TV is the new reading

'Swingtown' a lightweight mustache drama

If “That ‘70s Show” had been an hourlong drama set in the Chicago suburbs, rather than a situation comedy set in Wisconsin, it might have looked exactly like “Swingtown.”

The mustache drama premiered June 5 on CBS, but it might have been more at home on FOX or ABC. The vivacious couple Tom and Trina Decker, played beautifully by Grant Show and Lana Parrilla, invite new neighbors Bruce and Susan Miller – Molly Parker and Jack Davenport – into their home, drug stash, hot tub and bed.

Horrified by this are the Millers’ conservative friends Roger and Janet Thompson, played by Miriam Shor and Josh Hopkins. But they’d be all the more shocked to discover the Millers’ daugher, Laurie, played by Shanna Collins, is falling for her English teacher, and that their neighbor Gail’s daughter Samantha ran away from home days ago and Gail is so strung out she hasn’t realized it.

There are some obvious parallels to “Desperate Housewives,” so it’s a good idea to get them out of the way early. Janet is like the obsessive-compulsive Bree Hodge with no self-esteem. She runs herself ragged making everything perfect, but she’s so far beneath the radar of the men in her life she can barely accept a compliment.

And Tricia is the kind of neighborhood Welcome Wagon aspired to by Edie Britt. The difference is, she and Tom enjoy a completely open marriage, which is troubling to the Millers, who are so new at that whole “sexual liberation” thing.

After such a steamy introduction, the second episode got around to the day-to-day lives of the characters. Tom Decker, a pilot, is promoted to a nonstop route to Tokyo, largely because the rumors of he and Tricia’s parties have all the air hostesses buzzing, and his bosses want to cool the situation off with some more overnights out of town.

In fact, by the second episode, the show is right back at home on CBS, with a couple flashes of skin and otherwise uncomfortable longing and repression. Even a party at the Playboy Club to celebrate Bruce’s big win at the office is as tame as such a thing could be – a few drinks with the boys, a few bunny costumes and Susan showing up with Tom and Trish.

The Bunnies, as it turns out, are less of a threat than new acquaintances Brad and Sylvia Davis, played by Mark Valley and Erin Daniels. Not only do they seem to share the same openness as the Deckers, but Susan is disturbed by how much Sylvia – a former Playboy Bunny who and high-powered lawyer – seems to want to share Bruce.

It’s hard to watch “Swingtown” and not notice how well-drawn the children are in relation to the adults, who seem a little cartoony. I noticed a similar situation in period drama “Mad Men” about ad executives in the early 1960s. The writers were almost certainly children in the time period of this show, and you get a more detailed view of life from their perspective as the writers draw from their own memories.

Apart from that, the costumes and settings are charming and the people are gorgeous and there’s lots of exploration of social mores, but honestly it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of “there” there. “Swingtown” mostly seems like a mismatched collection of jumbled memories and odd storylines. However, fans of music from the ‘70s can tune in and hear some of their old favorites, and all the songs are listed together at the end of the episode.

Ultimately it’s not great, but as summer dramas go, it’s distracting enough until something better comes along, and if you miss any of it, you haven’t missed much.

“Swingtown” airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on CBS.

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Boning up on 'The X Files,' from back when it was good

doo DOO doo DOO doo doo.
doo DOO doo DOO doo doo.

There was a time when that sound could send shivers of anticipation up my spine. There was no more rabid a fan of “The X-Files” on Friday nights than I.

Then something happened. David Duchovny left the show and the FOX network decided, inexplicably, to keep their cash cow in production until the very last whimper.

I was reminded of just how very bad the last two seasons of “The X-Files” were this past weekend when I decided to watch some old episodes in anticipation of the upcoming “The X-Files movie,” which will appear in theaters in July. I was as delighted as I ever was by an episode called “The Post-Modern Prometheus,” the one with the modern-day Frankenstein. Then there was the still-hilarious “Bad Blood,” the episode where Mulder and Scully stumbled across a town full of vampires in Texas.

But what the heck was that mess of a ninth season finale, the one that tried (and failed) to explain an alien conspiracy, the various tangled relationships and sightings of clones, super soldiers, the fate of Mulder’s sister and the doom facing the planet? Why was Mulder supposedly going to be executed by lethal injection, apparently without the years of appeals that other Death Row inmates are getting? Is it really that easy to break out of federal prison? Then there was their inconvenient-to-the-writers miracle baby that the weepy Scully gave up for adoption, after years of bemoaning her alien-induced infertility. Who really cared about Scully’s new partner Doggett? And so on and so on.

When “The X-Files” was good it was really, really good. And when it was bad, it was horrid. There were those pretentious, horrifically written monologues at the beginning of a “myth-arc” episode. Those were usually the ones about aliens abducting someone or doing awful things to a Scully or Mulder relative. The show racked up an impressive body count over its nine year run: Scully’s sister. Mulder’s sister. Mulder’s mom. Mulder’s dad. Scully’s little daughter, the one conceived using her stolen eggs and turned into an alien-human hybrid through dastardly government experiments. Mulder’s REAL dad, the Cigarette Smoking Man. Mulder’s buddies, The Three Lone Gunmen.

There was the inattention to character development from episode to episode. How could Scully STILL keep saying she didn’t believe in aliens after years of seeing weird stuff?

Some fans probably loved those myth-arc episodes. I much preferred the so-called “monster of the week” episodes, the straightforward investigations of the supernatural. That’s one reason I was glad to see that this upcoming movie is not going to dwell on the grand alien conspiracy. This way there should be less opportunity for show creator Chris Carter to stick his foot in his mouth with another hideous monologue.

Still, I’d like to know how Carter is planning to get Mulder and Scully out of the mess he left them in (and the mess he made of his once beloved show). I have to go see it. It’ll probably be a matinee, since it probably won’t be worth the full movie ticket price, but I won’t be able to resist going.

But surely I won’t be the only wistful fan in the theater whispering, “Please, oh, please, don’t be as bad as I think you’re going to be.”

Andrea Johnson is a staff writer for The Minot Daily News.