9.28.2011

Knee-jerk review: ABC's "Pan Am"

1. Looks like it has at least twice the budget of NBC's "The Playboy Club." Fantastic, retro 60s production design. Plush and sleek.
2. To us, Christina Ricci has always been rather odd looking.
3. It's a bit more soapy than we expected, but why wouldn't it be? Anything that skews female will (rightly or wrongly) work the romantic angles. We should have expected that.
4. The sister rivalry subplot feels kind of fresh, though since this is a TV show even the "plain" sister is hot by normal people's standards.
5. Will the "Lost"-style character flashbacks carry over into the series or was it just a pilot gimmick? They worked okay.
6. Curious to see more of that crazy Bay of Pigs evacuation.
7. Where have they been hiding Karine Vanasse?
8. If we hadn't read an article proving it's true, we never would have bought the idea of stewardesses working as government spies.
9. Unlike the stock-character product-placement phoniness of "The Playboy Club," this show feels more organic and layered. It helps that the "we're a new breed of woman" revisionist feminism is mostly downplayed. They're stewardesses, people, not suffragists.
10. Girdles? Seriously?
11. Bridget is annoying. And she's barely in the show.
12. Who owns the Pan Am name and logo now? If this show hits, someone could probably make a lot of money selling baby blue leather flight bags.
13. The biggest concern is the pacing. This is one... slow... show. Glacial at times. Pick up the pace, folks.

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