With “Cashmere Mafia” officially dead, Lucy Liu has recently made it official and announced she’s joining “Dirty Sexy Money” next season. She’ll be playing a lawyer who goes head to head with Peter Krause’s character Nick on the show.
Last night “Swingtown” premiered on CBS. Not knowing if it was something I wanted to watch or not, I decided to give it a shot as there has been almost nothing on TV the past two weeks. The following is a short blurb about what happened. Details are a bit lacking because I was doing other things as the show was going on. I liked it well enough to continue checking in on it for now. However my fears are this could end up being a summer only series, as the show was scheduled to be a mid-season show but never made it because of the writers strike. I don’t know how many episodes had been taped and if there are plans to continue it should it be a hit with viewers.
The show takes place in the suburbs of Chicago in 1976. We find Susan and Bruce Miller have moved into the suburbs along with their kids Laurie and BJ. Susan and Bruce seem to be your typical married couple who have some issues with their marriage, namely the sex part of it. As Susan put it to her husband, it’s easy enough to get him there, but it’s difficult to keep him there once she joins in! Susan reveals in this episode how she and her husband married right out of high-school and started their family, so they missed the whole Woodstock counter culture thing in the sixties. Her new neighbors let her know that it’s still not to late to board the bus!
Their kids also seem to be a mixed bag as well. Their daughter is over-sexed and sleeping around, while their son seems to have fallen in love with the town’s very own coke-head’s daughter, who of course hates her mother.
Bruce and Susan have old friends in the neighborhood in Roger and Janet Thompson. Janet is played by the wonderful and under-appreciated Miriam Shor, and if there is only one reason to watch this show, she is it. Janet is basically the Bree VanDecamp-Hodge of the show. She is uptight, apparently has some issues with sex and is out of touch with her out-of-control son. Her son ends up being beat up in this episode by a girl because he told all his friends he slept with her.
Bruce and Susan’s neighbors, Tom and Trina Decker are the swingers of the show. They invite Bruce and Susan to their Forth of July Party, and feeling guilty about ditching old friends Janet and Roger who showed up on their doorstep that night, Susan drags them along to the party. No one of course realizes what kind of party it is.
At the party Bruce and Susan quickly begin to realize it’s not an ordinary party. Tom makes some interesting comments to Bruce about a “playroom” he has in his basement. Meanwhile Trina comes right out and tells Susan that she and her husband have an open marriage and it’s the best thing that happened to them, she and her husband should try it! She then gives Susan a Quaalude.
Bruce and Susan compare notes about what is obviously going on, and they both agree they want to stay. Trina meanwhile can see how uptight Janet is, so she purposely sends her down to the “playroom” where an orgy is going on! Janet is appalled and runs to Bruce, Susan and Roger to tell them what kind of party this is. Bruce and Susan shock her by saying they are going to stay. Janet drags her husband Roger off, who it seems really wanted to stay as well. It also seems like Roger has always had some kind of a thing for Susan, and it seems Susan may have had a thing for him. Did something happen in the past between them?
The show ended with a scene between Trina, Tom, Bruce and Susan as they all decided to go someplace a little more quiet to “talk” or what not. The next thing we see is Bruce and Susan waking up in their bed the next morning after some fabulous sex, while Trina and Tom tend to the mess of the party at their house the night before.
The show was interesting enough to come back for a second look. Again, I just am afraid of getting hooked on a summer show that might possibly not live past the summer. This is what happened to me last summer with “Hidden Palms,” and it was almost the exact same situation. Both shows were delayed till the summer to air.
The other issue that of course will determine the future of the show is how much and what kind of backlash the show brings because of the subject matter. This is definitely a show that would have a better shot at surviving on a cable network and not a mainstream one.
Photo: CBS.com
In spite of a fire at Universal Studios backlots, which damaged two of “Ghost Whisperer’s” eight sets, the show will resume production on the new season as scheduled.
I’m not sure how I missed these reports, which came out 2 weeks ago with the season finale, but there are rumors that singer Beyonce Knowles wants to join the show “Desperate Housewives.”
Her father Matthew has supposedly gotten her a guest gig, but is trying to expand it to a recurring role for next season according to various reports citing MediaTakeOut.com as their source.
Over the weekend a fire tore through the back-lot at NBC Universal Studios and destroyed several sets, including some of the New York outdoor sets used for “King Kong” as well as a New England town set that was used for “Back to the Future” and currently is being used for “Ghost Whisperer.”
“Ghost Whisperer” has 8 sets on the lot, and preliminary reports say 2 were either damaged or destroyed. Most likely these are the outdoor town sets that the show used for the fictional town of Grandview, but that is not known.
The video archival vault was also damaged, but statements have been made that anything damaged or destroyed had copies in other vaults elsewhere.
Final reports on the cause and the amount of damage has not been released as of yet.
