Unless you were a fan of the Australian soap opera Neighbours, most audiences truly began to notice Margot Robbie in 2013, with the one-two punch of fan-favorite rom-com About Time and Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street. But American audiences may have forgotten that Robbie was on our screens before that in the short-lived ABC drama Pan Am, which you can now rediscover online for free as the pilot episode is available on YouTube.
Pan Am was created by Nancy Hult Gains (a former Pan Am flight attendant) and Jack Orman and premiered on ABC in 2011. It was a period drama about the pilots and flight attendants who once made Pan Am the most popular airline in the sky. In addition to Robbie, who made her US debut with the show, the Pan Am cast featured Christina Ricci, Michael Mosley, Karine Vanasse, Mike Vogel, Kelli Garner and Jeremy Davidson as the main stars, with the likes of David Harbour, Ashley Greene, Annabelle Wallis and Goran Visnjic also appearing in multiple episodes.
The pilot episode earned 11 million viewers airing on Sunday night and was mostly well received at the time, with a 70% "Fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics. It also earned three Emmy nominations for its one and only season, for cinematography, music score and special visual effects.
However, the show was cancelled in June 2012 after its first season following a ratings decline from the pilot episode. There were attempts at the time to find it a new home, but none proved successful.
In a 2016 Vanity Fair profile, Robbie gave her opinion of what happened with the series.
"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," Robbie said. "And you’re like, 'What? That's so not what the show was going to be.'"
Robbie continued: "After the fifth episode, you see this abrupt change in content. If they're rehiring writers, it's obviously not doing well."
Get a sense of the series with the Pan Am trailer right here:
Robbie of course recovered just fine thanks to her breakout roles in 2013. She has since gone on to star as Harley Quinn in The Suicide Squad movies and other high-profile movies including Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Babylon, Amsterdam and Asteroid City, as well as earning two Oscar nominations for I, Tonya and Bombshell. She also stars in the upcoming Barbie movie.
The full Pan Am pilot episode is currently available to watch on YouTube. Both fans of the show who were disappointed over its cancellation and new viewers discovering it for the first time have been enjoying catching up with the series with such easy access, many calling for the entire 14 episodes to be released in a similar fashion.
Not clear if Sony Pictures Television (whose channel uploaded the pilot episode) is going to fulfill that wish. The entire Pan Am series is available to watch on AMC Plus.
