"Swingtown": Welcome (back?) to the 1970s!
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- May
- 30
Let me introduce you to CBS’s new one-hour primetime drama, “Swingtown.” The Eye network says that the show “traces two generations of friends and neighbors as they forge intimate connections and explore new freedoms during the culturally transformative decade of the 1970s.”
It debuts Thursday, June 5 at 10 p.m.
The gory details: In July of 1976, marrieds Susan and Bruce Miller (Molly Parker and Jack Davenport) move to an upscale suburb of Chicago after leaving their life elsewhere, which was filled with wholesome block parties and barbecues. They’re forced to confront temptation from their horny (they’re into threesomes) and lascivious neighbors Tom and Trina Decker (Grant Show, Lana Parrilla) while trying not to ditch their buds from their previous ‘hood, Janet and Robert Thompson (Miriam Shor, Josh Hopkins). The Millers are also introduced to the world of recreational drugging via Quaaludes. Meanwhile, the Miller and Thompson kids start to discover and assert their own morality and sexual identities as they come of age in a world on the precipice of change.
Rather than a social examination of or a tongue-in-cheek nod to the decade, this series seems like it’s counting on heavy-duty sex themes—even GROUP sex!—to draw in and keep viewers. Any series that relies on sex to grab viewers couldn’t be all that interesting in other areas, such as character development and thoughtful plots. But, as “they” say, “Sex sells.” And were the ’70s truly “a world that was on the precipice of change”? To me, it—especially the second half of the decade—was a time of recovery and calm after the turbulent 1960s. (And, I must add, I’m not just rehashing what I’ve read about that time. Those were my teen years.) But let’s give the pilot a look-see and then determine what this thing is all about.
(Photo courtesy of CBS.)
This entry was posted
on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 12:54 pm by Jenny Higgons.
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