TV is the New Reading

Catch FOX’s adventure

drama ‘Drive’ while you can

Tim Minear, Nathan Fillion and FOX got together and created a failed television program.

The sentence is true. What’s less clear is whether it’s history or precognition.

A few years ago FOX aired a little space-western called “Firefly.” Fillion played the captain of a junky transport employed in shady enterprises and who was surprised in one episode by a mysterious and beautiful stowaway who made herself his partner.

Hmmm ...

Cut from “Firefly” to FOX’s production of “Drive,” which opened with a three-part premiere last week and finds – among a cast of millions – Fillion as Alex Tully, a landscaper whose wife has been kidnapped, who is forced to take part in a shady cross-country race at the wheel of a junky pickup, and who is surprised to discover Corrina Wiles, a mysterious and beautiful stowaway in the back of his truck who makes herself his partner.

Add the fact that Tim Minear co-produced both and the parallels are unnerving. Add the fact that Minear’s past projects – most prominently, “Wonderfalls” and “Miracles” – were also canned in less than a season and I’m wondering what FOX was thinking.

The fact that I enjoyed the heck out of it is just the final nail in the coffin.

I tried to not like it. It’s preposterous! Dozens of people roped into an illegal cross-country race? It’s “A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” meets “Rat Race!”

It’s expensive! Cars everywhere! Gas prices skyrocketing! A conservative estimate of two dozen stars and a crew of thousands!

And don’t forget all the editing nightmares. A featurette on the Fox Movie Channel discussed how the most basic scenes were going to have to be stitched together between live-action road scenes and studio camerawork, which just issues an engraved invitation for jarring continuity problems.

Complicated

And talk about complicated. The motives behind all of these people participating in this race have been eclipsed by Tully trying to save his kidnapped wife, Wiles seeking revenge on the people who’ve been operating this race since she was a child – oh yes, this illegal, impossibly well-organized cross-country road race has been going on for decades, probably since the invention of the car.

And then there’s the wife in the abusive relationship who just had a child, Sam, that was kidnapped from the hospital. She’s been coerced into the race and then to gun down one of her competitors as a penalty for arriving last at one of the checkpoints.

Yep, we have great insight into all of their motives, with more motives to explore – not least of which, the $32 million and the kidnapped wife and the kidnapped child at the finish line. And all along the way, no one is who they seem to be. At any given turn, any given encounter might be with stranger or partner, friend or foe, definitions juggled merrily throughout the three-hour premiere.

Suspicious

One could suspect that FOX is looking to replicate the compelling dramatic tension of “LOST,” where the mercurial partnerships and motivations and desperation build to dizzying heights and audiences of millions were dragged for a trip through the looking glass.

But somehow I can’t shake the suspicion that some mysterious production cabal at the network greenlit this show with the express intention of canceling it and then laughing maniacally.

For now, however, I’ll stare at it like Charlie Brown bearing down on Lucy’s football, hoping against all hope for a field goal but sadly aware of how often I’ve seen these exact same people locked in this exact same scenario.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

Back Back to Shows Back to Main Page Next