Pan Am is struggling a bit in the ratings after a fairly strong premiere, which is unfortunate. It's shaping up to be one of the best new shows of 2011, though perhaps it's suffering from a poor timeslot. Sundays are good space for cable dramas and off-beat comedies, but Pan Am may do better in a mid-week position. I can see why ABC put it on Sunday, though. It's still a sunny, fun show but it has plenty of influences from the more prestige-driven end of the TV spectrum. In a sense, it aspires to be a Sunday kind of show when really it's a hybrid of typical Sunday shows and the less ambitious fare that's in the mid-week slots. If ABC lets it hang on for long enough, it may just evolve into the meatier, more character-based show it's trying to be.

Just like last week was Colette's turn to have some backstory, Ted got some filling in this week. Not surprisingly, his shallow exterior hides something heavier and more genuine. A rough trip to Southeast Asia sets off Ted's memories of his days as a Navy test pilot on the fast track to the then-new space program. A faulty bit of machinery and possibly a hangover caused one of his flights to wreck, ending his Navy career in a wash of paperwork and blame-passing. Behind all that was Ted's rich contractor father who chose his government and financial ties over his son's future, relegating Ted to the life of a commercial jet co-pilot when he had his sights set on low-Earth orbit. The flashbacks addressing this story are framed in Ted's present quest to get an ancient TV in a Jakarta hotel to work long enough for him to watch the Mercury-3 launch (the first manned space mission for the United States).

Though only he knows it, Ted's story is parallel to Laura's in that it's about someone trying to find pride and identity after an early misstep. Ted ostensibly spent his whole life benefiting from his father's connections just as Laura spent her whole life following a clear path set out for her by her family. Laura tries to embrace the worldly freedom Maggie exudes, unwittingly complicating Kate's latest CIA mission to deliver a camera to a contact in Asia. The argument that follows is one of those layered, subtext-riddled fights that only really happen on TV, but it's an economical way to tell the episode's story at the same time as the Cameron Sisters' longer arc. Laura's dependence on Kate's life choices is problematic, though by episode's end she has only traded in mimicking her sister for mimicking Maggie, even going so far as moving in with her.

As for the lighter part of the episode, the market scenes in Jakarta were a lot more low-rent than the European locales the show has visited so far. They also ran down a list of standard tropes of exoticism that would have been more distracting had they taken up more screen time. Hopefully Pan Am won't turn every trip to a country not predominantly populated by white people into a mess of cockfights, table dancing and bribe-hungry officials.

Best Moment: Ted and Laura fixing the TV. It was a character moment that didn't need to happen but tied everything together nicely.

Notes: Lots of computer effect flying scenes this week.

Episode Rating: 4/5- The week's locale could have used some more sketching in and the script in general felt more disjointed than usual, but I'm glad Ted and Laura got some much-needed character work.