Christina Ricci as Maggie in “The Genuine Article.” Credit: ABC
According to various reports, ABC is saying that Pan Am is not cancelled.
“No, this is not correct,” said an ABC rep in response to the rumor that Pan Am was cancelled, according to E! Online. “Nothing has changed. We are not canceling Pan Am. We are still in production and will continue to be in production finishing the original13 episodes plus one more additional one.” That additional one is one of the five ordered scripts that ABC asked for a few weeks ago.
“We have one more original episode this week, Dec. 4, and then will return in January with new episodes, airing all of them,” said the rep. “Pan Am is still in contention for next season. We won’t know about that until our upfront announcement in May.”
According to E! Online, insiders close to the show have said that the execs at ABC still have their hopes set on the success of Pan Am, but say the show is getting a shortened first season because ABC has “too many good shows” they are working on. The insiders also told E! that it could be very likely that Pan Am could come back next fall or as early as late summer.
Couple this with this seemingly out-of-place news: according to Entertainment Weekly, Mad Men actor Darren Pettie has landed a recurring role on the show as a pilot who is considered the “ultimate sky god”, a WWII pilot named Vince Broyles. According to the site, he’s “a charmer with a dark side.” Also, because he’s a military man, he can use the Pan Am planes for his own personal use. Personally, I don’t see how that’s actually allowed, since it’s a violation of company property, but maybe things happened that way in the 1960s. Still I don’t see how that’s actually viable, even for the time period. In any case, this character is going to be a (hopefully) great foil to the otherwise bland, but supposed flying whiz-kid Dean.
This is the second news of Pan Am casting within a few weeks–again, if the show has a new showrunner and keeps hiring actors, along with the constant support at ABC, this leads me to believe that for whatever reason, the network is trying their hardest to retool and reboot the show to make it more consistent and have more staying power. This news of them airing all of the episodes and then taking a hiatus proves it to me. They are going to use that time off to totally let Steven Maeda do his thing and get the team into shape, then they’ll show the first episode of the proposed next season to the execs, who will hopefully say “Yes,” and then the show will be back on television again. Let’s remember that this show is popular worldwide already, without even airing in every country it’s popular in.
HOWEVER, it could very well go the way of everything happening like I wrote, up to the point where the show is put back in front of the execs again, but the execs say “No.”
I sure hope I’m right about the first scenario, though. I do like 1960s nostalgia.
Other related news articles:
The Hollywood Reporter: ABC Grounds Pan Am–For Now
AOL TV: Is Pan Am Cancelled? ABC Says No
Entertainment Weekly: Pan Am star hints show cancelled, ABC says…
