This week's telly: Pan Am

I very nearly didn't watch Pan Am, which started on BBC2 this week. I'd read a couple of Tom and Lorenzo's reviews of it and they didn't seem that taken by it. However, Janet Street Porter reviewed it for Front Row on Radio 4 and hated it, which I took as a good sign. On top of all that, it's Saturday and I have a couple of tight knitting deadlines, including a Fair Isle beret that I need finished by next Friday, so I watched it on catch-up as I knitted away.

First observation: programmes where people have very similar hairdos and all wear the same outfit are quite tough to follow when you have prosopagnosia! One gripe a lot of people have with the show is that it's a bit shallow, but I don't look for deep and meaningful in a show to knit to, and characters who are a bit two-dimensional are actually quite handy when you're struggling to identify people. A bit bohemian, possibly girdle free? That's Christina Ricci's character, free-thinker Maggie. There are two sisters, pretty runaway bride Kate and less pretty CIA recruit Laura. Then there is Frenchwoman Colette who, being French, gets to have affairs. It is all utterly frothtastic, but I enjoyed it anyway.

What's more the uniforms are very nice, and the other clothes in the programme... Well, you know I always say I'm never into the 1960s? This is not your crimplene, boil-in-the-bag 1960s. It's not quite Emma Peel either, but there are some lovely frocks to be seen. My favourites have been on Laura and Kate's mother, but as most of the cast spend their time in uniform, she does get the lion's share of the delish dresses in the first two episodes. The cars are pretty neat too.

Oh, and the soundtrack? I wants it. Definitely the cool sound of the early 1960s.

I'll definitely be watching more of this, I enjoyed it loads. (In non-vintage viewing, American Horror Story is on probation – it's okay but not great, so when I run out of knitting it may get chopped from my personal schedule – and I am VERY much looking forward to The Killing tonight, even if Lund does have her stinky unwashed constantly-worn jumper on again.)