The love triangle is TV’s fave go-to trope. From General Hospital to Grey’s Anatomy, it’s the laziest way to stretch out sexual tension and delay inevitable couplings. Yet triangles just aren’t edgy enough for CBS’ new series Swingtown, which follows in the footsteps of Big Love by creating drama out of more elaborate geometric shapes.
Swingtown looks at wife-swapping through the gauzy narrative safety net of 1970s nostalgia, and automatically lacks the relevant and modern bite of HBO’s sister-wife saga. The 1976 bicentennial-set series revisits the Me Decade in all of its butterfly-collared, disco-fevered, gimlet-sipping, fondue-dipping glory. It’s a well-worn backdrop, but the ’70s stand as a fascinatingly decadent blip before Ronald Reagan ushered in an era of uptight yuppies, social conservatism and AIDS.
Swingtown centres around upwardly mobile high-school sweethearts Bruce and Susan Miller (Jack Davenport and Canadian Molly Parker) who’ve moved into a high-class cul-de-sac shared by porn ’stache-adorned pilot Tom and wife Trina Decker (Melrose Place’s ageless Grant Show and 24’s Lana Parrilla). In the debut, the Millers — and their ultra-square friends — unwittingly attend a swingers’ party at the Deckers where Susan pops a Quaalude and falls down the rabbit hole of group sex, though most of the drug-taking and all of the orgy occurs off-camera. (There are also kid storylines, none interesting enough to relate here.) By Episode 2, everyone’s doing the hustle at the Playboy Club.
Not yet as smart as it wants to be, this class-conscious series boasts some potentially interesting ideas. Set at the height of the women’s lib movement, it’s already implied by some characters that female sexual freedom is part and parcel of achieving equality. True, but in hindsight, was swinging actually liberating or just another horny-male scam like polygamy?
Swingtown is also rooted in the notion the sexual revolution didn’t earn that term until the hippie free-love attitude caught fire in the suburbs. Small groups may spark movements, but it’s only when the masses get involved that regimes change. Of course, this point is made moot by our knowledge that free love fell flaccid before long.
SWINGTOWN AIRS THURSDAYS 10PM ON CBS/GLOBAL; THE FIRST SEASON OF BIG LOVE RE-AIRS WEDNESDAYS, 10PM ON SHOWCASE.
Ménage à trois
Romantic quadrangles and pentagons are still relatively rare on TV — though Gossip Girl’s Nate/Serena/Chuck/Blair brouhaha heralds more to come — so here are few of the tube’s finest love triangles.
The Office: Dwight / Angela / Andy
Post-Karen, they’ve let Jim and Pam stay cute by adding this hilarious new triangle, culminating in that ick-out image of Dwight
boffing cold-fish Angela in the office just after she agreed to marry Andy with a romantic “OK.”
WWF Wrestling: Randy Savage / Miss Elizabeth / Hulk Hogan?
Macho Man’s manager Elizabeth was married to Savage in real-life when she suggested a romantic storyline involving the Hulkster. But this wasn’t her first — earlier, Savage feuded with George “The Animal” Steele after the hirsute wrestler developed a crush on his girl.
Cheers: Sam / Diane / Sam
As if that skinny-academic waitress had a chance when boyfriend/bar-owner Sam Malone was that much in love with himself.
Dawson’s Creek: Pacey / Joey /
Dawson?
Dawson was the show’s titular character, but James Van Der Beek’s charisma vacuum allowed Joshua Jackson to become the breakout star as his dorky best friend. No wonder Joey Potter traded Dawson for Pacey.
Felicity: Noel / Felicity / Ben
Yes, this series-long situation was epically tiresome. But the bizarre final episodes where Felicity went back in time to see what would’ve happened had she chosen Noel instead of Ben was a precursor to the temporal shenanigans of J.J. Abram’s later show, Lost.
Beverly Hills, 90210: Dylan / Kelly / Brandon
Three words: “I chose me.”