Margot Robbie Plays a Runaway Bride in This Underrated TV Period Drama

The Big Picture

• Pan Am
  had a sudden cancelation due to network changes and dip in ratings affecting its original tone.
• The show initially attracted viewers by featuring strong female characters living on their own terms.
• Margot Robbie’s performance as Laura set the stage for her future roles, contributing to the series’ appeal.

Margot Robbie‘s career may have taken flight when the actress landed a role on the 2011 series Pan Am, but the ABC period drama crashed and burned all the same. A steamy, espionage-twinged ’60s drama with affairs left and right, it was basically Mad Men in the sky. Receiving critical acclaim across the board, it seemed to have come along at the perfect time, given that Mad Men had already caused a ripple effect of nostalgia for the iconic decade.

Featuring a primarily female ensemble cast, Pan Am was a fresh depiction of the mid-century era. Though it soon began to decline in the ratings, its eventual cancelation was a baffling, abrupt end, as the series was still finding its footing. Ultimately, due to a ratings panic among the network, a new writing staff, a sudden change in tone halfway through the season, and an inability to secure a new home for a potential second season, Pan Am was canceled after 14 episodes — but that doesn’t mean the short-lived period drama series isn’t worth watching.

What Is ‘Pan Am’ About?

Pan Am follows a flight crew of flight attendants and pilots working for the prestigious Pan Am Airlines in 1963 at the beginning of the commercial Jet Age. The series stars Robbie as the young runaway bride turned flight attendant Laura Cameron, who leaves her family behind to chase her dreams. Christina Ricci co-stars as lead flight attendant and purser Maggie Ryan, a blossoming feminist who rejects the many oppressive rules that women working for the airline are supposed to follow (including the wearing of girdles). Also serving as stewardesses on the fictional Pan Am plane Clipper Majestic are Kelli Garner as Kate Cameron, Laura’s older sister, who is secretly working undercover for the CIA during the Cold War, and Karine Vanasse as Frenchwoman Colette Valois, who has a secret aim of tracking down her long-lost brother.

The flight attendants aren’t the only familiar faces on Pan Am, as the cast also features Mike Vogel as newly appointed pilot Dean Lowrey and Michael Mosley as the crew’s first officer Ted Vanderway. David Harbour is featured in a guest starring role as one of Kate’s contacts, MI6 Agent Roger Anderson, alongside Annabelle Wallis as former flight attendant-turned-spy Bridget Pierce. Pan Am follows the crew of the Clipper Majestic as they travel across the world and fall into affairs with passengers and co-workers, in addition to lots of espionage. The women at the series’ center, especially Robbie’s character, Laura, are all seeking a life on their own terms, and Pan Am spotlights the barely explored history of the trailblazing female flight attendants of the early ’60s.

Robbie had previously held a regular role on the Australian soap opera Neighbours, but had yet to transition over to American film and television. With Pan Am, the series marked her first leading role, and she clearly had something special to offer. Even though she was only 21 at the time the series aired, Robbie managed to offer a complex resilience to her character, something that all her future film roles would have in common. As the series delves into Laura’s background, it’s revealed she is on the run from her family after deciding she wants more for her life than being someone’s wife. Robbie’s performance as a woman rejecting the patriarchal system’s expectations of her laid the groundwork for every role she would come to play, including her most recent smash hit Barbie.

Why Was ‘Pan Am’ Cancelled?

In the years since Pan Am was canceled, many have wondered what exactly went wrong. The pilot episode earned 11 million viewers, and though the viewership for the remaining episodes diminished by about half, 6-7 million viewers each week were still very respectable numbers. Given that the series debuted on ABC just as its crowning jewel, Desperate Housewives, was ending, the network was hoping for a similar series to fill its slot. However, alongside the show’s dip in ratings, a sudden change in tone and departure from the storylines laid out throughout the first half of the season were the nails in Pan Am‘s coffin.

In a 2016 interview with Vanity Fair, Robbie pulled back the curtains on how the hiring of a new staff of writers completely changed the show and permanently altered what everyone came to love about Pan Am in the first place. Viewers liked the headstrong female characters who were more concerned with living enriched lives than a boy calling them back, but when the network wanted a series more similar to Desperate Housewives, melodrama and broken hearts took center stage. In Robbie’s own words:

“As soon as it went on-air, they were like, ‘No, we didn’t get the ratings we want—let’s get a whole new crew of writers and make it more like
Housewives
.’ And you’re like, ‘What? That’s so not what the show was going to be.’ After the fifth episode, you see this abrupt change in content. If they’re rehiring writers, it’s obviously not doing well. If they don’t pick up the back nine, it’s pretty certain that you won’t go for a Season Two.”

Pan Am pounced on the opportunity for another stylish drama set during the 1960s in the wake of the Mad Men craze — and at first, it had all the ingredients to be a hit. While it didn’t ultimately endure beyond its first season, it still holds up as an excellent period drama series. Featuring a cast of dynamite performances, many of whom had yet to transition into the big stars they would eventually become, Pan Am captured lightning in a bottle, serving a taste of everything Robbie was already capable of so early in her career.

Pan Am is available to stream on Roku in the U.S.

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