TV Review: PAN AM, 1.1 - "Pilot"

By Chris Swanson / September 26, 2011

rating: 3.5

Stop me when you€™ve heard this one: Pan Am is a TV show set in the early 1960s, a time of glamour and sexism. A time similar to our own, but really different in some very important ways. The program follows a group of people working in high-flying jobs that have changed so much over the decades as to be nearly unrecognizable. Full of period glitz, style and music we explore the mores of the time and use them to show how far we€™ve come in an entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking way. Yes, the similarities to Mad Men, and to a lesser extent The Playboy Club, are unavoidable with Pan Am, ABC€™s effort at capturing the early 1960s zeitgeist. Does it succeed as well as the first and more than the second? The story follows a group of stewardesses (definitely not flight attendants, as there isn€™t a man among them), and pilots as they embark on a 707€™s first trans-Atlantic flight from New York to London. The star of the show, at least as far as the advertising is concerned, is Christina Ricci, but we don€™t see too much of her in this episode. Instead we get a lot of info-dumps and flashbacks about pretty much everyone else, some of which comes from Screenwriting Clichés 101. As our story opens, a new stewardess, Laura (Margot Robbie), is vaguely appalled to find her face on the cover of Life magazine (did we mention this is set in the 1960s?). She€™s still nervous about her job and looking forward to her first flight across the Atlantic. She also has a sister, Kate (Kelli Garner), who, in addition her day job, has started working as a spy. Cold War and all that. Her job is to swap some pages in a Russian diplomat€™s passport while in the air. Also on board is the French stewardess, Collette (Karine Vanasse). She€™s initially quite pleased to see that one of the passengers is a man she had a fling with. She€™s less pleased to see that the man has his wife and son with him. Up in the cockpit, we have the captain, Dean (Mike Vogel), who has recently become engaged to one of the stewardesses who, as a result, no longer has a job. Her sudden departure brings aboard Maggie (Christina Ricci), a woman who lives in €œthe village€ with her Marxist Bohemian beatnik friends. Did we mention this is set in the 1960s? We get character development in the form of flashbacks, including one showing Dean and his future fiancé, Bridget, in Cuba and another showing Laura and Kate dealing with family problems. There€™s quite a lot of flashbacks and they don€™t really work for me. They feel like a somewhat lazy way of introducing characters. As for the story in this first episode, well, there€™s nothing much there, really. It€™s everyone getting on the plane, flying to London and setting things up for future stories. I don€™t have a huge problem with that given that this is just a pilot episode, but even as a pilot, I really wasn€™t blown away by the story. On the other hand, I was very impressed by the overall look and feel of the show. It€™s brighter and more optimistic than AMC€™s king of the 1960s, and has more of a light, bubbly feeling to it. As a sunnier competitor to Mad Men, it could find a really solid audience. The wardrobe and sets looked amazing, especially the interior of the 707, though it does sort of rub it in our faces as to how far air travel luxury has sunk over the last couple decades. The exterior bits in Cuba put me a bit too much in mind of Airplane!, but I suppose there are worse things. I liked this episode well enough that I€™m looking forward to more, but at the same time, I hope we really do get more, if you know what I mean. There is plenty of potential here, both with the settings and characters, and I really hope the show does a good job of living up to them.