NETWORK: CBS
AIR DATE: June 5, 2008
STARRING: Josh Hopkins, Lana Parrilla, Shanna Collins, Miriam Shor, Grant Show, Jack Davenport, Brittany Robertson, Aaron Howles, and Molly Parker
CREATED BY: Mike Kelley

Imagine watching every episode of VH1's I Love the '70s, Austin Powers, and Saturday Night Fever and then trying to write a TV series about the clearly swinging times. You'd have something close to Swingtown, a suburban drama(?) set in the era of lava lamps, shag carpets, and, if this show is to be believed, copious sex. Swingtown could have been a "Desperate Housewives: 1974" but it never finds the right tone, clearly unsure how seriously we're supposed to be taking this tale of innocence corrupted by the swingers across the street, but not going all the way with pure parody. With winking asides and costumes and haircuts that look pulled from a Halloween shop on Devil's Night, Swingtown never once feels genuine, funny, or dramatic. It's a mess on every level that could only become a curiosity for viewers deeply nostalgic for a time when sideburns and corduroy jackets were reasonable fashion decisions.

Swingtown opens with the clearly defined "corrupters" watching the new blood move in across the street, as if they're vampires in a castle, eying their new prey in the town below. Just fresh from a threesome, they spot the innocents moving to suburban Chicago and set a plan in motion to find a way into their seemingly perfect lives...and pants. In the pilot, the fresh blood and other bodily fluids (including Deadwood's very talented-but-wasted Molly Parker) find themselves at a neighborhood party straight out of The Ice Storm. They've even brought a few friends from their old - clearly more chaste - lives. To indicate just how far even the most morally conscious can fall in the swinging '70s, the old friends, the ones who didn't move to Sexylvania, Illinois, realize the "play room" in this party's basement isn't just for darts and head for the hills. Will our heroes follow or fall victim to their swinging urges? It's groovy, baby!

If you think we might be exaggerating the "creepy old man" feeling given off by Swingtown, nothing could be further from the truth. Everything is a lascivious aside or straight-out double entendre. An episode of Pyramid airing in the background features the category "Things You Can Spread". Think that's a coincidence? Even the kid's name is BJ. It all sounds like it could be cheesy, tongue-in-cheek fun, but Swingtown isn't well made enough to become that. The most notable problem is the complete lack of believability in the design. On every level, Swingtown looks like people on a set playing dress-up. There's nothing about the period recreation that works and it's going to be even more startling when the brilliant period design of Mad Men, a show that works hard to feel genuine in every scene, comes back in a few weeks. And that goes a long way to deflating the concept of a show like this one. If you're constantly reminded by the production value that you're watching a cheaply made series, you're going to feel even dirtier at the sexual content involved. The writer's strike has made this summer season a relatively light one when it comes to new series, but drama fans deserve better than Swingtown. Heck, anyone who remembers the '70s deserves better.