TV Review: Pan Am 1.14, '1964'

And so it comes to this, the season finale and for better or worse, we’ll never see this show again.

By Chris Swanson /

rating: 3.5

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And so it comes to this, the season finale (possibly series finale?), of Pan Am. As I write this, ABC hasn€™t yet announced if they€™re going to pick up the show for a second season, but I rather doubt they are. If they do, it would likely have to be without Mike Vogel (Captain Dean) who, it turns out, has signed up to do another TV show. So, yeah. Anyhow, we resume the plots we€™d left off after last week€™s bizarre blip, starting with Collete€™s (Karine Vanasse) relationship with the future king of Qumar, or whatever fictional country he€™s from. Yes, they€™re still seeing each other, and now he wants to start officially courting her, which would require her moving in to the palace for a few months. It also requires an extensive background check, which ends up revealing far more than Collette had ever expected. Meantime, Captain Dean is still pining for Collette, which still doesn€™t excuse the rather ham-handed fashion in which recognition of the name-change from Idyllwild to JFK was handled. He also learns that he€™s being formally investigated over the events that happened a few episodes back in Haiti; events which I€™d largely forgotten thanks to the way ABC has aired the show. His situation ends up getting resolved in an interesting way. As for Maggie (Christina Ricci), she€™s still hanging out with pilot/smuggler Captain Broyles (Darren Pettie). He persuades her to bring a lot of jewelry through customs, promising to share the wealth with her. It turns out this isn€™t the first time she€™s done this. No, by this point ole Mags has been smuggling for about a month now, and seems to be impatient about the way she€™s being treated. She comes along on the buy, only to learn that the whole thing is a set-up by the would-be buyers who plan to steal the jewelry for themselves. Over at the Laura/Amanda/Ted Triangle o€™ Love, we find that Ted (Michael Mosley) is starting to develop cold feet over the way that Amanda (Ashley Greene) wants to handle their relationship. This worsens when he finds out that his father plans to turn their wedding into a great big social occasion with the governor presiding over it. Ted understandably feels like a fraud throughout all this, not least due to the fact that he€™s falling hard for Laura (Margot Robbie). Things get complicated when something is announced that was spoiled in the advertisements but won€™t be spoiled here. Then finally we have Kate (Kelli Garner). She€™s hanging out in her apartment minding her own business when her CIA handler, Richard, shows up. It seems he€™s been shot by someone who was attempting to steal some microfilm that he was carrying. Now he wants Kate to take the microfilm to CIA headquarters and drop it off. She agrees, and on the way is accosted by Anderson, her contact from London, who explains that Richard has €œgone rogue€ (a phrase I thoroughly detest and I will bet you real intelligence agencies don€™t use. Also probably no one used it in 1964). Now Kate is stuck in one of those fun situations where she can€™t figure out who the bad guy is. This was an ok episode. It would be a shame if the series ends here, because I feel it could have been stronger, but at least they didn€™t end on a cliff-hanger and they did tie up almost every plot line that had been dangling during the season, so that€™s no bad thing. I€™ll also give out some kudos to pretty much everyone in the main cast, who all did their usual good job with material that, while it wasn€™t always great, was at least handled with a level of enthusiasm that was nice to see. On the other hand, I couldn€™t escape the impending sense of doom as I watched the show. I do hope that it doesn€™t get canceled, because I feel it has improved since the first few episodes and does still have plenty of potential to succeed. But let€™s be honest: for better or worse, we€™ll never see this show again.