The Jet Age just hit full swing and leading the way are Pan Am’s elite stewardesses who can navigate any culture and overcome any challenge. From New York City to the edge of the world, they will discover romance, natural dangers and exotic intrigue in a lush recreation of 1963 that will take your breath away.
“Pan Am” aired for the first time back in 2011 but didn’t gain enough traction to earn a second season on ABC. I can see why too, and yet the show had so much potential. The rocky start though dropped dramatic percentages the first three weeks before the station realized the show would not be their new hit show.
“Pan Am” follows four stewardesses and two pilots from the infamous airline back in 1963. Christina Ricci plays liberal Maggie Ryan who doesn’t mind breaking rules. Karine Vanasse portrays the French Collette who turns all the boys’ head with her looks and wounded past. Kellie Garner is Kate Cameron, a newly-minted secret operative and sister to Margot Robbie’s pretty in pink character Laura Cameron.
Two pilots fly the gals around as they serve up coffee and tea. Mike Vogel is the playboy Dean Lowery, ready to turn straight for a stewardess. Michael Mosley plays Ted Vanderway, who just wants to find the right girl and settle into life. Between the six main characters, the show has enough people for several love triangles especially those hoping to join the mile-high club, though several of the characters end up falling for passengers they meet on flights or through other airline connections.
Each character tends to their own agenda while on land but band together on flights to serve customers and solve problems you typically would find on a plane. This is why the show didn’t go far. The outlandish needed too much extra pizzazz to keep people enticed. Like every other show, a new set of problems arise every episode but not interesting enough to drive an audience to return from a commercial break.
From sleeping with politicians to pilot wives cheating for younger meat, everything the sixties had to offer just didn’t jibe with the needs of current audiences. The characters themselves were easy enough to enjoy and follow, however, too many love triangles early on strangled the focus. Each character also flashed back to show coordinating details but failed to flashback cohesively further diluting the plot.
I wanted to love the show, all fourteen episodes, but somehow the series seemed flighty and overly serious without enough humor interspersed to carry the details. As I said, the show was so close but the writing kept getting further and further away from the point, which was strong independent women in the ’60s observing history from the front seat. I wanted more of the element that was so unique to the decade with the clothing, mannerisms, and sexist nature. They tossed a little in but eventually, the show was just another soap opera in a different setting.
If the uniqueness from the first three episodes had stayed and better character development continued, the show would celebrate its eighth season. Bring back the show but fix the minor issues with a couple of different writers and get the show back on the air! I can think of so many elements and issues on the planes the women could deal with that never made it to the television.
The show was so close! Find what worked and get back to the drawing board so we can embark on this journey. Space out the love triangles, slow down the spy stuff and make it more believable, sprinkle in more humor and you have a hit. Keep throwing in big names like Kennedy and Warhol to bring history to life! The show definitely deserves a second chance as we haven’t had a decent period show in a while which is a necessary genre.
Now available on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment
