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Review: 'Swingtown' on CBS

VERNE GAY | verne.gay@newsday.com

June 5, 2008

Reason to watch: Fab core cast includes Molly Parker (Alma Garrett, "Deadwood"), Jack Davenport ("Pirates of the Caribbean") and Grant Show (" Melrose Place").

Reason not to watch: Subject matter - swingers! - may be offensive to some (although some may decide this is a reason to watch; your call). Meanwhile, it can be an awkward, if amusing, spectacle to watch the commercial networks try to launch something that's perhaps better suited to HBO ("Big Love") or Showtime ("Weeds").

What it's about: Two days before the nation's 200th birthday - July 2, 1976 - dashing and libido-directed airline pilot Tom Decker (Show) and like-minded wife, Trina (Lana Parrilla, also good here), don't have patriotism on their minds but multi-partner fun. Twosomes, threesomes, any-number-somes. The more the merrier.

Meanwhile, a new couple has moved in across the street in their comfortable Chicago suburban subdivision. They're Bruce Miller (Davenport) and his wife, Susan (Parker), and the Deckers have checked them out even before the furniture's through the door. The Millers have two kids - Laurie (Shanna Collins), a cynical, hard-bitten teen who knows her mom got pregnant with her when she was the same age, and younger bro, B.J. (Aaron Christian Howles). When the Millers go to the Deckers' July 4th party, they face an unexpected choice - to swing or not to swing (that is the question), though the ingestion of Quaaludes and Harvey Wallbangers may not help to clarify the answer. "It's not cheating," explains predatory Trina. "It's the opposite, because everything's already on the table."

The bottom line: Craven though networks can be, "Swingtown" seems less interested in sex and more about social change (hence the double meaning of "swing" in the title). The sex is muted, bloodless and clinical. (Yawwwn.) Problem is, "Swingtown" can't decide whether the '70s were transformative or deformative; there's a distinct ironic edge, applied mostly through the use of music, with classics like David Bowie's "Golden Years" or Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" as both soundtrack and motif.

But that edge isn't nearly sharp or funny enough (unlike "Weeds"), which tends to muddle the point of view.

SWINGTOWN Premieres tonight at 10 on CBS/2.