'Pan Am' on ABC HD - Page 4

LOL! Allow me to introduce you to the CW network.

Even though the CW has teenage girls firmly in their crosshairs some of their shows have crossover appeal - Nikita, Supernatural, Vampire Diaries ... Pan Am feels like a Lifetime daytime serial more than any show I've seen. Pretty rich girl runs away from home on wedding day, dreams of romantic adventure in the skies ...

Use Hulu or Hulu Desktop. There's really no need to go anywhere else.

Hmm. You guys really like this show? I've been watching and I'm still waiting for something to happen.

Watching ep 2 my wife screamed out, "That's my luggage!" and sure enough those ugly white Samsonite bags were hers from the 60s.

I hate the show (Sangeev, really? And the Captain almost too young to be a co-pilot in the top of the line plane) but my wife really likes it and makes me watch it with her so that we have something to watch together. I like my wife but could this show get cancelled, please?

Yes, I am a horrible person.

I am also, but I'm not sure why.

I think it has something to do with the fact that I can't decide which of the 4 leads I find most attractive. Throughout the show, they all rank differently - and I suspect if I ever work out a definitive ranking, I'll probably lose interest.

I think I like this show. It has been a little slow to get going, but nothing that would make me NOT watch it.

That time was an idealistic time. Those of us who lived during that time may get more out of it, than someone born after the 60's.

Remember, we didn't have the technology of today. Mass communications and transportation was just beginning to come into its own. No one made long distance phone calls like we do today because it cost A LOT of money per minute to do it then. International phone calls were sent via undersea cable because the communications satellite being useful was still a few years away in 1963. 1963 was the year they sent the first TV signals via satellite and the satellite used wasn't even in geosynchronous orbit! 1962 and 1963 they were experimenting with how to send signals via satellite. It wouldn't be until 1965 that communication satellites as we know them began to be used as they are today. And when they sent TV signals through satellites, the networks made a big deal that the pictures were "Live via Satellite". That was a huge deal back then. There were not fax machines in every office. Only the BIG corporations like IBM and GE had fax machines and they were big, clunky, expensive and didn't produce very good copies. Color TV was just coming into its own and there were many, many homes didn't have TV at all. There was no Fed Ex. No one delivered next day. That was still 20 years away in 1963. If you needed something overnight, you paid a full price plane ticket for it.

The "Jet Age" allowed people to move from one side of the world to the other in hours, not days as had been with ships and prop planes. We were inventing all kinds of things, going to the Moon and in doing so had to invent a whole new way of communicating and products to get there, the off shoots of that research we enjoy today in small electronic devices of all kinds and things like wire zip ties (also known as tye wraps) and velcro which before the space program didn't exist. Doing things that were truly difficult and rewarding, and yes in some cases impossible, like going to the Moon. We don't have that same kind of drive and inspiration these days. Today it is all about "me" not what "we" can do as a nation. It truly was a different time. A real time of innocence. Remember, before the Kennedy assassination, the government could do no wrong in people's eyes. After, it could do no right. And Watergate in 1972 put the final nail in that coffin. That is what I get from the show. It resonates with me, and I suspect a lot of other people too. If you have no point of reference, then I can see how this whole premise could be hokey to you. But it was real at the time and people bought in to it. The 60's were a time of great optimism. The Great Society. Things like that. My, how we as a society have changed since then. And also remember, the people doing the yeoman's work were your 20 and 30 somethings. It was totally possible that your Pan Am Captain could be someone in the very late 20's or early 30's. The real ones wouldn't have been as silly as these characters are in the show, but they all were out for adventure and the travel. That part is VERY 60's. Youthful and adventurous. Many just "getting off the farm" so to speak. Your older pilots were not the ones flying jet planes in the military which is where most pilots come from, even today. Back then they needed people with jet plane experience. At that time you only got them from the military because they were the only ones flying them at the time since commercial aviation was just getting into jet planes in the late 50's and early 60's. The 707 didn't show up until 1960 and before that was a military plane. Kennedy's Air Force One was a military 707 built in 1959 before the commercial release of the 707 in 1960.

Like Mad Men and to a lesser degree The Playboy Club did even though it was poorly written, this show points it out. Many post 60's people are in love with the "romance" of the time, but they don't get "the time." There is a difference. Life was much tougher then and in my opinion, in some respects, better than today. You hear all the talk today about "fundamental change." What they are talking about is really "ideologically change." The 60's were truly "Fundamental Change" and that "ain't" what's happening today.

Having lived through the 60's I tend not to see it as an idealistic time. Rather a simpler time. One where decisions often didn't need to be made as they were never confronted as much of your life followed a path predetermined to a large degree on society's straight forward outlook. Idealism was more naivety as to why not... such as the space program. Why not land a man on the moon with a bunch of young college graduates and their slide rulers.


I think life was much easier back then. Not nearly the options, decisions, expectations and self-awareness and all that it brings. My father always had a very good job yet he never owned a new car until he was around 40 years old. My mother never worked and we spent every summer at a lake cottage my father and his father built. In the good sense of the word it was a more innocent time.

I was born at the tail end of the era, but the 70's still held on to some of the sensibilities prior to the self absorbed consumer and image driven 80's.

I think "simpler" is probably about right. Back then, you kept up with your neighbors on your street, there wasn't any internet or cell phones and entertainment was simpler (fewer channels, fewer movie screens, less tech). A day at the lake was a big deal. Going out for a drive was something we do with a Google search. Back then, there was a belief that if you were loyal to the company, the company would be loyal to you - and in many cases, it was. It wasn't until stock trading became easy and meeting quarterly growth projections took the place of long term planning that employees began feeling disposable.

People also were happy to live within their means. Sure, people have always wished to be rich, but "doing without" was just real life. Credit cards? Who had one of those? The only thing you would buy on credit was a house or a car.

The only thing that was cheap was gas. A TV was a month's salary. Major appliances were crazy expensive, too. However, all those things would last for 20 years. My mother's Maytag recently died after over 30 years of use. The toaster oven she got as a wedding gift in 1965 is still going strong, though. You don't get that kind of quality now.

I think the big thing that robs us of that time is the need we have now for instant gratification in everything and the lack of respect so many people have for others. Since we're seldom face to face anymore, we seem to have forgotten that we're actually dealing with other people.

I hate the show (Sangeev, really?

Enough with the digs against the Indian pilot already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India

Scroll down to "The Jet Age".

My first trip abroad was in 1972, to London. For some reason my trip on the original airline fell through, but I was booked onto Air India (I can't even remember what my original carrier was supposed to be), and they reassured me I would be all right. And I was. The service was first rate, the plane was state of the art, and the food was Indian and it sure beat the food I got on other airways. This is over a decade after the setting of Pan Am, but I suspect it was little different from the way it would have been then.

And that is what people forget. There were not the hoards of white bearded PhD's involved in the space program. Now, don't get me wrong, there were a decent number of PhD's in the Think Tanks, but the Astronaut's and those controllers sitting in Mission Control all had BS degrees. And they were proud of that. And they WERE the Rocket Scientists we joke about today. Actually they all were "Steely Eyed Missile Men" a moniker THEY only reserved for the cream of the cream and those few who earned it, shunned it as "Just doing my job." But they were all truly American Heroes, solders in the Cold War. Unfortunately we have nothing to really compare to the Cold War these days. Terrorism isn't quite the same. I have seen interviews with more than one of them who said so and when asked why did they think that we could go to the Moon (dumb question to start with), they all said they didn't know they couldn't do it. They just "did it" because it needed to be done. There was a "Can Do" spirit that just doesn't exist today. Many of them, particularly the Astronaut's did go on to acquire Master's and in some cases PhD's, but it was either late in their NASA career's or after they left NASA. It really wasn't until the Astronaut Corp of the late 70's and early 80's that you really saw the PhD's come in at the "blue collar" level of NASA. Society had already changed.


That is what I meant but maybe the word "tough" was not a good choice. For the Millennial's, it would be tougher. It certainly was a much slower and simpler time and with that an "easier" time, but compared to today's conveniences, it was "tougher" even though tougher doesn't necessarily mean "bad" or "worse" in this case. I have thought many times how it might be nice to go back to the 60's and relive it, knowing what I know now.


Agreed. It was. We grew up in the 60's in more ways than one.

Any body else think the white women of the 60's (or 50's; e.g., Marilyn Monroe) had a look you just don't see today in Caucasian women? Perhaps it's the make-up, but they have an exotic flair seldom seen today. I generally prefer "ethnic" 'women, but Laura, the antithesis of that with her blond hair in blue eyes, has an exotic appeal that you don't find in today's white women. And the same can be said for the rest of the cast, but maybe to a lesser extent.

and Journeyman...what a great show that was before canceled. Did The Playboy Club set a record for being canceled after three shows (and only three shows aired!). Would have loved to see The Playboy Club, but I think its time slot hurt. If it was after Desperate Housewives, for example, I would have tuned in the show. I don't think it had the pre-show pub like Pan Am.)

I prefer the methodology of Pan Am. I don't like it when producers try to make a period piece look like a period piece by using black and white or using the poor film of that era. Using the methodology makes it look like it was filmed during that period, but that does not reflect reality, just the equipment that was used to reflect reality during that time.

Yeah, I remember my father usually pulling up the the station and asking for $2.00 worth (back in the day when full sevice was the norm).

I'll second that. 'Journeyman' was a fun ride while it lasted. So was 'Traveler'. After it was canceled, the showrunner took the unusual step of posting his outline for the show, where it was going in future seasons and what the major plot elements would be. We got to see what it could have been; that rarely happens. Pretty cool of him to do that, I thought.

Its rating fell pretty big last night, down to 1.9, could be a one and done series.

Numerous shows have been cancelled after one episode. Last year, Fox's Lone Star was cancelled after 2.

Shame that the remanining episodes do not see the light of day. I think with Journeyman they probably had no new epidode since they showed about 13; however, with The Playboy Club, several more probably exist (13?). Great if put on Hulu if not on DVD. In fact, isn't that how Family Guy got brought back?

Of all the new shows this season, so far I am enjoying Pan Am as much or more than all the rest. I hope it sticks around. Also hope that they put enough into the budget on a continuous basis to actually make us believe they are in the differing locales that they'll be traveling to.

PanAm a ratings hit!

During the 10 o'clock hour, ABC's Pan Am beat out its CBS drama competition (The Good Wife/CSI: Miami) in the time-period by 50% among Adults 18-34, ranking as the #1 drama in the slot for the 3rd consecutive week.

I'm with you on this - at least in terms of dramas. Although, to be honest, I think that says more about the lack of quality and originality of the rest of the new fall dramas, than it does about Pan Am. But so far, it has proved semi-interesting and I find the cast likeable and engaging - especially Karine Vanasse as Colette. I expeced this to be the Christina Ricci showcase hour, but Karine is stealing the show. I just wish the men on Pan Am weren't so forgettable. They are like interchangable Ken dolls. They are merely pretty-boy sidekicks for the female leads. Even so, I'll take this over Ringer, Revenge, and Unforgettable any day of the week.

I'm enjoying it too. But a few German flags didn't transform New York's Sheridan Square into Berlin for me. I hope they haven't completely used up their effects budget.

I wonder if the 30 minute delay of "the Good Wife" the last 2 weeks had anything to do with it.

Sunday night is difficult with all the games and such causing delays on a regular and continuing basis. I don't know what effect that has on the ratings, but Sunday viewers should be, or should get, used to it.

Appears PanAM is a ratings hit in the 18-34 ages group, but in danger of cancellation because not so good in the 35-49 age group as noted by it's ratings for the entire 18-49 age group. Apparently you can skew statistics to get a certain conclusion in TV ratings also! Maybe the cast is so young (all under 35, and three of the four stewardesses under 30), is contributing to the disparity?


http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/10/10/pa...ies-series-low

I don't understand the above question.

Just curious, how are DVR's and timeshifting factored into ratings? Or are they?

I still think the show is kind of boring. Outside of the spy-plot, there really isn't much going on. And a show centered around World travel with no location shots is really kind of disconcerting.

Yeah, during this time of year, if there's something on after a game, I just go ahead and record the full three hours of prime time.

They almost never preempt local news, so you know when they're going to end. You just don't know when they'll start or if they'll completely drop the one show you're interested in.