m not going to lie, there were times during this third – and apparently final – season that I have had reviewer regret (I felt the same way about this season of The Bear, another regrettable four-star review I deliriously wrote after a late-night viewing marathon.) At times, AJLT was ridiculous, with fluctuating plots, some truly terrible characters and, at its end, an overflowing toilet. It continued to struggle without Samantha. But it was familiar and fun and never took itself too seriously. It was memories. It was my 20s. It was our 20s. It was Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, Harry, Antony, Steve and Brady and some great new friends in Seema, LTW, Herbert, Joy, Adam and Duncan. It finally kicked Aidan to the curb and sent Che packing. It kept us talking, sharing and engaged. Love it or hate it, AJLT kept us watching in an era of choice overload. When every second option on streaming services seems to involve a true-crime documentary about the murder of a woman, some romance scam or a truly foul holiday disaster, AJLT was pure comfort television. It was relief. I couldn’t help but wonder if part of the reason it received such a kicking was because it was a show about women in their 50s who dared to live big, fabulous lives. They shone brighter than the army of lookalike Gen Zs who have, in real life, infected Carrie’s old stomping ground of the West Village, drawn by the lure of Sex and the City.