Did anybody see Pan Am last night?

[bluestateguy]

I did. I thought it was good enough for me to plan to watch it again next week, but I was not overwhelmed by it either. It was watchable, but not quite as engaging as the show's promoters seemed to promise.

One thing that did stick out, however, was how much more fun flying used to be than it is today.*

*Except for smoking on the planes; that we can do without.

[taterguy]

1. We get it, Every thing used to be better.

I'll get off your lawn now.

[The Straight Story]

2. Some things were better, some were not (nt)

[MADem]

12. I think getting thumped in the girdle by the "stewardess supervisor" was probably

not too pleasant an experience for the young women doing that job.

[Raine]

5. You don't have to be the type who chases the young off your lawn

to remember when things were better, they sure were better before Sept 11, 2001. At least before then you didn't have to be stripped and molested to get on a plane. x(

[bluestateguy]

10. At least you could see off your loved ones at the gate before they got on the plane

and they served cooked meals on the plane, and you didn't even have to pay for it either.

[Bumblebee]

3. They tried to sell it as "Mad Women" of Pan Am but it falls way, way short

Yes, the comforts of the plane were striking indeed. I made the opposite decision, though -- not to watch it again. Plus Inspector Lewis does not end till 30 mins into the Pan Am show, and it's a much better bet!

[dsc]

4. It also used to cost a bundle

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/3591340/

For example this far from Germany to Vancouver in 57 was 700.00.

[MADem]

13. And that was MAJOR money in 57! nt

[frogmarch]

6. I saw it and found it to be

rather blah.

Was there a storyline?

Maybe it was more fun flying then than it is now, but maybe not so much for the flight attendants, who back then were all women - women who were forced to wear girdles.

[Marie Marie]

14. And forced to put up with sexual harrassment by passengers.

Oh,and you better look damn good while working your ass off. Gain 5 pounds? You are on probation.

[former9thward]

7. It was a decent show.

I believe you are wrong about the smoking. When you could smoke on planes the planes were required to take in outside air to keep it fresh. When the smoking bans came in planes stopped taking in outside air (because you have to heat it up, it is minus 40 at altitude) and so now they just recirculate the same stale dead air over and over. That is primary reason for "jet lag" and why you catch everyone else's cold, etc. That is why the airlines pushed for the bans so they could save money.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. Underwhelming although the hair, costumes, and set designs were all right.

[femmocrat]

9. I was disappointed.

I thought I would love it, and instead, I turned it off about half-way through. The only interesting part was when they were in Cuba, IMO.

[MADem]

11. I watched it with a (former) Pan Am flight attendant!

Your review is pretty much right on the mark.

I was also treated to a the odd technical comments ("Get a load of those aisles, they've never been that wide!").

Flying was also much more expensive eons ago, due to regulation, which made it a more pleasant experience. The profit margins weren't so narrow. Seats in coach were the size of seats in first class. Leg room was never an issue. High prices prevented the "Greyhound set" (as in "Go Greyhound, and leave the driving to us") from being able to afford that mode of transport, at least routinely. Nowadays, air travel is basically "Greyhound with wings, and aircrew to help you in emergencies"--all that "waitressing in the sky" is history.

I recall paying four hundred dollars for a ticket on (now defunct) Eastern Airlines forty or so years ago, that today I could get for two hundred and change, without looking too hard for a bargain! With prices like that, something's gotta give!

[Historic NY]

15. I worked a couple years after school in a factory that made all those

PAN AM travel bags, garment bags and toilet article bags....they had a 1 million bag order. We all got sick of the blue material. Stewardess's were hot back then and yes we smoked on planes. I flew British Air still had a smoking area in the early 80's.

Interesting using the Stewardess for spying.

[SheilaT]

16. I'm a former airline employee myself.

I was a ticket agent at Washington National Airport from 1969 to 1979. They have really done a good job of capturing the essence of what it was to fly back in the day.

Keep in mind flights were rarely full, except at Thanksgiving, and yes, the first class cabin really was as large as they're showing. I do agree with the person who noted that the aisles were NEVER that wide.

I wish they'd shown just a bit more of the meal service, to give you a better sense of what it was like, including the fact that they actually cooked food on board. Not to mention the hot towels in first class.

Crews tended to drink a lot, which is somewhat shown here, and the cabin crew usually did not socialize all that much with the cockpit crew, again shown realistically. For one thing, the vast majority of pilots were married. Oh, and pay attention to how really young the stewardesses were -- most of them would have been in their early twenties. Back then it was highly unusual for a girl to fly more than two, maybe three years, before marrying.

I still have a collection of first class menus, including several from Pan Am, and almost all of them, regardless of airline, have the actual date printed on it, which means they separately printed up the menus for the specific day.


Oh, and I actually have a bit of a problem with the spying sub plot. I suppose it could have happened, but it does stretch my sense of believability. For one thing, they could not necessarily count on a stewardess having a specific flight on a specific day.

[skippercollector]

17. my favorite new show

Pan Am is my favorite new show of the season.
I don't know why I bother watching new series. I have terrible luck with them, and it's been that way since I was a child. Although nothing is official, I already sense that Pan Am, Terra Nova and A Gifted Man aren't going to last much longer. And Harry's Law and Parenthood are borderline.
And people wonder why I go to the movies so much.....