From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to the treatment, which you can also hear at KCRW.com.

My guest, Mike Kelly, has a fascinating way of bringing the complications of sexual politics of several eras to television.

You should know him for the show of Swingtime, which ran on CBS a few years ago, didn't run nearly as long as it should.

He's rectified that with his new show, Revenge on ABC, which is the monster dramatic hit of the season.

Mike, thanks for being here first of all.

Thanks for having me.

What's fascinating to me about the way you've worked,

and then all these shows you don't have worked on AC,

the OC rather, not the AC, but the OC, and one tree hills,

the way sex kind of complicates and people think

it's going to simplify things when a fact it does not.

What does that come from for you?

That's a good question.

I don't know.

I guess growing up, certainly it was Swingtown.

It was in the late 70s, I was a kid, and it was a time of change for everybody.

And I think that the way that sexual politics had sort of trickled down from the city centers in New York and Los Angeles, they kind of made their way to the suburbs

by the time I was eight years old and nine years old. And all the parents on the block started

experimenting and they kind of got a free card for a minute.

And a lot of these people had never, had never been with anyone in any intimate way outside of their spouse. And so when they began to experimenting, and that's when sort of divorces started

happening and, you know, the swinging came into play. And it was, that's how I began just sort of

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