Pan Am, ABC's new series had quite the maiden voyage. The recent addition to ABC's primetime line up launched its premiere episode to a viewing audience of 11 million.

According to TV Guide, the show scored a 3.1 rating among 18-to-49-year-olds.

Pan Am, starring Christina Ricci, is about the glamorous lives of the pilots and stewardesses of the Pan American Airways in the 1960s. The show will feature all of the archetypal plotlines of a network drama, but with an emphasis on escapism which was a large part of the allure of Pan American Airways itself.

The relationships between the pilots and the stewardesses are sure to create some heat, as the flirtatious crew flies the friendly skies and those powder blue uniforms keep audiences' eyes glued.

Beautiful women, faraway places, and lots of lust mix together to make the perfect primetime cocktail.

Yet there is more to this show than just pretty faces and revelry.

There is sort of this misconception because in reality, the job allowed these women to have a freedom they weren't really given in a regular role in life at that time, said Christina Ricci in an article from the Daily Herald.

Nancy Hult Ganis, one of the executive producers of the show, was herself a stewardess from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s.

It was a time when women actually began to become friends and sisters, said Ganis in a Sioux City Journal article. There wasn't competition. The world was open to them; they had choices they never had before.

Thus, Pan Am presents a story of hope. It revives the great American ideal of Manifest Destiny and sheds light on the bubbling excitement of hitting the open road, destined for the unknown.

There is some criticism that Pan Am is not exactly as idyllic as the series may portray. With pre-flight weigh-ins and touchy customers, the job could become quite taxing.

When you checked in for a flight you'd go into the office and there'd be a grooming supervisor on duty all the time, said Bronwen Roberts in an MSNBC article. She could say, 'Your hair is too long' or 'You are overweight' and send you home until you fixed it. Just like the TV show, you could get grounded for uniform violations.

Margot Robbie, Kelli Garner and Karine Vanasse play stewardesses in the new ABC series. Mike Vogel and Michael Mosley are among the pilots.

Pan Am airs Sundays on ABC at 10|9c.

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