Ted’s jealous. Credit: ABC (screencap: me)
Maybe it’s just this episode, but I’m a little scared about the future of Pan Am, as in, I’m not sure it’s going to have one for much longer if the characterization and plotting problems keep up. Perhaps I’m jumping the gun, since this episode was a little uneven. Let’s go through it:
The destinations for this episode include Rangoon, Burma and Jakarta, Indonesia. The friendship/romance between Colette and Dean have taken a back seat to make way for the sister issues between Kate and Laura, the jealousy Ted has for Dean’s position, and the romance? between Ted and Laura.
On the one hand, I really like this episode as it shows us that Ted isn’t just a lecherous weirdo. He has some merit, and he’s likable now that we’ve seen of what makes him tick–he’s a former Navy test pilot who either pushed the limit of his aircraft too far or was too drunk to be flying the night his aircraft tore up and crashed into the water.
Ted struggling in the water after his aircraft crashed. Credit: ABC (screencap: me)
And I also kinda like the Kate-Laura tension, since they have some issues that need to be worked out. I think one of the problems with this episode lies with Maggie. I think she’s getting to become an issue.
Maggie is not really a character. She says stuff, but she doesn’t really amount to anything. She’s like a shadow of a character right now, and I hope in the coming episodes, she develops some more, especially since Laura has now moved in with her due to Kate taking out her big sister and spy frustrations on her. However, if what Kate said about “stirring the pot” being Maggie’s hobby, then maybe her characterization is about to take a jet-set leap into The Land of 3D. Speaking of Kate, the relationship Kate has with her American go-to man Richard (Jeremy Davidson) is really interesting. It’s half-contentious, half-romance. I hope that goes somewhere as well.
Richard and Kate. Credit: ABC (screencap: me)
Another issue: the big scenes in this show–the fight between Ted and Dean, the fight between Laura and Kate–don’t really have any roots from any other episodes. Sure, we know Ted had some issues about being co-pilot from the first episode, and we also know from the first episode that Laura and Kate have some issues since Laura is obviously the favorite, but the big set pieces in this show didn’t really come from a build-up of tension. Or, if there was tension, it wasn’t layered enough for the fights to really feel like they stemmed from the first three episodes. And for Laura to not jump at the chance to have her sister re-assigned to another plane? That’s a little bit out of character, since she’s both the black sheep of the family and the supposed “grown-up” of the two. She would probably want her sister off the plane so she could have her moment in the sun again, but she really should want her sister off the plane so she can do her spy work unhampered. She’s really putting her sister at risk by traveling with her, and for Richard to say they could put Laura on another plane is showing the real maturity here. But, I understand why they wanted to have Laura try to make up with her sister. They’re trying to portray Kate as a person who’s torn between loving her sister and being jealous of her, so I’m sure she’s bound to act a little unbalanced because of it.
One final issue: Dean’s stereotypically-liberal “It’s 1963!” talk was annoying. Here it is verbatim (script directions written by me):
DEAN: Have you read the paper? It’s 1963.
He smirks at the seasoned captain.
DEAN: A new generation leads.
It didn’t make sense, and it just came off as a second-rate, amateurish thing to say. But I do like that the show decided to address one of the inaccuracies of the show, which is the whole “young pilot” thing. In fact, it would have been nice to have an episode about Dean’s conversation with the head of Pan Am instead of just hearing about it. That could have been what the second storyline of the show could have been instead of Laura/Kate hate.
For all his liberal talk, Dean should become a beatnik. Credit: ABC (screencap: me)
The last final issue: Some of the dialogue is written clumsily. That’s including the Dean “It’s 1963!” stuff, but also all of the dialogue between the Pan Am stewardesses and the Navy officers. Maggie’s flirting with the officers by reading the back of the suntan lotion bottle didn’t make sense to me since nothing the officers said led up to her even replying with that. All they said was something about a bet and swimming. I think that perhaps the biggest problem in this episode is that the writers were more concerned with what plot points they had to hit and just wrapped stuff around it instead of making a cohesive story that just happened to include those plot points.
Overall, this episode seemed like a roadblock, so I’m hoping the next episode packs more of a punch. Basically, everything needs to go, and at jet-speed, too. As afraid as I am about the future of this show, I sincerely hope it stays on long enough to find its legs and get on the fast track to awesomeness.
Sanjeev alert:
THE ‘JEEV! Credit: ABC (screencap: me)
The ‘Jeev is back! I think he was gone in the last one–either that or my television’s color was bad. He’s got some more lines, and he even got to stand up, put on his co-pilot’s blazer, and walk out of the plane, but I hope he breaks out of the “Gee, Captain!”-type of line rut the scriptwriters have put him in. He’s aching for more characterization! Give him an awesome backstory! Make him not say lines that don’t make any sense unless you’re a nerd about Planet of the Apes (his whole thing about correcting Ted about saying “monkey” instead of “chimp” has to be a reference since Cornelius corrected the humans about saying “ape” instead of “monkey”, but was way too subtle–and not correct for the 1960s timeline since Cornelius corrects the humans about the M-word in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, which came out after 1963– for it to be taken as such and just came off as a poorly-written line. Or maybe it was just a poorly-written line). IT MUST BE SO! I will spearhead The Campaign For Sanjeev to Become a Character!
If you want to see what fellow recappers Tom and Lorenzo have to say about this episode, click here. Also, the fifth part of “The Real Stewardesses of Pan Am” is up, and Nancy Ganis, the executive producer of the show a well as a former Pan Am stewardess, is featured.
I wish Sanjeev would get more airtime!