Ode To My Lost Love

Thursday nights are one of my all-time favorite channels on the TV Guide of my life. Thursday night is relaxing, because while I know I have to go to work the next day, it's Friday, so there are only eight hours left in which matters at the office can catch fire, blow up in my face, or commit other acts of workplace arson. Because Thursday night isn't Friday night, I don't have the inherent feeling of guilt that I get when I just laze around on the couch on a weekend night, feeling like I should be doing something more productively and outstandingly fun with my Get Out of Jail Free night.

Thursday nights in the summer are even more creamy delicious, because everything is just plain better in the summer (except pot roast, my brain function, and large, sweaty men). It's the closest I ever feel to the summer nights when I was a kid, when the only items on my agenda were to finish my dripping popsicle, and to kick my brother in the shins for smearing my dripping popsicle in my ponytail. Oh, summer lovin'.

Last summer I found myself falling into another delightful summer Thursday night ritual, courtesy of my amigos at CBS. I would describe it to you, but here, let me show you it!

(That little circle says "The Neighbors Are Closer Than You Think," because they can't say "The Neighbors Want Your Butt" during prime time.)

For those of you who remain dismally unaware of Swingtown, allow me to give you the executive summary, in which Swingtown will henceforth be known as Summer's Excellent Xtremelyrisque guiltYpleasure, or SEXY, for short. Set in 1976 in a suburb of Chicago, SEXY follows the adventures of the Miller family, parents Bruce and Susan and teenagers Laurie and BJ*, as they move up the social ladder and into a flashy new house, with flashy new neighbors who have a flashy basement orgy playroom. They find themselves torn between their new neighbors, Tom and Trina Decker, who are swingers with a voracious appetite for fresh meat, and their old BFFs, Janet and Roger, who wear a depressing amount of plaid. Bruce and Susan get involved with their new neighbors in more than just a potluck recipe swap, and the show explores the changing dynamic of their family as they struggle to adapt to their changing world, and to hide from their kids the fact that they're now smoking dope and spelunking their neighbors.

As you may have guessed from my deep love for this show, most of the episodes were not any more serious than a backyard wiener roast...or any other backyard wiener adventure. In the initial episodes, there was a lot of this face:

"You said to bring buns, so I brought buns...what? Show you those buns? But they're in the kitche...OH."

Once the writers had us acquainted with the swingers of our summer seduction, most of the episodes centered around the Deckers throwing some sort of themed hot-weather get-together, where, by the end of the night, the company always got stickier than the barbecue. Every synopsis on the TV Guide channel seemed to begin with, "At the Decker's annual [insert ass-random party theme here] party,..." and at first I thought this was odd, that all these feather-haired folks did was throw parties. Then I realized that if you're only out to bean your neighbors, your best bet is to get them all likkered up and high on Quaaludes, just a hop, skip, and a bra away from your flashy basement orgy playroom.

Honestly, it wasn't the raunchy summer guilt that got me hooked on SEXY, it was the fact that SEXY took place in my most favorite decade, the seventies. Someone on the SEXY crew did their homework, and the set dressing and costuming, from the crocheted potholders to the slick polyester camisoles, was spot on, forming the perfect music video to accompany The Eagles, Jackson Browne, and the rest of the soundtrack--if their music videos back in the day had been, you know, porn.

Of all the disco-day touches that SEXY mastered, my favorite was the hair. The women's hair was free-range and fluffy, yet perfectly placed and purposeful:

Trina Decker (Lana Parilla).** Illegal in six states and fourteen countries. In any decade.

Women always aim to please, but when the men come through with the goods, it's always delightfully surprising, and the men really came through with delicious, lush hair in SEXY. That's what seventies hair was all about, as photos of my dad as a polo-shirted twentysomething have evidenced. Whatever happened to lush hair? I understand, and absolutely advocate, the death of polyester leisure suits (if only to avoid the fire hazard), but why did we pick gel over locks? Mohawks over feathers? Just look...look...

Ignore the fifteen-year-oldness. Love the lush.

Lush. Love it.

Lush. Lush! TOUCH IT!

And then we have, by uncomfortable comparison, what man-hair devolved into:

Not lush! NOT LUSH AT ALL!!! Go home.

SEXY became my Thursday night wine buddy, opening the gate into What The Frickday, starting my weekend off right with its disco vibe and sex for free--like a Britney video, but with a better dance beat. But I knew that the end was near when SEXY was deported to the Friday night lineup, a death sentence for prime-time programming, and sure enough, SEXY was cancelled after just one debaucherous season.I cried into my Chardonnay.

This summer I've tried to move on. I've tried Burn Notice. I've tried Royal Pains. And while I love them, in their own ways, they just can't bring back the swingerriffic thrills of SEXY. It's disappointing, like a hot summer night without a popsicle in your ponytail.

So I beseech you, CBS. Bring SEXY back. Why not? Come on. I'm bringing SEXY back.

You motherfuckers don't know how to act.

*There's your first clue.

**Maybe I have a girl crush.