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From the NYT: WHEN the television series “Swingtown” has its premiere on June 5, viewers can expect to see the following scenes in the first episode: a ménage à trois; a high school junior smoking pot and later flirting with her English teacher; the flagrant enjoyment of quaaludes and cocaine; and the sight of the neighborhood scold unwittingly stumbling upon a groaning and slithering orgy. So basing a series on sexual experimentation and other taboos, even if from a bygone era — “Swingtown” is set in the mid-1970s — is a notable experiment in and of itself.
“Swingtown” was born in large part from a serendipitous collision of circumstances. “Swingtown,” then, is something of a trial balloon.
One CBS official said it was probably inevitable that some companies now advertising on “Without a Trace,” the show temporarily yielding its time slot at 10 p.m. Thursdays to “Swingtown,” would beg off during the new show’s run. But with a subtle release of its 13 episodes between June and late summer (the heart of its promotional campaign is a teaser already on YouTube and spots on classic-rock radio stations), the network is hoping to beckon new viewers without alienating old ones.
“We wanted to give people something fun and fresh in the summer,” said Nina Tassler, the president of CBS Entertainment and the person who greenlighted the series. In 1976 Mr. Kelley, the show’s creator, was 8 and living in Winnetka, Ill., the Chicago suburb in “Swingtown.” And while the show is fiction, he said he was inspired by his memories of the Harvey Wallbanger-fueled parties that his parents and their friends staged on Saturday nights; he would often watch from a perch on the stairs.
When he wrote the pilot episode, he surrounded himself with photographs his mother took of those times, and some of their details have been virtually grafted onto “Swingtown.” One character drives a maroon Cadillac Eldorado convertible and works as a trader, just as Mr. Kelley’s father did. Another wears the long denim skirts his mother favored and sips gimlet martinis, her favorite drink. (The singer-songwriter Liz Phair, a classmate of Mr. Kelley’s at New Trier High School, has created the show’s original score.)
Eventually most of those marriages broke up.”
In a later conversation Mr. Kelley’s mother, Marcia Arnold, speaking with her son at her side, said that particular recollection was “embellished a bit.” Mr. Kelley’s parents were among those who separated, much to his relief. In setting out to sell a story as unconventional as “Swingtown,” Mr. Kelley said, he did not immediately think of the broadcast networks.
Mr. Kelley and Mr. Poul first pitched the idea to executives at HBO, where Mr. Poul had a development deal following his run on “Six Feet Under.” Lucky for Mr. Kelley and Mr. Poul, that dinner companion was Ms. Tassler. Luckier still, Ms. Tassler’s second cousin, Nena O’Neill, had with her husband written “Open Marriage,” a well-known 1972 book that encouraged couples to consider experimenting sexually outside matrimony as long as everyone’s cards were on the table. Mr. Kelley, in consultation with Mr. Poul, was directed to do a rewrite.
Mr. Kelley agreed. “I have seen the promo for it that was posted on YouTube,” said Melissa Henson, director of communications and public education for the Parents Television Council, a watchdog group that has campaigned for years against what it considers inappropriate content on shows including “NYPD Blue” and, recently, “30 Rock.”
None of the series’s stars will be immediately recognizable to most viewers. Molly Parker, who plays one of the lead characters, a housewife named Susan Miller, appeared in “Deadwood” and “Six Feet Under” on HBO, and Jack Davenport, who plays her husband, Bruce, was in the original British version of “Coupling,” a sex-obsessed comedy.
The best-known actor to American television viewers is probably Grant Show, of “Melrose Place,” though he is hard to place behind the long blond mustache he has grown to play Tom Decker, the pilot.
“My wife,” Tom says, a smile broadening on his face, “is going to love you.”
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