One-season wonders: ‘Swingtown’ (2008) (TV review)

I like “Swingtown” (2008, CBS, available on DVD and Amazon streaming) almost entirely for the way it recreates the Summer of 1976, yet it’s totally defensible as a legitimate one-season wonder on its overall merits, thanks to its wonderful characters and portrayal of changing societal values. For me, the buzziest part of the show – the fact that it chronicles (gasp!) the swinger lifestyle – is almost beside the point.

Enjoying a heartbreakingly short 13-episode summer run, the Chicago-set “Swingtown” should’ve won all the awards for set design, costumes and props. Additionally, the writers deserve credit for working the 1970s affectations into the action smoothly and naturally. There’s very little winking going on here, whether it’s teenage Laurie (Shanna Collins) hanging out at the library, the younger kids riding bikes, or Tom Decker (Grant Show) getting one of those new-fangled camcorders. Further emphasizing the era are softer-focus lenses and transitional wipes (like in “Star Wars”) – and they also try dramatic zoom-ins in one episode, like in old daytime soaps.

There’s not an original plot to be found, but what makes “Swingtown” so understatedly great is how it approaches these plots through the lens of the time, making us reflect on how things are different in the 21st century.

For example, Laurie is dating her summer-school teacher, Doug (Michael Rady). But this isn’t the forbidden liaison of “Dawson’s Creek,” the tragic age-crossed lovers of “Once and Again” or the town-wide scandal of “Riverdale.” Partially, this is because both actors are clearly in their 20s (and only two years apart, IMDB tells me), even though we’re told Laurie is 17 and Doug is (gasp!) 24. Featuring a “Womanpower” banner as part of the opening-credits montage (backed by a tasty ditty from Liz Phair), “Swingtown” features the rise of the independent woman as subtext or outright text, so this thread is about Laurie being capable of making her own choice. Yes, a viewer who is rooting for Laurie and Doug might feel some ache over the fact that society will reject the pairing – indeed, Doug pragmatically turns down an offer to teach full-time – but that’s secondary.

My favorite (and unfortunately the least-explored) thread involves the younger kids, who I think are about 14: Best friends B.J. (Aaron Christian Howles) and Rick (“Summerland’s” Nick Benson) and girl-next-door Sam (Britt Robertson, later of “Life Unexpected” and “The Secret Circle”). Although it’s clear the writers would’ve explored Rick’s sexuality had the series continued – Sam has an amazing gaydar for a 14-year-old in 1976 – I like the idea that these early episodes work as a chronicle of a late bloomer who isn’t ready for his childhood to end. Although Rick jumps at opportunities to score social points by hanging out with girls, it’s clear he’s panicked about the prospect. Pointing to fort-making blankets in the basement, Rick says “You want to?” “Nah, we’re too old,” B.J. replies. “Who cares? No one’s watching,” Rick says.

With B.J. and Sam, we have a first-love story where not only is the person new, but the feelings are new too. The thread isn’t written in a particularly original way, but these friends’ gradual progression to, well, whatever the equivalent of love is for 14-year-olds, is particularly sweet when placed next to what the adults are doing. And when Sam has to move away at series’ end, it’s the saddest friend-moving-away story since Allen’s departure on “Punky Brewster.” (Somewhat amusingly, she’s only moving 40 miles away to Naperville, but it works as a commentary on how – at that age – 40 miles might as well be 1,000.)

The adults’ behavior is, of course, what “Swingtown” is known for. It sets the tone in the pilot episode when Tom suggests to wife Trina (Lana Parrilla) and their new neighbors, Bruce (Jack Davenport) and Susan Miller (Molly Parker): “Why don’t the four of us go someplace a little quieter.” The regular pool parties thrown by airline pilot Tom and retired stewardess Trina are the least of it; they have a “playroom” downstairs, and it isn’t the kind where you make forts.

With this premise, I’m tempted to label “Swingtown” “controversial” without looking up whether it truly was. In actuality, the first post I come across on the show’s TV.com page is someone praising it for showing the foibles of the swinger lifestyle and promoting the sanctity of marriage – as if the series’ mission was to show the good and varied reasons why swinging was only so briefly in the mainstream. That’s a somewhat odd take considering the show’s final image is Susan kissing her best friend Janet Thompson’s (Miriam Shor) husband Roger (Josh Hopkins). To be fair, though, that’s the final image only because “Swingtown” was canceled mid-story, not because it’s intended to be a closing statement.

And it’s contrasted by the Deckers deciding to keep the baby from Trina’s surprise pregnancy (it’s suggested that she’s had several abortions before), with Tom saying she’s never looked more beautiful than at this moment, when he learns she’s pregnant. (On a related note, Tom is the coolest guy in TV history. Basically a big kid, he also has deep empathy. “Whatever the party is, that’s the party I’m at,” he says when his friends worry a non-swinger party might leave him bored. Later, he kisses Janet to boost her self-confidence.)

Ironically, even though the Millers have two kids (Laurie and B.J.) and the Thompsons have one (Rick), “Swingtown” is barely about parenting. Heck, Bruce doesn’t even know B.J.’s new friend Sam is a girl until toward the series’ end. But I think this is intentional: The way the parents let their kids be kids is reflective of how things were in the 1970s (within reason; Bruce dutifully blows up when he finds out Laurie is dating Doug).

In the 21st century, parents’ fear of imagined dangers has gotten so extreme that a Free Range Kids movement had to be started to bring back the idea of letting kids go out and play, 1970s-style. (It continued into the 1980s, my kid years, which I’m thankful for. That was the last full decade of “going outside and playing.”) That’s not to say the parents aren’t there for their kids when they are needed, just that they don’t smother them like many of today’s parents (who ironically are the grown-up B.J.s and Sams, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post).

While the helicopter parent movement is an example of a bad trend coming down the pike of history, “Swingtown” is mostly about the idea that things are changing for the better. Briefly, we get some heavy-handed stuff about how Jimmy Carter is a force for progress in contrast to the stodgy President Gerald Ford, which I’m glad they didn’t spend too much time on, although it did make for a timely commentary on the Obama-McCain cycle, and how mindless hope is recycled throughout the history of presidential elections.

Mostly, the changes are personal. With the Deckers as an example of who they could be and the sweet-but-dull Thompsons as an example of who they don’t want to be, the Millers are the focal couple. I like how they aren’t portrayed as put-upon people railing against the written and unwritten rules of society. Rather, they are somewhat part of the oppression, and are coming to realize it — Susan more quickly than Bruce.

“Trust me, the movie is not for you,” Bruce, going full patriarch, tells Susan when she says she wants to see the porno film “Deep Throat,” which has landed the actor – a friend of the Deckers – in legal trouble. Reflecting on the actor’s plight and the repression of art, Susan says “It’s important” in a tone that suggests she’s thinking about wider issues for the first time in her life, despite being in her 30s. The Thompsons are on a similar journey, which comes to a head when Roger gets an offer for a job in Cincinnati. Pulling out a calendar and noting that it’s 1976, not 1954, Trina says: “Father doesn’t necessarily know best anymore. You have a say in this, Janet.”

Created by Mike Kelley, who later launched the primetime soap “Revenge” but has no credits since, “Swingtown’s” writers and actors get these details so right that a viewer can almost brush aside the familiar plots and the minimal location-shooting budget. It’s alluded that the Deckers’ house is on Lake Michigan, but the cameras never point in that direction; in the Labor Day-set finale, there’s finally a clam bake on the beach.

It seems “Swingtown” spent most of its budget on home set designs (luckily, this includes the Deckers’ spacious house and pool, so we don’t feel too claustrophobic) and music — “Running on Empty,” “Get Down Tonight” and “Take It to the Limit” feature in the episodes named after the songs. So while it would be nice if the show breathed a bit more, I can’t complain too much.

For the people who lived in 1976 – whether swingers or traditionalists – the year went by as quickly as this year is going by for us. But such is the nature of nostalgia and – to borrow Doug’s dissertation title – “The Subjective Nature of Time” that “Swingtown” freezes 1976 in a time capsule. And it’s one I’m happy to dig up.