First Fall Casualty - Playboy Club

So far I like the way the new fall season is being spread over September through November.  This slow trickle of new shows gives everyone time to digest the new programs and make decisions based on more than the amount of DVR storage space available.  That said, even this approach cannot save every show, as we now see with the canceling of NBC's Playboy Club.  This is now NBC described this new show:

From Academy Award-winning Executive Producer Brian Grazer, "The Playboy Club" is a provocative new NBC drama about a time and place that challenged the existing social mores and transformed American culture forever. It's the early 1960s, and at the center of Chicago lies the legendary and seductive Playboy Club, a living, breathing fantasy world filled with $1.50 cocktails, music, glitter and of course, beautiful Bunnies. The key to the club, which offers the ultimate in beauty, is the most sought-after status symbol of its time. But all that glitters isn't gold, and in the back rooms and alleys behind the club, life happens - both good and bad. 

It sounds a lot like another nostalgic Mad Men-like program set in Chicago with a different type of hustling.  After watching the pilot, I found that Edie Cibrian's Nick Dalton certainly looked and sounded like Don Draper.  In fact, I think he was being too much of a carbon copy.  And the first segment of the show was too much like a cop drama with the death of a club client.  Whatever happened to easing the audience into the setting and characters?  Not a great start, as it appears the rest of the viewing audience has already determined.

I am not sure how ABC's Pan Am, the Mad Men of the skies, will fare in these turbulent TV waters.  But that's another posting for later.

By the way, this shot from Pan Am also brings to mind Don Draper.  Is it only me?