Pilot review: Swingtown

1.01 "Pilot"

Okay, I'm about three weeks late in watching this pilot, but I kept reading about it so I figured I ought to catch up and decide whether or not I have any actual interest in the show.

So far, I'm feeling like "No". But that could just be the fact that I am completely creeped out by the whole premise of the show. I don't see how this could possibly work without all of the characters devolving into drug and sex addled lunatics who make their own lives and the lives of those around them completely miserable. And I certainly don't feel like I want to watch a show where the character's lives just get worse and worse. If I did, I'd watch reality shows.

Other strikes against the show include the 70s hair, 70s fashion, 70s slang, 70s music, and the fact that the main neighbor, Tom, is a pilot and has a porn 'stache.

All of that being said, I am vaguely interested in the main characters, Bruce and Susan. I'm also interested in their daughter, Laurie, and her obvious desire to be sleeping with her Philosophy teacher. And I'm weirdly intrigued by the old neighbor husband, Roger (?). I can't tell if he's looking longingly at Susan because he's attracted to her, looking longingly at Bruce because he's attracted to him, or looking longingly at the two of them because he's desirous of the loving and sexually satisfying relationship that they seem to have but that he clearly doesn't have with his crazy shrew of a wife. He seemed to take a bit of a turn at the end of the episode and might "man up" over the course of the show, which would be enjoyable, mainly because he's attractive.

Unrelated to most all of that, there's something unsettling about Jack Davenport with an American accent. Granted, his face is masked enough by the crazy 70s hair that sometimes I can just forget it's him. But other times I'm definitely thinking "You're Steve/Norrington! Be British, like you're supposed to be!".

So, I think I'll at least watch the next episode. But I'd probably prefer a second season of Hidden Palms. Man, I miss that show.