SPOILERS: Is 'Girls' A Grittier 'Sex And The City'

In the spirit of the Judd Apatow frenzy that has colored the last decade in comedic filmmaking comes HBO's new show, Girls, starring relative newcomer, Tiny Furniture's Lena Dunham (pictured), who also created, executive produced, wrote, and directed the series. She joins a cast of — you guessed it! — "girls" in their early 20s (Jemima Kirke, Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet) who live in Brooklyn and fancy themselves a poor man's Sex and the City troupe.

In fact, Dunham's character Hannah might even consider that a compliment, as self-effacement and low expectations are the names of the game in Girls. There's more to it than just that, though. "This is a show that couldn't exist without Sex in the City," said Dunham, 25, reports USA Today. "Not just because of the place it carved for women on television, but also, these are characters who probably moved to New York because they watched marathons on New Year's Eve with their mom and went, 'I want me a piece of that.'"

Indeed, though Dunham's Hannah refers to herself as "a Carrie with a touch of Samantha," the character is a bit grittier and more tragic. The SATC girls knew they couldn't take true love for granted; Hannah and her friends assume they can't take much of anything for granted, depending on romantic relationships that are not only unfulfilling, but downright demeaning. But all this suffering is par for the course in comedy, as producer Apatow reminds us. "All great comedy is things going terribly wrong. There's nothing fun in maturity," he told the magazine.

You can catch Girls premiere Sunday April 15 at 10:30 p.m. on HBO.

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