TV Review: PAN AM 1.6, "The Genuine Article"

So much Tito bashing, it’s like a Jackson 5 reunion special!

By Chris Swanson / October 31, 2011

rating: 1.5

So much Tito bashing, its like a Jackson 5 reunion special! So today we learn that Maggie (Christina Ricci), isnt just fond of her job, shes built her entire identity around it, Kate (Kelli Garner), is a fan of Martin Luther King, Jr, Laura (Margot Robbie), isnt pleased with having her picture taken and Captain Dean (Mike Vogel), looks excellent without a shirt. The latest episode of ABCs new series takes our crew to Rio, though at first it seems that Maggie wont be going. She managed to piss off Pan Am hierarchy and its very likely shes about to be fired. She manages to get onto the flight by emphasizing her Portuguese language skills. The trouble is, she doesnt actually have those skills. It turns out almost everything on her resume is a fraud, as we find out through yet another series of flashbacks. I think Im done complaining about those. I still hate them, and I find it to be a fairly lazy storytelling device, but it appears to be something thats here to stay with the program, so Ill just roll over and accept it. Anyhow, it seems that Maggie is from Tacoma, Washington, just a few miles north of my old stomping grounds and a place that, as I was growing up, smelled really interesting (feel free to look up Tacoma Aroma). Maggie gets jolted out of her rather dull life there and a couple years later is in California, impersonating another woman in order to take college courses. It goes from there. Kate, meantime, gets sent on yet another mission by the CIA. As I mentioned in a comment on last weeks review, Im starting to wonder if, in fact, shes actually working for the Other Side without knowing it. Thats a story-twist that seems unlikely given that this show appears to want to play it safe, but its an interesting notion. The CIA (or whatever), sends Kate off on a mission to get close to a Yugoslavian diplomat. She eventually winds up spending an entire day running around with him having a good time, and has a somewhat interesting conversation with him about Martin Luther King, Jr, who gets his first shout-out in this series. As for Laura, it seems that Pan Am was so pleased with her appearance on the cover of Life, they have a photographer following her around on her flight to Rio. Maggie takes advantage of this, doing her best to get into every picture that she can so that she can try and up her PR image, so as to lessen the chances of being fired. This eventually ends with Laura and Maggie under arrest in Brazil. And in the last story, we have Captain Dean the Dream Machine, finding out that Gina, the woman he hooked-up with in the last episode, is also going to Brazil, and her lover, a Pan Am VP, is going with her. This creates some rather awkward moments and things dont go especially well between the two. Im sorry to say, but this episode bored me silly. Not a single one of the stories held my interest, and the only time I really got drawn in was during a rant someone was doing about freedom in Yugoslavia under Josep Tito. Otherwise, nothing. Pan Am has, sadly, become a show I now watch because its my job. I was really looking forward to it when it was first announced, and I still think that it has great potential, but each episode is getting progressively less entertaining. They can still turn it around, but theyd best do so soon.