CBS
Premieres Thursday @ 10pm ET/PT

The ’70s were a very colourful time in America.  I wasn’t around yet, but I imagine that the patterns on the walls and bell-bottoms would have had me agasp.  I will say, however, that the tunes are pretty groovy.  And what permeates this new drama on CBS is the soundtrack.  Just from the pilot episode alone, we’re talking a double-disc-er of good stuff.  Beyond the sounds and colours, is a story about friends and neighbors in the Chicago suburbs in the summer of 1976.  Free love has blossomed, and the intimacy of marriage can sometimes extend to an extra guy or gal if the mood strikes as you wander next door to borrow a cup of sugar.  For this kind of sex to appear on television (like, real television), the complexities and questions need to be there in lieu of the nipple shots (Grant Show does get to show his, mind you).  A few films have tackled the matter - things like “The Ice Storm” and “Boogie Nights” show that the hanky panky is not always a NSA situation.

The script brings the kids into the picture too.  Not teens who get in on their version of the action as you might suspect, but pre-teens that are pushing through the wonder years on their own.  In the cast, you’ve got Molly Parker (’Deadwood’), Jack Davenport (BBC’s ‘Coupling’), Grant Show (’Melrose Place’), Lana Parilla (NBC’s ‘Windfall’) and Josh Hopkins (’Pepper Dennis’).  Where the show really shines is when the script delivers on subtle action that it can achieve between commercials (smokey eyes, soft-hand touching), and the cast then picks up on the glances and nervous excitement of the moment.  Utlimately, the lure of sexcapades may not work from week to week since it’s not on Showtime, but if these characters get some good stuff going on, then we could very well be seduced.