Swingtown
CBS | Release Date: June 5, 2008
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
16
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
TimeJames Poniewozik
Season 1 Review: It's also, judging by the pilot, flawlessly art-directed, full of well-chosen period music and--for a drama about a country searching for its bearings in its bicentennial year--a lot of fun. Read full review
80
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: This series about suburban angst circa 1976 exhibits rare depth for the procedural-packed web, and includes plenty of nifty touches, from the pop-song score and "Boogie Nights" fashions to the first-rate cast. Read full review
70
SlateTroy Patterson
Season 1 Review: The relative tameness of Swingtown makes the unease it provokes more inviting: You tune in to see the bodies and stick around for the minds. Read full review
70
Washington PostTom Shales
Season 1 Review: It's rather a bold, retro step for CBS to attempt this kind of show in the era of reality television and domestic fights that appear to be actual and spontaneous rather than cooked up by a writer. But the airwaves are so choked with reality that a return to fantasy seems strangely refreshing and, ironically, even more realistic. Read full review
70
Kansas City StarAaron Barnhart
Season 1 Review: Once you get beyond the show’s homages, both to 1970s style and “Desperate Housewives,” this proves to be a groovy little summer soap opera. Read full review
63
USA TodayRobert Bianco
Season 1 Review: The show itself, sad to say, is not done well enough to work. But it's not dull, and it's worth watching if only to try to figure out what CBS could have been thinking--beyond, "No one's going to confuse this with NCIS." Read full review
60
The New York TimesAlessandra Stanley
Season 1 Review: Swingtown has ’70s mystique, but not much mystery. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyRobert Abele
Season 1 Review: Swingtown is far from a great show, but until it feels obligated to give killjoy lip service to the downside of sexual freedom--note the transformation on Molly Parker’s postcoital face at the end of the pilot--here’s hoping it has its chance to be rompish and fun and a pain in the side of standards and practices. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)John Leonard
Season 1 Review: Since Swingtown isn’t even peekaboo, much less dirty, I wish I could say that it’s played for laughs. But I don’t know what it’s played for. Read full review
50
NewsdayVerne Gay
Season 1 Review: Swingtown can't decide whether the '70s were transformative or deformative; there's a distinct ironic edge, applied mostly through the use of music.... But that edge isn't nearly sharp or funny enough (unlike "Weeds"), which tends to muddle the point of view. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman
Season 1 Review: Swingtown was created to portray a broad but nuanced picture of '70s suburban America, but it might be too ambitious. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 1 Review: Kelley's fascinating concept--the personal and sexual politics of an open marriage--is stifled by CBS prime-time superficiality and an inability to intimately explore intimate subject matter. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamara
Season 1 Review: Swingtown walks a fine line between being a period piece, down to the pudding cups, baseball shirts and snatches of the old "$10,000 Pyramid," and parody. Read full review
50
New York PostLinda Stasi
Season 1 Review: Swingtown could have been great. Instead it's a hit-you-over-the-head production--with product placement and wardrobe so obvious it begs us to scream, "That's so authentic!"--best forgotten. Read full review
50
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 1 Review: The sex is all implied rather than shown, as is much of the drug use. It's a very PG-13 approach to potentially R-rated subject matter--and that's the problem. Read full review
50
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: Swingtown isn't just misguided because it's on the wrong network. The show's bigger problem is that the resident "squares" are much more interesting characters than the swingers at the core. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalDorothy Rabinowitz
Season 1 Review: It has one thing going for it--the essential thing. That is, deft writing that yields the kind of suspense that causes people to want to know what comes next. That's no small achievement for a series whose characters are so entirely devoid of, yes, character--or anything resembling an interesting thought. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterBarry Garron
Season 1 Review: Even skillful performances by its largely unknown cast aren't able to hide the lack of character development and the sense that the people in this series are almost self-parodies. Read full review
40
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 1 Review: Sadly, though, there's nothing quite that earthshaking going on in Swingtown, which boasts the same eye for detail that characterizes AMC's early-'60s drama "Mad Men"--from a woman smoking on an airplane to another sipping a Tab--but none of its style. Read full review
40
SalonHeather Havrilesky
Season 1 Review: Basically, the whole thing is stylish and '70s-sexy but also shallow enough to feel like a less funny, hollowed-out combination of "The Wonder Years" and "Boogie Nights." Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMatt Roush
Season 1 Review: No one is more than skin-deep, so there’s little in the way of irony or metaphor to disguise the fact that Swingtown is so determined to be shocking it seems a little quaint. Read full review
40
PopMattersMichael Abernethy
Season 1 Review: With so much going on, one would expect Swingtown to be exciting, but it’s not. Behavior that was scandalous in the ‘70s isn’t today. Read full review
30
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm
Season 1 Review: It's ugly and bloated, too, bringing back memories of tawdry times, tasteless fashion and terrible music. Read full review
30
The New YorkerNancy Franklin
Season 1 Review: Swingtown is a little too fond of the seventies to reveal anything about them that we don’t already know. Read full review
20
Orlando SentinelHal Boedeker
Season 1 Review: There are vivid reminders of the era's ugly clothes and hairstyles. But the writing is obvious and ham-handed. Read full review
10
Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin
Season 1 Review: Kelley's compulsive fascination with erratic eroticism turns everything in Swingtown into hypersexualized sleaze. Read full review
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