I am – Hercules!!
An hourlong from writer-producer Mike Kelley (“The O.C.,” “Jericho”), “Swingtown” looks at wife swapping, coke snorting and Penthouse reading in the suburbs of 1976 Chicago. (Recall that in 1976, CBS’ hourlong nostalgic look at life three decades earlier was “The Waltons.”) Its cast includes “Deadwood” vet Molly Parker (not to be confused with “Rome’s” Polly Walker) and Grant Show, who I think was on “Melrose Place” or some other show I could never stand watching. “Ice Storm: The Series” was presumably the pitch. The adults – some randy, others repressed – have offspring in various stages of teendom, and the smallfry are also busily pushing their sexual envelopes, as it were. (Interesting that network standards departments allow depictions of consequence-free drug abuse when the setting is 1970s America! The cannabis-saturated “That ‘70s Show” got the same kind of pass.) The pilot is watchable, mostly because it’s unusual, sexually-charged fare with an attractive cast and the music is agreeable (Fleetwood Mac’s “Go You Own Way” is among the super sounds of the seventies lending cameos). A veteran TV watcher can remain curious as to where it’s all going, and remain curious even after the pilot ends, so I’m adding “Swingtown” to my season-pass list. We’ll see how long that relationship lasts. TV Guide says:

… I just wish Swingtown gave us some fresh dramatic meat. … in the pilot episode, no one is more than skin-deep, so there’s little in the way of irony or metaphor to disguise the fact that Swingtown is so determined to be shocking it seems a little quaint. …

The Associated Press says:

… an entertaining drama populated by likable, relatable people sharing modern life experiences, few of which require taking off their clothes. … What you see on "Swingtown" isn't risque behavior but the issues underlying the choices made, along with their consequences. Assuming you weren't there for real, "Swingtown" opens you up so you might ask yourself: What would I have done?

USA Today gives it two and a half stars (out of four) and says:

… The show itself, sad to say, is not done well enough to work. But it's not dull, and it's worth watching if only to try to figure out what CBS could have been thinking — beyond, "No one's going to confuse this with NCIS." …

The New York Times says:

… The show is not so much written as curated, with all the salient artifacts — mustaches, bell-bottom jeans, the hustle, Quiana halter dresses, Tab, quaaludes and wife swapping parties — tenderly laid out like an exhibition in a social anthropology museum. … “Swingtown” is not as wryly tender as the sitcom “The Wonder Years,” set roughly during the same period, but it’s also not as bleak a look back as Ang Lee’s movie about suburban angst in the ’70s, “The Ice Storm.” It is, however, highly familiar. … has ’70s mystique, but not much mystery.

The Los Angeles Times says:

… If only the pilot were a little less contrived. … That a fairly conservative, moderately happy couple would suddenly throw monogamy to the wind is a bit hard to believe, but "Swingtown" is clearly not interested in wondering whether Susan and Bruce will become swingers but rather what happens after they do. One can only hope that the narrative jury-rigging of the pilot is a one-time thing, because "Swingtown," like any other fantasy, will work only if the characters are as believable as the circumstances are extraordinary.

The Washington Post says:

… "Swingtown" obviously belongs to the tabloid tradition that has given us many other fabricated communities, going back at least to that lively little hot spot "Peyton Place." The formula is almost foolproof: Pull back the drapes and reveal the lustiness going on in private little homes protected by electronic security systems. …

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

… It looks like an HBO series. It compels fans of boundary-pushing basic cable channels like FX and AMC to sit up and take notice. And one hour later - despite a few lapses into network-y caricature - it leaves you wanting more. …

The Milwaukee Journal says:

… such a triumph of saucy style over slender substance that an hour after it ended, what I remembered best was one character's divine wraparound dress and another's luxuriant porn-star mustache. …

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

… CBS's recent experiments outside its all-crime prime-time lineup have failed. "Viva Laughlin" was an embarrassment while "Cane" and "Moonlight" just never got traction with enough viewers to stay on the air. The final piece of its 2007-08 schedule, "Swingtown" (10 p.m. EDT Thursday), is unlikely to fare any better, but at least it's a more interesting misstep. …

The Boston Globe says:

… Kelley's fascinating concept - the personal and sexual politics of an open marriage - is stifled by CBS prime-time superficiality and an inability to intimately explore intimate subject matter. Instead of looking back with the insight and frankness of AMC's fine 1960's ad-men drama "Mad Men," "Swingtown" is more trapped in the shallow retrospect of the cancelled NBC 1960s nostalgia drama "American Dreams." … Too bad the show doesn't have the freedom to go more than skin deep.

Variety says:

… an absorbing glimpse into a not-so-long-ago period … Like "Mad Men," the timeframe also proves extremely relevant, holding a mirror against current social mores, including casual use of drugs rarely seen on network television in this pre-"Just Say No" era. …

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… style is one thing and substance is another. Even skillful performances by its largely unknown cast aren't able to hide the lack of character development and the sense that the people in this series are almost self-parodies. Their dialogue is shallow, and their lives even shallower. Nor does it help that "Swingtown," which is very much about sexual exploration and experience, is presented on a broadcast network instead of premium cable, where it originally was pitched. The producers talk a good game about how this challenge made "Swingtown" a better show, but the reality is that, with so much restraint imposed here, steamy scenes become, at best, lukewarm. …

10 p.m. Thursday. CBS.

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