My geeky observation - and someone correct me if I’m wrong - inside the plane it looked like four-abreast seating instead of the five-abreast that a real 707 would have.
Hey, that’s right. I remember flying American Airlines 707s when they had the lightning bolt livery.
I flew at a time when there was no security, you could say good-bye to your relatives/friends at the gate, stand on the roof of the airport and feel the jet blast along with the smell of kerosene. I even got a tour from my aunt (who worked as an airline stewardess) of a 727 cockpit as a nine-year old kid. Nobody cared then.
Man, I’m a dinosaur (:().
I was sad that they didn’t use the Pan-Am jingle “We make the going great.” in the episode… although it might be a late 60s or 70s jingle.
The two main pilots seemed way too young… but they at least threw a more appropriate aged pilot in for the Cuba scene.
I was suprised that the “missing” stewardess/spy turned up a live at the end. I would have assumed dead to really hit how dangerous it was.
I enjoyed it. I didn’t know that there was going to be a spy subplot. That should make things pretty interesting.
After the first 5 minutes or so I said to myself “This show really has a West Wing vibe going on.” It’s not the dialog, but the way the music is handled felt similar to the West Wing. A few seconds later I saw Thomas Schlamme’s name appear. Ah, that explains that, I guess.
I agree with whoever was surprised by Christian Ricci’s small part in the pilot episode. Hopefully, she’ll have a bigger role as the show goes on because she is pretty awesome.
Smoking on the plane (a stewardess handing a guy an ashtray at one point).
Female crew expected to quit as soon as they are married (or engaged).
I didn’t mind it; I don’t know if I’ll be a regular watcher, but I’ll probably give it another go.
My wife and I watched, and we’ll probably keep watching…but I think it was a bit too in-your-face about being the '60s…know what I mean?? Too many “In case you forgot, it’s the '60s! And here’s Bay of Pigs!” moments…
And of course, one can’t help but include the Mad Men-vs-Pan Am compare/contrast list. But sorry, I’m not going to include it. 
I hate it when I watch these period shows that claim to be so authentic to their time period (“The flight bags are an exact match of the real thing! We found the same little Swiss man who made the originals and hired him to do these!”) and they get the stupid little things wrong. Things like the lipstick mentioned above by Eve. Anyone over the age of 40 would catch these little things, but of course no over the age of 40 works on these shows.
The one slip-up that annoyed me was this… When the Bay of Pigs guys get on the plane they’re all happy and cheering. One guy high-fives another guy. *High-fives *-- in the early 1960s? Sorry, I don’t think so.
I must have missed that part. Dean went to Bridget’s flat, she wasn’t there, he found her discarded wings on the table, then what happened?
The show’s about aviation. Can’t have enough of those, even with too much CGI. This one may not last, but I’ll be watching. Even if it shows hardly anyone smoking. 
But Christina Ricci’s hairline has always bothered me.
My guess regarding the spy thing is that it’ll be this season’s “conflict” or problem that will have to be dealt with and resolved by the end of the season. Perhaps they’ll do something along the lines of Desperate Housewives or Dexter where each season brings a new problem that only lasts for that one season.
The flight crew were all hanging at some pub with the girls at a table and the co-pilot and Dean at the bar, with the co-pilot trying to cheer Dean up. Then some incredibly hokey lines about evolution and “new breed of women” and “don’t try and ground them” and a shot of Bridget looking forlornly in through the window before turning and walking away.
I really quite enjoyed this. I don’t know if it was all that substantial, dramatically, but it did feel like an epic TV “event”. And it did a great job of portraying that feeling of when airplanes were exciting, pilots were heroes, and stewardess were adventurers. I left the episode wanting to join up, and having fond flashbacks to when I was a little kid whose entire week was made after getting a wings pin and chatting with the kind friendly stewardesses!
Which makes me kind of wonder, is there any modern job/industry with such grandeur still attached to it?
OTOH, it does feel a little like they went all out for the premiere, and it’s not entirely clear what’s going to happen for the duration, other than some tiny hints with the spy stuff. I was surprised that they didn’t do much with Ricci (and what’s a purser?). And I had a lot of trouble telling apart the two sisters and the missing girl. They should really change up the hairstyles/colors or something to make them easier to figure out who is who, especially when they are wearing identical uniforms.
I enjoyed it enough to watch another one - I mean, it was definitely no Mad Men, but it was fun. I kept yelling things about it to my boyfriend who was working in the other room - “You’re not gonna believe it - there’s SPIES!” “A runaway bride! There’s a runaway bride!”
Verdict - soap. But fun.
ETA - it does have the same problem I have with all shows set in this period - I can’t tell the men apart at all. They all look alike and I thought the spy handler (the first one) was the adulterer for most of the show.
I watched it on Hulu. It looked beautiful, but I’m not sure what it was about. Spies? Ditching a wedding? Fleeing from Castro’s Cuba? What’s going on? Is this a spoof? It’s not a serious drama, apparently.
I thought it was certainly a good looking show. There’s certainly enough raw material to build on to keep this show going for a long time. That said, NBC is borrowing heavily from Mad Men in an attempt to attract ANY viewers. But this stuff is all new to younger viewers, back in the 60’s there were books and movies galore about the glamorous lives of stewardesses.
A big chunk of the appeal is the look at how glamorous flying was back then. But I’m not sure how much you can carry it beyond that. Perhaps it could be a bit of a travelogue, if they can fake scenes of European cities as they looked back then. The divided Berlin that DMark described would be interesting to see. And where did Sanjeev, the navigator on that flight, come from? How many Indians were in America in the 1950s and early 1960s? Or was he meant to be an Indian citizen employed by Pan Am? Is that realistic? I thought most of their pilots were ex-US Air Force.
Sanjeev’s presence was jarring to me. Granted, I was a child, but that seems suspect to me. The pilots beaming lovingly at each other and giving the speech cracked me up, especially the “& enjoy your flight with us to Europe today”. Didn’t they have to land in a country in those days?
Charming little corner in London looked a lot like charming little corner in Rome to me.
I’m amused at how much this show and The Playboy Club ache to be Mad Men, and fall short. Mad Men will get a few things wrong, but I never yell “oh, come on!” at that show.
I am home nauseated today, and catching up on this, Playboy and the first half of Terra Nova. If I do actually vomit, I think the bowl will have nothing in it but corn…
Actually, there is AT LEAST one former Pan Am flight attended working on the show.
Right after the episode was over my wife went online in hopes of getting a couple of plane tickets somewhere. It made her want to be a stewardess as her next career.
Uhh…the spy thing was actually pretty serious…that actually happened…
I was using “serious drama” as a name for a genre. Is it a spy thriller or a serious drama?
I thought it was OK. I like the spy angle, but the rest of the plot was pretty predictable:
Did anyone NOT think that wifey was going to tell Frenchy that she knew about the affair when they went back to get her purse?
Did anyone NOT think that pilot guys was going to find his wings in his GF’s apartment?
I’ll keep watching this. More than I can say for The Playboy Club.
First class was four-abreast, but coach was 5. You could tell in the scene with the newlyweds kissing; there was a woman seated next to them in the same row.