I'VE BEEN INTRIGUED by the concept of CBS's upcoming SWINGTOWN ever since it was first announced. The series seems to be such a trainwreck of weird collisions. There's the subject matter: mining for drama the licentious, sexually freer 1970's amidst the climate of today's much more restrictive TV landscape seemd like an outside bet. Doing a show that screamed cable on a major U.S. network seemed like even more of an outside bet. Doing a show like this on CBS -- a network where the charming Love Monkey was "too out there," seemed downright retaahded.
But in yesterday's NYTimes, the first major article I've read about Swingtown raised a number of other questions and maybe, too, a possibility or two.
What if it's not cynicism on CBS's part, premiering this series on June 5? What if they're actually courting the controversy, and looking to brand this as the "must see" summer show? It takes a lot to bring Americans to the set in the summer, but remember that it is CBS who broke through years ago with Survivor, the must-see summer show that nobody saw coming.
I know that it's extremely unlikely that I'll be watching much TV this summer. But then again, if you go back and look at last summer, that's when all these great, weird series -- including Mad Men, debuted.
The conventional wisdom says CBS is dumping Swingtown...just like the chatter around Toronto the last week has been how the Friday night timeslot for Canadian acquisition Flashpoint (starts July 12) is proof that that show is being dumped on the air too.
But what if that's not what's going on at all? What if the 52 Week season is real?
Remains to be seen, I guess. In the meantime, peruse the fine Times article on Swingtown here.
1 comment:
I wasn't interested in this series until I watched Life Is Mars yesterday on Showcase (I never realized it was airing there) and the episode was about swingers in the 70s and it was quite intriguing. I might look at the pilot after all.
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