Pan Am is a television series centered around the iconic airline Pan American World Airways during the early 1960s. The period drama, from writer Jack Orman (ER) and director Thomas Schlamme (The West Wing), has a storyline that begins in 1963 and focuses on the pilots and stewardesses working for the world-famous airline.
The series, produced by Sony Pictures Television, was picked up by ABC in May 2011 for the 2011–2012 television season. Sony licensed the rights to the Pan Am name and logo from Pan Am Systems, a New Hampshire–based railroad company that acquired the Pan Am brand in 1998.
Pan Am premiered on September 25, 2011.

The Kennedys is the series about of which everyone currently speaks. With a budget of 30 million dollars, this series recalls, in 8 one hour episodes, the life of the family of the President assassinated in November 1963 in Dallas. Casting is rich. One finds Greg Kinnear in the role of JFK and Katie Holmes in that of Jackie Kennedy, like Barry Pepper and Tom Wilkinson in the roles of the brother and the father.

A family saga, about of which everyone also speaks because it caused the polemic on the other side of the Atlantic. The heirs to the suspicious family indeed blocked the diffusion of the series on History Chanel, like on several others. After having despaired to find a diffuser on the American ground, the producer of the series, Joel Surnow, ended up finding his diffuser: a small independent cabled chain (Reelz Chanel).

Out of the United States, it is all the opposite. The chains fight to obtain of them the rights of diffusion and more than thirty countries already acquired them.

At present, more than thirty countries acquired the rights of these eight episodes. “the BBC bought them and they are not the whimsical ones”, specifies the International chairman of Europe Images. Because it is precisely the historical precision which is in question on the other side of the Atlantic. Summer 2010: New York Times sparks off an explosion by publishing one of the first outlines of the scenario.

Approximately, the saga of the Kennedy would have airs of Dallas or Dynasty. The presence of Joel Surnow, republican become inveterate, with the production of the project finishes alarming the heirs to the clan.

Former adviser of JFK, Theodore Sorensen evokes a “malevolent” project. The democrats, them, denounce a caricature. “However the scenarios of the eight episodes all were authenticated by the historian of History Chanel, points out Frank Soloveicik. The Kennedy were not paragons of virtue side girls. It is not a scoop. In the two episodes which I viewed, one also sees how the father Kennedy intervened so that one of his/her sons is President. For once, the puzzle is entirely reconstituted. I think that it is that which obstructs the heirs. As a result, the family intervened with History Chanel and one knows the force of the lobbies in the United States…”

More precisely, according to leNew York Post, Caroline Kennedy, the girl of John and Jacqueline, an ultimatum would have posed: ABC (held by Disney, just like History Chanel) could draw a feature on the exclusiveness in the new talks in his/her mother with a historian if the series were programmed. One also evokes the intervention of Maria Shriver, old journalist, marries of Arnold Schwarzenegger and niece of JFK. History Chanel then makes volte-face and pretext “a dramatic interpretation which is not appropriate for the image of the chain”. It sweeps at the same time a production whose budget rose to 30 million dollars. Frank Soloveicik however considers that “the series is of an authenticity to be mistaken there: the costumes, the decorations, casting are seizing of truth. The resemblance of Katie Holmes to Jackie Kennedy is striking”.

In the United States, after the refusal of History Chanel and Showtime, Reelz Chanel would plan today to diffuse the series on April 3rd. But the clan Kennedy surely did not say his last word.

The American dream is only one publicity stunt: MAD MEN

• 5 seasons, 52 episodes 1st diffusion in the U.S.A. on July 19th, 2007
• Series already available in DVD since February 9th, 2010
• Series already available as Blu-Ray since February 9th, 2010
• Created by Matthew Weiner in 2007
• Original title: American Mad Men
• Kind: Drama. Format: 42mn

Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The episodes are premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each season consists of 13 episodes.Mad Men is set in the 1960s, initially at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on Madison Avenue in New York City, and later at the newly created firm of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

The focal point of the series is Don Draper (Jon Hamm), creative director at Sterling Cooper and a founding partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, as well as those in his life, both in and out of the office. As such, it regularly depicts the changing moods and social mores of 1960s America.Mad Men has received critical acclaim, particularly for its historical authenticity and visual style, and has won multiple awards, including thirteen Emmys and four Golden Globes. It is the first basic cable series to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, winning it in 2008, 2009, and 2010.

In 2000, while working as a staff writer for Becker, Matthew Weiner wrote the first draft for the pilot of what would later be called Mad Men as a spec script.[Television producer David Chase recruited Weiner to work as a writer on his HBO series The Sopranos after reading the pilot script in 2002. “It was lively, and it had something new to say,” Chase said. “Here was someone [Weiner] who had written a story about advertising in the 1960s, and was looking at recent American history through that prism.” Weiner set the pilot script aside for the next seven years — during which time neither HBO nor Showtime expressed interest in the project—until The Sopranos was completing its final season and cable network AMC happened to be in the market for new programming.

“The network was looking for distinction in launching its first original series,” according to AMC Networks president Ed Carroll “and we took a bet that quality would win out over formulaic mass appeal.”
The pilot episode was shot at Silvercup Studios and various locations around New York City; subsequent episodes have been filmed at Los Angeles Center Studios. It is available in high definition for showing on AMC-HD and on video-on-demand services available from various cable affiliates.

The writers, including Weiner, amassed volumes of research on the period in which Mad Men takes place so as to make most aspects of the series—including detailed set designs, costume design, and props—historically accurate,producing an authentic visual style that garnered critical praise.Each episode has a budget between $2–2.5 million, though the pilot episode’s budget was over $3 million. On the scenes featuring smoking, Weiner stated: « Doing this show without smoking would’ve been a joke. It would’ve been sanitary and it would’ve been phony. »Since the actors cannot, by California law, smoke tobacco cigarettes in their workplace, they instead smoke herbal cigarettes.

Robert Morse was cast in the role of senior partner Bertram Cooper; Morse starred in A Guide for the Married Man (1967), a source of inspiration for Weiner, and How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1961)—two Broadway plays about amoral New Yorkers.Weiner collaborated with cinematographer Phil Abraham and production designers Robert Shaw (who worked on the pilot only) and Dan Bishop to develop a visual style that was « influenced more by cinema than television. »Alan Taylor, a veteran director of The Sopranos, directed the pilot and also helped establish the series’ visual tone.

To convey an « air of mystery » around Don Draper, Taylor tended to shoot from behind him or would frame him partially obscured. Many scenes set at Sterling Cooper were shot lower-than-eyeline to incorporate the ceilings into the composition of frame; this reflects the photography, graphic design and architecture of the period. Alan felt that neither steadicam nor handheld camera work would be appropriate to the « visual grammar of that time, and that aesthetic didn’t mesh with [their] classic approach »—accordingly, the sets were designed to be practical for dolly work.

Lead characters

Don Draper (Jon Hamm): Creative director and junior partner of Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency and, as of the fourth season, a partner of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, he is the series’ main character. He is a hard-drinking, chain-smoking executive with a shadowy past who has achieved success in advertising. He was married to Elizabeth « Betty » Draper and has three children with her, but his history of infidelity, along with his revelations to her about his past led to their separation at the end of Season 3 and eventual divorce. Draper’s real name is Dick Whitman; he assumed the identity of Don Draper during the Korean War after the death of his Lieutenant, who was due to return from the war, thereby avoiding further combat.

Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss): Olson rises from being Draper’s secretary to a copywriter with her own office.She becomes pregnant with Pete Campbell’s child, a pregnancy that neither she nor her family or coworkers seem to notice, until she goes into labor alone and goes to the emergency room.Campbell is unaware of her pregnancy until the end of Season 2, when Peggy tells him that she gave the baby up for adoption. In Season 3, Peggy is approached by Duck Phillips to leave Sterling Cooper, but turns him down, despite the fact that his persistence leads to a romantic relationship. While he rarely acknowledges it, Don’s appreciation of Peggy’s abilities leads him to choose her to go with him to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. She is given more freedom to come up with her own creative advertising ideas, though Don continues to push her to be better.

Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser): A young, ambitious account executive from an old New York family with connections and a privileged background. Campbell tries to blackmail Don Draper with information from Draper’s past. However, he and Don develop a grudging respect for each other, culminating in Don’s approaching Pete over Ken Cosgrove when forming a new agency.Campbell and his wife, Trudy, had been unable to conceive a child earlier in their marriage, and he remained unaware of his child with Olson until the Season 2 finale. At the end of Season 3, dissatisfied with his treatment at Sterling Cooper regarding a promotion, he secretly plans to leave the firm. Unaware of this, Don Draper approaches Campbell with an offer to join his new firm as long as Pete brings accounts worth $8 million of cash flow. Campbell decides to join Draper, with the condition that he be made a partner, though his surname does not appear in the new firm’s name (Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce). Campbell is one of the few characters in the show who does not smoke.

Betty Francis (née Hofstadt, formerly Draper) (January Jones): Don Draper’s ex-wife and mother of their three children, Sally, Bobby, and Eugene Scott. Raised in the tiny Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, she met Don when she was a model in Manhattan and married him soon thereafter. At the start of the series, they have been married for seven years (1953–1960) and live in Ossining, New York. Over the course of the first two seasons, Betty gradually becomes aware of her husband’s womanizing. After a brief separation, Betty allows Don to return home when she learns she is pregnant with their third child, but first has a one-night stand of her own. She leaves for Reno at the end of Season 3, in December 1963, with the intention of divorcing Don. At the start of Season 4, in November 1964, she has divorced Don and married Henry Francis.[32] She, the children, and her new husband continue to live in the Drapers’ old house, but by the end of the season decide to move to another house in Rye. Betty’s relationship with her children is often strained, in particular with Sally.
Joan Harris (née Holloway) (Christina Hendricks): Office manager and head of the secretarial pool at Sterling Cooper. She had a long-term affair with Roger Sterling until his two heart attacks cause him to end the relationship. In Season 2, she becomes engaged to Dr. Greg Harris. By Season 3, they are married and at Greg’s request Joan quits her job at Sterling Cooper. Their marriage becomes tested when Greg’s difficulties securing work as a surgeon force Joan to return to work at a department store, prompting her to call Roger Sterling to ask for his help in finding an office job. Because of her invaluable managerial skills, she is later hired for the new agency formed by Don, Roger, Bert and Lane. Meanwhile, Greg’s desire to assure his career as a surgeon leads him to obtain a commission in the Army, and early in Season 4 he is sent to basic training and then to Vietnam. While her husband is deployed, Joan and Roger have a brief sexual encounter, which results in her becoming pregnant. Joan initially decides to terminate the pregnancy, but at the end of Season 4 she is seen discussing her pregnancy with Greg, who is unaware that the child is not his.

Roger Sterling (John Slattery): One of the two senior partners of Sterling Cooper, and one-time mentor to Don Draper. His father founded the firm with Bertram Cooper, hence his name comes before Cooper’s in the firm’s title. A picture in Cooper’s office shows Roger as a child alongside Cooper depicted as a young adult. In Season 2, Bertram Cooper mentions that « the late Mrs. Cooper » introduced Sterling to his wife, Mona, whom Sterling is in the process of divorcing in favor of Don’s former secretary, 22-year-old Jane.[29] Sterling served in the Navy during World War II and was a notorious womanizer (living like he was « on shore leave »[33]) until two heart attacks changed his perspective, although they did not affect his drinking or smoking habits, which remained excessive. Prior to his marriage to Jane, Roger had a longstanding affair with Joan Holloway. In Season 4, he and Joan have a brief romantic encounter, and Joan becomes pregnant. It was revealed in Season 3 that it was Roger who had hired Don Draper sometime in the mid- to late-1950s, when Don was a salesman at a furrier, and eager to break into advertising. Season 4 also has Roger less involved with the day-to-day activities at SCDP than he was at Sterling Cooper. His primary function is to manage the Lucky Strike account which is responsible for over half of SCDP’s billings. However, in the « Chinese Wall » episode, it is revealed that Lucky Strike is moving its account to a rival agency, forcing a dramatic downsizing of the firm.

(Many Thanks to AMC)

The Outer Limits – 7 seasons – Episodes: 49 -Series created by Leslie Stevens. Diffused from September 16th, 1963 to January 16th, 1965 on the ABC. Format network: 42 mn. – Kind: Science Fiction – Nationality: U.S.

This is not a failure of your television set, thus do not try to regulate the image. We have the total control of the emission: control line sweep, controls field sweep. We can as well give you a fuzzy image as a pure image like the crystal. For the time being which comes, you sit quietly. We will control all that you will see and hear. You will take part in a great adventure and will make the experiment of the mystery with “Beyond reality. ”.

The series makes the good share with the usual topics of the science fiction all while impregnating them with the atmosphere of cold war which reigns at the time between the United States and the communist bloc.

Each episode is a new history which generally proceed between a comment of introduction and one of conclusion. In the same way, one finds in the center of practically each history a creature, a monster or an extraterrestrial manisfestation generally of origin which makes the force or, at least, the singularity of the episode.

If Stevens and Stefano take part directly in the writing of many scenarios like to their realization, they do not hesitate to call upon other screenwriters and directors of talent like to writers of science fiction. Enriched by these various contributions, the series preserves nevertheless a clean style which makes that it does not resemble any other even if one often presents it like an alternative to his elder.