Anyone Remember ‘Swingtown’? It’s One Of The Best One-Season Wonders You’ve Never Seen

When producers Mike Kelley and Alan Poul pitched Swingtown to HBO in 2007, the premium cable network claimed its hands were tied with post-The Sopranos sexual explorations Big Love and Tell Me You Love Me. Kelley, whose writing credits at the time included The O.C. and Providence, hoped his retro swinger drama could live on a paid cable network willing to take risks — after all, Swingtown is about the sexual revolution of the ’70s.

After HBO said thanks but no thanks, Kelley and Poul were ready to head over to Showtime when Nina Tassler, then the president of CBS Entertainment, inquired about the pilot. The series was greenlit within a couple of days and finally, finally, CBS had itself a risqué drama that could compete with what HBO and Showtime were producing (and, it should be mentioned, winning Emmys for). However, by the time the show premiered in June 2008, the broadcast network behaved in typical broadcast network-fashion and cut out all of the risqué material from the show. Sadly, this left Swingtown without much swinging.

Despite having to strip down their ambitions to fit the stricter confines of CBS, head writer Kelley and director Poul masterfully achieved creating a smart, sexy story of small town curiosity by working in a deeply sensual level of subtlety. They were able to put together a stellar cast that consisted of (eventual House of Cards star) Molly Parker, British heartthrob Jack Davenport, soap star Grant Show, and Spin City‘s Lana Parrilla as a group of curious and liberated neighbors, but lackluster ratings and even worse reviews led to Swingtown‘s cancellation after only 13 episodes. Those who gave up after the relatively uneven but delightfully campy pilot, however, missed out on one of the coolest, cheekiest, and most underrated seasons of the pre-peak TV era.

After longtime married couple Susan and Bruce Miller (Parker and Davenport) settle into their new home in an affluent Chicago suburb, Swingtown wastes no time living up to its name after the vanilla pair meet their provocative, partying neighbors, Tom and Trina Decker (Show and Parrilla). Though Susan and Bruce have only been with each other since high school, they leap into bed with Tom and Trina, shifting both couples’ view of openness and monogamy in sexual revelatory 1970’s America.

As the season evolves, we’re linked more closely with Susan, who, after getting to know a different, daring side of herself, feels challenged to want more outside of the familiarity and safeness of domesticity. As a homemaker and mother of two who never had the chance to go to college (she got pregnant with her teenage daughter, Laurie, in high school), Susan finds herself questioning her compatibility with Bruce after its made clear that he prefers she stay home. But when the Millers’ conservative friends Janet (Miriam Shor) and Roger Thompson (Josh Hopkins) learn of the pair’s peculiar new neighbors, Swingtown becomes a battle ground of judgment and curiosity, with Susan finally following her heart, albeit in Roger’s direction.

There’s also a B-plot of Laurie’s (Shanna Collins) secret relations with her literature professor, adding to the show’s overarching tension of sex and secrecy, but Swingtown is really about the shift of traditionalist ideals away from those popularized in post-WWII America; particularly how this schism affected those outside the country’s progressive metropolises. Though the male characters are imperative to the plot, the series is ultimately led by four smart, intense female characters — Susan, Trina, Janet, and Laurie — who, without bashing us over the head with overt feminist narratives, dissect the complications and nuances of 1970’s gender roles.

But, alas, Mad Men had launched the summer prior. This meant that the groundbreaking qualities of Swingtown were ignored by critics and viewers alike, who instead had already gravitated towards Don Draper’s womanizing and whiskey-guzzling antics. Instead of reliving a period of American history through the eyes of a wealthy, white, New York City-based ad man, the ladies of Swingtown were cluing us in on a place in time most relatable to those living in commuter-friendly suburbs where the temptation from the city life spills over in spurts and leaks out from behind closed doors of picket fenced properties.

Though the series met an untimely end, Swingtown will go down in TV history as the period drama that didn’t quite have that oomph to make carry it to Mad Men status. If HBO or Showtime were willing to roll the dice, Swingtown could have arguably lived a longer life on a premium cable channel where the orgies could have been written as orgies, the sex scenes wouldn’t have had to be covered up, and the audiences could have been lured into the unconventional (yet tantalizing) world of 1976 North Shore, Illinois, just like Susan and Bruce Miller. Maybe if Swingtown was picked up by Showtime rather than CBS, the sex would have given prospective audience members reason to watch (why else do we keep paying extra for premium cable anyhow?) and suckered them in to a provoking, feminist narrative with a kick ass soundtrack that certainly felt like it had much more to say.

[You can stream Swingtown on Amazon Video]

Photos: CBS