There’s a grand tradition in journalism – it’s called the set-up.

Once a star gets close to their useful sell-by date, the tabloids enjoy entrapping “naughty” celebrities and milking as many column inches as possible out of their fall from grace. Some broadsheets “reveal” secrets of politicians’ dubious financial affairs if they no longer “synergise” with their product. And when TV reviewers don’t like a programme, they can make spurious comparisons to help “deconstruct” the rotten apple of their eye.

Pan Am has been the subject of a set-up - yes, it has been stitched up like a kipper…

Now, I have no beef with people who think Pan Am is rubbish, they’re entitled to their opinion. Yes, it has dubious CGI; yes, it is a bubble-gum rendezvous with the 1960s, and yes, the plots are, at best, hyper-real.

Personally, I quite like a bit of colourful silliness on the telly and have enjoyed losing myself in the confused sub-Lost plots emanating from Worldport, played out by Wednesday Adams and that girl who used to be Donna in Neighbours. No, what annoys me is the fact I’m yet to find a review of Pan Am that hasn’t at least made an in-passing comparison to Mad Men.

Of course, if the programme had been marketed as Mad Men II, this would be a fair comparison – but it hasn’t. It has been sold by the press as Mad Men II because it is set in the 60s, and, er, it’s a drama, and, er, people (occasionally) smoke in it.

Indeed, the creator of the show himself said Pan Am was not meant to be like Mad Men, a series that he said was “much more character-driven and internal." Not my words, the words of Jack Orman.

But as the BBC once again begin desperately burning off episodes of the series at the rate of two a week before the doomed programme is confined to the big aircraft hangar in the sky, still the critics scoff.  It failed because it wasn't as good as Mad Men, they say.

No, it failed because it wasn't Mad Men - a show for which critics and fans have had to wait an extra year for the fifth series due to disputes between the writer and the network. Perhaps if the real Mad Men had arrived on time, Pan Am might have been allowed to prosper as the silly, glossy romp that it is.