RIP: Swingtown

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that the CBS summer drama Swingtown, which inspired me to download a boatload of 70s singles -- the soundtrack of my childhood -- from iTunes, has been axed by the idiots at CBS.

I was fond of the show, not for the salacious swinging aspect of it though. As someone who was a young girl in the 70s, watching the show filled me with nostalgia for things like Dr. Scholls, rainbow shirts, eight-track tapes and Chicago's "Saturday in the Park."

And, as a grown woman with three kids, I liked the discussions that evolved from its treatment of women of the era. One thirtysomething character was a housewife with two teenagers who was feeling bored with her life and wishing she'd made different choices. Her best friend was also a housewife and a mother of one teen, but she was happy with her lot in life. However when her husband lost his job, she went out and got her own job which, she found, she loved.

Ausiello quoted CBS president Nina Tassler saying, "We're not going back to Swingtown. At the end of the day the show was well executed. It was well received. The performances were great. The writing was great. It was a risk. We took it. And we're proud of it."

So you cancel a well executed, well received show of which you're proud? I know, why not air reality show garbage instead of well executed programs. Yeah, that'll help network TV.

Image credit: CBS.

Summer Vacation, Blogging Break . . .

How does the saying go . . . It's summertime and the livin' is easy?

Well, not so much when you're trying to work from home, keep three kids from maiming one another AND get ready to go on vacation. (I am sooo ill prepared for vacation.) That being said, my dear blog readers, I'm going to take a week-long break from my blogging goodness here in order to take a holiday.

While I mentally compile a list of items about which to blog upon my return in the first full week of August, my suggestion for you in the meantime is to tune in to the second season premiere of Mad Men at 10 p.m. on Sunday on AMC and check out the off-center CBS drama Swingtown which has been moved to Fridays at 10 p.m. I'm planning on blogging about Mad Men when I get back. Be ready to dish.

'Swingtown:' Who Knew the 'Burbs Were So Much Fun?

I've been watching CBS' controversial new show Swingtown, set in the summer of 1976 in a Chicago suburb, featuring a married couple with two kids (The Millers) who've just moved into a house across the street from married swanky swingers (The Deckers), and married parents from the Millers' old neighborhood (The Thompsons) who find the swingers morally reprehensible.

Though the show gets a lot of mileage out of promoting the spouse swapping aspect -- and gets plenty of people up in arms over its portrayal of 70s sex and drugs -- I find the examination of marriage and monogamy fascinating . . . that is when I'm not blinded by my own nostalgia about the era's clothing, music and "technology" (i.e. -- eight-track tapes). I was, after all, a 70s kid. (Shaun Cassidy and The Partridge Family rocked my world.)

For my Mommy Track'd column this week, I compared the portrayal of suburban women circa 1976, when the phrase "women's lib" was bandied about, to now, when media folks are still debating whether sexism played a roll in the coverage of Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Dust off your Cat Stevens and Carly Simon vinyls, break out your Dr. Scholl's. And get a load of actor Grant Show's 'stache.

Image credit: CBS.