Pan Am (TV series)


Pan Am is an American period drama television series created by writer Jack Orman. Named for the iconic Pan American World Airways, the series features the aircraft pilots and stewardesses of the fictional Pan Am Clipper Majestic, operating in the early 1960s at the beginning of the commercial Jet Age. The show stars Christina Ricci, Margot Robbie, Karine Vanasse, and Kelli Garner as the crew's stewardesses, and Michael Mosley and Mike Vogel as the pilots.
Pan Am premiered on ABC on September 25, 2011, and ended on February 19, 2012. ABC canceled the series on May 11, 2012. That same month, Sony Pictures Television had conversations with Amazon about picking up the series for a second season because of its critical success internationally, having won Best Series at the Rose d'Or TV awards. Unable to reach a deal with Amazon, the producers officially ended the series on June 20, 2012.

Cast and characters

Main

  • Christina Ricci as Margaret "Maggie" Ryan, the flight crew's idealistic and liberal-minded purser, who is not afraid to test the rules and her Pan Am superiors. From Tacoma, Washington, Maggie worked as a waitress in a seedy diner after dropping out of college during her freshman year. She joined Pan Am by creating the impression she was fluent in Portuguese because her former employer was from Brazil.
  • Margot Robbie as Laura Cameron, a stewardess newly out of training, and Kate Cameron's younger sister. Laura appears on the cover of Life magazine in her Pan Am uniform, making her a minor celebrity and a source of irritation for her older sister. Having run away from her own wedding in New Haven, Connecticut, several months prior, she struggles to grow up and prove to her sister she can stand on her own two feet. Although her face is not seen, Robbie briefly reprises the role of Laura on a Pan Am flight serving a cocktail, in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in which she also plays actress Sharon Tate.
  • Michael Mosley as Ted Vanderway, the crew's first officer. A former United States Naval Aviator and test pilot, he was honorably discharged from the navy after a naval tribunal blamed him for the crash of an aircraft he was piloting even though his father admits to Ted in private that there was a mechanical problem. Though he is engaged to his childhood friend Amanda, Ted slowly develops a relationship with Laura.
  • Karine Vanasse as Colette Valois, a French Pan Am stewardess. Orphaned during the German occupation of France during World War II, she still harbors resentment toward the German people. It is later revealed that her parents were French Jews who had been killed at Dachau shortly after she was left at an orphanage. Furthermore, she has a brother who was placed for adoption; by the end of the series, Colette plans to search for him.
  • Mike Vogel as Dean Lowrey, a Boeing 707 pilot recently promoted to captain on Pan Am's international routes and one of the youngest airline captains in the industry. A former Air Force pilot, he had been romantically involved with the crew's former purser, Bridget, and is now pursuing a relationship with Colette. Dean also finds himself in a secret relationship with Ginny, the mistress of a Pan Am vice president.
  • Kelli Garner as Catherine "Kate" Cameron, an experienced, trilingual stewardess and Laura Cameron's older, head-strong sister. During the pilot episode, Kate is recruited by the CIA and starts taking early assignments as a covert operative. She demonstrates a flair for espionage that impresses her handlers. In the final episode, she is offered a promotion from courier to agent.

    Recurring

  • David Harbour as Roger Anderson, a British MI6 agent and Kate's covert intelligence operations contact in London. It is revealed in the series finale that Anderson is a double agent for the KGB.
  • Jeremy Davidson as Richard Parks, Kate's CIA handler and mentor, based in New York. In the series finale, he recommends that Kate be sent to Langley for training as one of the CIA's first female field officers.
  • Annabelle Wallis as Bridget Pierce, an English stewardess and former Pan Am purser. She was dating Dean Lowrey before she resigned from Pan Am and vacated her flat in London following her deactivation as an MI6 courier. She recommends that Richard recruit Kate into the CIA as a courier. After Kate kills the intelligence dealer who was planning to sell a list of CIA/MI6 assets, Bridget reclaims her job at Pan Am and hopes to reclaim Dean as well.
  • Goran Visnjic as Niko Lonza, a Yugoslavian diplomat attached to the United Nations, serving in the United States. He becomes involved with Kate, and finds himself torn between his love of his homeland and the advantages of his new country. Visnjic appeared in a three-episode arc beginning with the series' fifth episode.
  • Scott Cohen as Everett Henson, a Pan Am vice president whose mistress, Ginny, has a secret affair with Dean.
  • Chris Beetem as Congressman Christopher Rawlings, a Republican congressman who carries on a brief affair with Maggie, despite their political differences; Rawlings is a right-wing conservative and Maggie is a left-wing liberal.
  • Darren Pettie as Captain George Broyles, a veteran Pan Am pilot who smuggles alcohol and tobacco on the side during his flights. Despite being punched in the face by Dean for this activity, he lures Maggie into becoming his business partner. He also saves Dean from termination by giving the investigating board an endorsement from Juan Trippe.
  • Kal Parekh as Sanjeev, the crew's Indian flight engineer.
  • Jay O. Sanders as Douglas Vanderway, Ted's father and president of a major aeronautics corporation. After Ted is discharged from the US Navy, Douglas has Juan Trippe hire him into Pan Am.
  • Piter Marek as Omar, a Wahran prince who befriends Colette after boarding a flight to Rome with no money or luggage. On the rebound from her relationship with Dean, Colette accepts Omar's advances and nearly becomes engaged to him; however, he reluctantly breaks things off after Colette consents to a background check which reveals her Jewish heritage.
  • Veanne Cox as Miss Havemeyer, an uptight, authoritarian Pan Am supervisor who is always at odds with Maggie.
  • Erin Cummings as Ginny Saddler, a mistress of Pan Am vice president Everett Henson. Without his knowledge, she becomes romantically involved with Dean; however, Maggie exposes their secret affair to Henson. When Dean urges Ginny to end their affair, she takes it hard enough to smash her face through a window in Rome.
  • Colin Donnell as Mike Ruskin, a columnist for The Village Voice who befriends Maggie on his trip to Berlin and publishes her scathing article on Congressman Rawlings.
  • Ashley Greene as Amanda Mason, Ted's childhood friend and later love interest and fiancée. At a party, she unexpectedly kisses a desolate Maggie. When Ted later confronts Amanda, she admits that she feels more comfortable around women, and Ted refuses her proposal of an open marriage. In the final episode, she reveals she is pregnant.

    Production

licensed the rights to use the Pan Am name and logo from Pan Am Systems, a New Hampshire–based railroad company that acquired the Pan Am brand in 1998. Nancy Hult Ganis, a Pan Am stewardess from 1968 to 1976, was one of the show's executive producers and is credited as the series developer; she conducted research for the series at the Pan Am Historical Foundation and at Pan Am's archives at the University of Miami. In addition, Ganis advised the actors, props department, production designers, and costumers in making details for the show as accurate as possible. The program featured the trademark, sky-blue Pan Am uniforms worn by stewardesses. Costume design was overseen by Anne Crabtree, who ensured attention to detail. The department made the replicas based on an old uniform which was thoroughly studied. Twenty craftsmen worked to produce each outfit. The technique was the same used by Pan Am in the sixties, and Crabtree remarked that the process was very "old school." At the time, girdles were mandatory to improve posture; some of the cast members found them "extremely restricting" during filming. Crabtree said that male costumes were inspired by James Dean and Steve McQueen.
Although the series depicts the characters in various cities around the world, the show was filmed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and other locations around New York City. The pilot was filmed partly at Gold Coast Studios in Bethpage on Long Island. A life-size recreation of a Pan Am 707 jet was used, which Entertainment Weekly magazine stated was "the biggest star of the series—in all senses." The 707 model was kept in a hangar near the Brooklyn waterfront.
The pilot episode cost an estimated $10 million. The series was produced by Sony Pictures Television, and was optioned by ABC in May 2011 for the 2011–2012 schedule. ABC commissioned five more scripts in November 2011. The broadcaster later added a fourteenth episode to the series. In the middle of the season, Steven Maeda was hired as Pan Ams new showrunner, with the mandate to "serialize and embrace the soap aspect" of the show.
In November 2011, there was media speculation that the series had been canceled by ABC, based on a comment from Karine Vanasse about the future of Pan Am and its absence from the mid-season schedule. The network denied the rumors; it planned to complete fourteen episodes and delay any announcement regarding a second season to a later date. The series was canceled on May 11, 2012.

Promotion

The September 12, 2011, edition of TV Guides Fall Preview issue included an advertisement on the back of the magazine, shown upside-down, featuring Ricci, Garner, Vanasse, and Robbie appearing as their characters for a fictional cover of TV Guide, using the magazine's 1960s logo. Between December 20, 2011, and January 5, 2012, the first nine episodes of the series were made available free of charge on Internet download sites in an effort to increase viewer interest in the series. Canadian Karine Vanasse responded to a question on her Twitter account by saying that the promotion was only available in the United States.