Swingtown: 1.1 ‘The Pilot’ Review
Original Air Date: June 5, 2008
Welcome to Dullsville, USA, people.
I watched the pilot of CBS’ new bicentennial-set, free-love series Swingtown, and I still don’t understand why anyone at the network thought the premise is something that can sustain an hourlong drama week after week after week.
As many know, the series’ gimmick, if you will, revolves around several main characters’ penchant for swapping sexual partners as a normal course of their open marriage. Lana Parrilla and Grant Show’s Trina and Tom Decker, a former stewardess and current airline pilot, respectively, represent this uninhibited approach to coupledom.
Apparently unable to deny their attraction to fresh meat, they take a chance and introduce their new neighbors Susan and Bruce Miller (Molly Parker and Jack Davenport) to the lifestyle after scoping out the recent arrivals when they drop by to close the deal on their new home across the street.
The Millers actually aren’t moving all that far from their old residence. Bruce comes into money — it’s never explained exactly how — that allows the family to relocate just three blocks away to a more prestigious area of town.
In the process of this upward mobility, Susan leaves behind her clingy, prudish, jealous best friend Janet Thompson (Miriam Shor). We eventually learn, however, that Janet’s husband Roger (Josh Hopkins) might be open to a little extra loving himself, if not for his wife, when Susan invites them along to a wild and swinging party thrown by the Deckers.
There are also kids in this retro mix. The Millers’ eldest, high school student Laurie (Shanna Collins), is an intelligent, pretty young thing feeling the restrictions of her involvement with a buff but somewhat dumb boyfriend. Her raging teenage hormones mixed with her obvious smarts feeds her attraction to her teacher, a fellow literature lover who’s not that much older and who could very well have feelings for her, too.
Then there’s the Millers’ youngest, son B.J. (Aaron Howles), whose best friend is the Thompsons’ only child Rick (Nicholas J. Benson), a chubby kid rapidly on his way to becoming a nerdy and slightly freaky outcast for the remainder of his schooldays. At one point, he suffers a very public beating from a girl who’s rightfully angry about him spreading lies of having had sex with her.
Aaahhh — there’s the sex again. But for a show that CBS is proudly promoting as being all about that natural act, do we ever get to see anything titillating? Unless you consider a few shots of bare skin from indeterminate body parts a turn-on, not even close, which leaves us with several pretty darn mundane and downright boring storylines. Has anybody not seen all of this family angst and growing pains before?
The essential blandness underlying the plot threads is a shame, too, because it’s not like the cast members are terrible actors. All do a good job with what they’re given. Unfortunately, what they’re given just doesn’t amount to much worth watching.
I don’t expect Swingtown to make it to a second season, and if the series manages to get more interesting as it lumbers along this summer, that would be one of the biggest shocks in my recent memory.
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POSTED IN: Recaps, Series Premieres, Swingtown
2 opinions for Swingtown: 1.1 ‘The Pilot’ Review
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