"Swingtown" Languishes on CBS, "Fear Itself" Surprises on NBC

Tonight marks the arrival of two new series on the broadcast networks, and they couldn't be more different. One is Swingtown, a CBS drama that tries to mine the free-love 1970s for nostalgia and shock value; the other is Fear Itself, an NBC attempt to revive the near-dead anthology drama series.

First impressions? The only thing shocking about Swingtown is how dull it is -- while Fear Itself, based on the first three productions, is surprisingly... surprising.

The best thing about Swingtown, which is set in 1976, is Molly Parker, who gave one of many unforgettable performances in HBO's Deadwood. Here, she plays a woman who moves with her husband to a new neighborhood, where the couple across the street has an open marriage, a proclivity to party, and even a basement playroom with, apparently, a lot more than a vintage pinball machine.

Part of the premiere takes place on the Bicentennial, and Swingtown isn't above making much of the idea of "Independence Day" as its central heroine flirts with the idea of free love, free drugs and bra-free fashions. When the swinging husband across the street, played with playful smarm (or smarmy playfulness) by Grant Show, warns his alluring and outgoing wife that the new neighbors "might be a tough sell," she smiles and replies, "Easy is boring."

Sad to say, so is Swingtown. The people on the show who got to select the fashions, the furniture and especially the soundtrack music must have had a blast, but unlike Mad Men, there's no compelling story beneath the period veneer, and almost no characters that catch the heart as well as the eye. CBS promoted this series originally when unveiling its awful, attention-seeking lineup of Viva Laughlin and Kid Nation. Unfortunately, it's of the same sour vintage.

Fear Itself, on the other hand, is an interesting experiment. Tonight's opener, "Sacrifice," stars Jesse Plemons from Friday Night Lights as one of several cold-blooded characters happening upon an even colder-blooded clan at a remote location. It's a kissing, or biting, cousin of From Dusk Till Dawn, and it doesn't take long before one of the women takes out a needle, and demands attention by sewing up more than a wound.

"Spooked," next week's story, is a ghost story starring Eric Roberts as a private detective with a very private secret, and the next tale, "Family Man," stars Colin Ferguson of Eureka as the victim of a near-death accident and subsequent body swap. The ending of this one is truly tragic, and hard to shake.

With all these stories, there's enough inventiveness and unpredictability to make you want to keep viewing, and to return. Fear Itself, like last summer's Masters of Science Fiction on ABC, is a bold experiment deserving of more than the summer "showcase" to which it has been banished. Swingtown, though, is pretty much right where it belongs.