Is 'Pan Am' Next for Cancellation?

First "The Playboy Club" headed on down the bunny trail, now "Pan Am" is looking like it could be next.

The highly anticipated ABC series starring Christina Ricci and Kelli Garner is one of the network's most heavily promoted shows, and was expected to do well - even in a highly competitive timeslot owned by Sunday Night football and with an audience split by high quality Sunday night cable offerings, but has struggled in early ratings.

According to Entertainment Weekly, "Pan Am" last night "took some serious hits in the adults 18-49 demographic...dropping 27% to a 1.9 rating/5 share and 6.4 million viewers, according to preliminary ratings."

"Pan Am" follows a bunch of international stewardesses who are pioneers of female liberation. They don't take too much guff from men, are remarkably independent for the era, oh - and they're also international spies (well some of them anyways).

To be frank, this last bit is the part that gives the show it's...well...drama, but it's also the part of the story that's most far-fetched, and probably the least fully fleshed out. If you're going to be a "Mad Men" rip off, you have to be able to draw out drama from interpersonal turmoil and workplace politics, without resorting to unlikely plotlines about international espionage.

Sure, Don Draper had his dark closet full of Dick Whitmanisms, but the real driving force behind that show has always been in the quiet moments when sideline office comments and well-placed glances carry enough weight to shatter your solar plexus - and that is clearly something "Pan Am" lacks.

It's a shame, really. Christina Ricci is a remarkably talented, uncommonly attractive (and still) young actress, and the idea of watching her on television every week sounds pretty good. Alas, "Pan Am" will have to find an audience (and fast) if our dreams of Ricci regularity are to be realized.

Sigh. Much like the not-great-but-still-gone-too-soon "Playboy Club," perhaps it's simply not meant to be.