If there’s one thing Boogie Nights proved, it’s that movies should very rarely exceed the two-hour mark.  If there’s two things it proved, it’s that the 70s looked like sex.  Most people think this is because people were having a lot of sex in the 70s, hence the association.  These people are wrong.  In reality, the sex taking place in the 70s was a result of all the cheesy shit everywhere.  If you put a space alien, with no prior knowledge of earth or human behaviour, in some tight-ass cords and platforms and stuck him in a room with a bearskin rug and a lava-lamp, you best believe that dude’s springing an adorable little alien boner and looking for Uranus.  It’s just science.

With this in mind, Global has brought us Swingtown, where the 70s are doing what the 70s do: Making people fuck.  I caught the second episode last night and had to put a cushion on my lap so my fiancé didn’t notice I had a case of “70s dick.”  Set in a quiet suburban enclave in the throes of the wife-swapping craze, Susan Miller (Molly Parker) and her husband are new to the neighbourhood.  We watch as they timidly follow Trina Decker (Lana Parrilla) down the rabbit-hole of open marriages, where love is sacred but sex is shared, and boobies and wieners are hot commodities on the sensuous stock exchange.

The cast is excellent across the board, particularly Janet Thompson as Miriam Shor, the mega-prude best-friend, who wouldn’t be caught dead with a Quaalude in her mouth or a neighbours’ ding-dong in her hand.  She makes a clever antagonist, as her values most closely match ours today, and yet everyone else seems to be having so much fun that she’s forced to play the downer.  The writing is fast and light – definitely not above the odd phallus gag – and the end result pays pitch perfect praise to our particularly porn-ish past.

Swingtown airs Thursdays at 10pm ET/PT on Global.