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Pan Am: Series Premiere

By Matt Meier · August 17, 2011

There’s a moment in the film Catch Me If You Can where Frank Abagnale Sr. tells his son: “You know why the Yankees always win?  ‘Cause the other teams can’t stop staring at those damn pinstripes.”

In short, Pan Am is about the pinstripes.

ABC’s new period drama about a Pan America World Airways crew offers a glitzy portrayal of the iconic airline at its prime circa 1963 with enough aesthetic swagger to distract you from the fact that the series is just as much an international spy thriller as it is a period drama.  While the visual gratification in watching a highly attractive ensemble frolic amidst 1960s chic certainly enhances the series’ initial allure, the generally likeably and well crafted characters and the spy thriller undertones of the surrounding narrative ultimately prove rather enjoyable, and the formula as a whole suggests the airline-centered serial to have potential for solid longevity.

Pan Am narratively surrounds five stewardesses for the airline, and the showrunners smartly chose to emphasize and thoroughly illustrate the backstories of these characters through the first episode rather than start right away with elaborate and chaotic plot twists.  The pilot episode—or, should I say, the stewardess episode (sorry, couldn’t resist that one)—opens with studly Pan Am co-pilot Dean (Mike Vogel) lying in bed with a beautiful Brit named Bridget (Annabelle Wallis), a stewardess to whom he’d proposed two months earlier and who has yet to give him an answer.  When Pan Am promotes Dean to pilot and offers him the chance to fly the majestic, brand new 707 jet on its first flight from New York to London, Dean jumps at the opportunity and brings on Bridget as his lead stewardess.

We then meet the rest of the Pam Am stewardesses as they prepare to board the 707.  Laura (Margot Robble) is the new girl who became an overnight celebrity when her picture landed on the cover of LIFE Magazine for a feature on “the Jet Age,” but is still a lost puppy among the veterans of the sky.  Her sister, Kate (Kelli Garner), had been working as a Pam Am stewardess for awhile, and when Laura had a panic attack and bailed on her wedding (six months earlier), Kate brought her onto the Pan Am stewardess team.  Colette (Karine Vanasse) is the other veteran stewardess, a French woman whose main tension of the episode is an affair she had in Rome with a married man, who ends up on her flight along with his wife and young son.  When Bridget mysteriously doesn’t show up for the flight, she’s replaced as purser by Maggie (Christina Ricci), another veteran with a bit more sass than the others who had been suspended for some time for not wearing her girdle at work.

As is so often the case of period drams (particular those set in this era), Pan Am stylistically foregoes any sense of grittiness in favor of a more nostalgic gloss that emphasizes soft lighting and carefully uncluttered composition—the pleasant swing-inspired soundtrack certainly doesn’t hurt, either.  But this is no Mad Men, nor does it try to be.  Kate’s involvement with MI6 agents throughout the pilot suggests that Pan Am will spend far less time specifically touching upon the themes of 1960s culture and use the backdrop more as a platform for the spy thriller narrative.

At the same time, though, the writers clearly want to avoid the spy genre elements of the series to detract from the inherent appeal of the period backdrop itself and the characters portrayed within it.  I have my doubts that any character from the show will grow to reach the legendary status of Don Draper, but Don is an exceptional cultural icon that very rarely appears in television today, and the girls of Pan Am, though not quite at his level (at least not yet), are memorable at the very least—I have always thoroughly enjoyed Kelli Garner, though, and this role could easily prove to be one of her best of the writers continue to provide ample material for her to work with.

Though it is far too soon to say this could be the next Mad Men—nor does it appear to present that it factor making it an instant classic—there appears very little worth noting about the show that could truly limit its success, especially during its first season.  With its likeable cast, its aesthetically appealing glow of 1960s culture, and its spy thriller plot that will likely carry the action and retain viewer interest from episode to episode, Pan Am seems in proper position to truly fly high over much of the other competition this upcoming fall season.