CBS gets cheap

By Casey Gillis

Published: June 5, 2008

Wife and mother Susan Miller, one of the central characters in the new CBS series Swingtown (10 p.m. tonight), is looking for something more.

“Don’t you ever get the feeling there’s something else out there, like an energy shift we’re missing out on or something?” she asks her neighbor, Janet, on the eve before the Miller family - Susan’s husband, Bruce, and their two kids, Lori and B.J. - moves into a new house across town.

Susan wants more and, boy, does she get it in new horn-dog neighbors Trina (Lana Parrilla, last seen on “Windfall”) and Tom Decker (former “Melrose Place” star Grant Show, sporting the perfect skeevy mustache).

These two are always either having sex or thinking about it. And when they’re not doing that, they’re likely planning drug-fueled parties, where all their married friends can hook up with each other’s spouses in a basement “playroom.”

They quickly suck Bruce and Susan into their tangled web, and you can’t help but worry about what it’s going to do to the wholesome Miller clan.

I’m not exactly sure what the show’s creators are aiming for here. They don’t seem to be playing the concept for laughs, and it certainly doesn’t come across as a fun, frothy summer series.

Trina and Tom come off as predators who lure others into their open marriage for their own entertainment. Add a little more sexual deviance and a fetish or two, and they’d be the perfect villains in an episode of “Law & Order: SVU.”

Trina tries to sell Susan on the idea of an open relationship by saying it’s the opposite of cheating.

“Everything’s already on the table. There’s no sneaking around, no lies,” Trina says. “Ever since we got into it, Tom and I have reached this whole other level of intimacy.”

Already dealing with intimacy problems of her own with Bruce, the impressionable Susan is easily seduced by the idea.

When we do finally get to the moment where Susan and Bruce start swinging - which includes some awkward back rubbing and Trina suggesting that “the four of us go someplace a little quieter” - it’s just flat-out icky.

Much like Trina and Tom, “Swingtown” is all flash and no substance.