A period disaster.

skorpioskorpio

First off there is so many period mistakes in this show it makes it practically unwatchable. If you are going to make a show set in the 1960s you can't fill it with 2000s attitudes and PCness.

A few things about the world even 25 years ago:

90% of businessmen wore heavily starched white shirts.

80% of business suits were black or gray.

70% of the US population smoked.

A conversation between a single man and a single woman usually involved a cigarette.

Things, particularly urban things were not clean unless relatively new.

Woman were not particularly confident and certainly not forward.

The airline staff was brutally professional and uptight.

Pilots were not young frat boys, no pilot under 40 was flying a 4 engine intercontinental jet, and they were almost without exception former captains and majors in the military with military attitudes.

No federal agent would wear a light colored suit.

There was no Rogain, balding men were far more common.

If public places were clean they were rarely polished.

The women on this show are forward, aggressive and far too liberated to be believable, even in the "girls just want to have fun" era of the 80's this was not so pronounced and definitely not that way in the early 60's. These are supposed to be PanAm stewardesses, a job with a thousand girls waiting in line for your job, if you had that character you wouldn't have that job. The mannerisms are all wrong for that period. The back 2/3rds of any flight was packed with nervous chain smokers. People smoked at their desks at work. All the props and locations look restored, something no one really cared about until at least the mid to late 80's. There was no white artificial light, it was amber (tungsten) or green/blue (florescent), there was no soft white and no halogen lighting.

All this, while it may seem nit picky, is what makes that era that era. It's the contrast of the new and modern with what is mostly a pre war world. This is supposed to be the early 60's, possibly the most uptight period in US history. A period where rock and roll was mostly played in suits. The peak of public smoking and drinking, the wind down of the highest birthrate in US history, the acceleration of suburban sprawl and urban decay. People who flew at that time frame were well off, it was an upper middle class or better affair.

The show has way too many arcs for a show this early in it's run, and the story development is too slow. The situations portrayed in this show would take place in much more shadowy and dirty venues, and the characters would be much more in contrast to each other. They've also set a pace, and a story line that doesn't let individual episodes stand on their own, which means it can only lose viewers as the series goes on.

It's all really quite a shame, period well done could be interesting, but they've taken an attitude towards it that could only work in a more light hearted show. It's "Lavern and Shirley" but even further removed from it's period and not funny.

score /10

skorpioskorpio 25 October 2011

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2508591/