They say history repeats itself — first as tragedy, then as farce. But when the 1970s repeats itself, it’s pretty much farce every single time.
I’m referring specifically to “Swingtown,” a new drama airing, improbably, on CBS. Set in a Chicago suburb during the decade of disco and leisure suits, “Swingtown” focuses on three couples, all charting different paths through the jungle of casual sex and even-more-casual drug use.
Just about everyone loves to hate the ’70s. Liberals hate it because it commercialized 1960s radicalism and made it mainstream. Conservatives hate it because it commercialized 1960s radicalism and made it mainstream. Actually, the ’70s is one thing both left and right agree on.
It was the decade when sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll broke out of the counterculture. Music was groovy, and movies, finally free of decades of censorship, entered a new golden age.
It’s just too bad that the clothes and hairstyles were so awful. Probably the reason so many people were having so much sex in the ’70s is everyone, no matter their shape, looked better naked. In fact, that also may explain the streaking fad. And in the pre-AIDS era, even if sex wasn’t always safe, at least it couldn’t kill you.
That brings me back to “Swingtown,” which is all about sex, even though it doesn’t really show any.
First, you’ve got Tom and Trina Decker (Grant Show and Lana Parrilla). He’s an airline pilot — place your own cockpit joke here — and she’s a former stewardess who now mostly stays home and watches “The $25,000 Pyramid.” But at night, they’re the swingingest couple in the Windy City.
Yes, they’re swingers, wife swappers, whatever you want to call it. Asked if she has an open marriage, Trina replies, “Don’t you?”
The Deckers are the reason Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority.
Next, you have Bruce and Susan Miller (Jack Davenport and Molly Parker). They’re new to the neighborhood and to the whole swinging scene, but they’re eager studies. Of course, if “Swingtown” lasts more than six episodes, I’m sure they’ll learn that everything isn’t as groovy as it seems just after a couple of Quaaludes and a few Harvey wallbangers.
Ah, the intoxicants of yesteryear.
The Millers have two children, a son who has just discovered Playboy and a daughter who is into the works of Henry Miller and really into her literature teacher. (Feel free to pencil in your own “teacher’s pet” or “hot for teacher” one-liner here.)
Lastly, are Roger and Janet Hopkins. Janet is Susan’s best friend from the old neighborhood, and she’s simply appalled by Susan’s new friends. Roger, however, doesn’t seem particularly upset by the Deckers’ idea of a good time.
I sense marital discord in the Hopkins’ future, which is one of the two big problems with “Swingtown.” Just from the first episode, I figure I can predict with 97 percent accuracy where the rest of season 1 is headed. Assuming it’s not toward cancellation, which is my first guess.
Give “Swingtown” credit for getting the fashions and the music right, but for a show about swinging it’s depressingly sexless. What it’s doing on CBS rather than HBO or Showtime — or at least FX — is a mystery. As far as networks go, CBS doesn’t love the nightlife and doesn’t have to boogie. In fact, if CBS boogied, it’d probably break a hip.
On HBO, “Swingtown” would have made an excellent replacement for the explicit yet boring “Tell Me You Love Me.” On CBS, however, it’s like the first season of “That ’70s Show,” only not funny.
Unless the characters break out of their stereotypes, all “Swingtown” has going for it is its nostalgic setting. But how long will that stay interesting?
If it lasts, “Swingtown” will probably seem like just another network drama. Except without cell phones.
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