Drive Raced into My Heart, Then Peeled Away

Ah, Drive. We hardly knew you. You once used to be on Fox...that "wonderful" network in which other great hit TV shows are housed. Of course, people should have probably seen this coming. Drive had only three great episodes and then joined the graveyard of other TV shows that probably would of fair better if people gave it a chance. There was something about watching Drive that made me think to myself that the premise of the show shouldn't work: an illegal, cross-country underground race where the winner would receive 32 million dollars. It sounded ridiculous...like how in the hell would this work week by week? It was a long shot in the dark; a long, long shot. And you couldn't help but check it out to see if it was worth watching.

But lo and behold, it was worth watching. Granted, it wasn't the greatest show in the entire history of the world nor is it a Lost or 24 or even Heroes, but trying to compare "Drive" to all those hit shows is just burying it in the wrong cemetery. It's not any of those shows...but yet, it's a show that you could come home and sit down and watch and enjoy by yourself or with friends. It was the type of show where ideas could run wild and be free and just go back to the basics of things and have fun while also being entertaining. It's almost like Prison Break in a sense. The idea was simple but never should have worked as well as it did and yet that show is now going to have a third season. So the question is why didn't Drive make it?

The answer is simply: Fox marketed the hell out of the show and thought they would get a huge number of people watching it. They staked their money on Drive being the show to sort of fill that gap that was going to be missing while Prison Break, 24, and other shows would be going on repeat until the new season. But unfortunately, Drive didn't make the cut. It had gotten decent reviews from the critics but not enough viewers to watch it. I think the time slot they put it in was wrong: Monday night at 8pm. At that time, most people are watching Deal or No Deal, and that's a popular show, so there's no way that Drive was going to be seen. Of course, Prison Break was at that time as well, so I don't know.

The show itself dealt with different characters that were a part of the race. There's one Alex Tully (played by Nathan Fillion) who was forced into the race because whoever is behind it had kidnapped his wife. He seemed to be the main focal character of "Drive" simply because the people that stole his wife wanted him to win the race badly, so bad that when his original ride died on him (1970 Ford F-100), the shadowy organization behind the race gave him a new car, a 1970 Dodge Challenger. And he had a partner, a partner that he didn't want nor need but kinda got stuck with her. Her name is Corrina Wiles (played by Kristin Lehman) and she seems to know a lot more about the race then she lets on. She stole a flash drive from one of the agents who works in the "Shadow Organization" that supposely contains information about where the finish line to the race might be. So no real clue on what's on the drive.

Then you have other characters such as Winston Salazar (played by Kevin Alejandro) who had gotten "early release" from prison and gets invited into the race, though he has other issues on his mind, namely his father who cut off all ties with him and his mother and got remarried. His partner ends up being his step-brother, Sean, after Winston and him have an encounter at his father's home. Their ride is a '64 Impala. John Trimble, who's a science teacher enters the race with his daughter, Violet, who, at first, didn't have a single clue that they were racing until he told her. When he mentioned that it was for $32 million, she was game. Ford Taurus was there ride. Wendy Patrakas was invited in the race, trying to escape from her abusive husband; Rob Laird, who is a US Soldier who had just returned from Iraq was with his girlfriend in this race. And there were other characters that I could get into but I don't want to ruin it for those that didn't see the show and might actually want to check it out. The race was run like this: everyone in the race was given a black cell phone that would give them clues to checkpoints the racers had to get to. If you were last, you were out of the race (although, there was one exception for this case).

There have been worse television shows that have aired, most of them happen to be reality shows...but Drive was definitely not on that list. There are a lot of other seriously horrible, no-reason-at-all-to-be-on-TV shows and Drive...Drive was like a child showing his parents a pretty average report card, but instead of encouraging him to do better, he gets yelled at and beaten to a bloody pulp with a bat. But that's just me. The show was produced and created by one of the creators of Firefly, Tim Minear. (Firefly was another show that got cancelled by Fox.)

The show was scheduled to show six episodes of Drive and it seems like they are going to show the remaining two episodes, though whether it will be on the air or online is unknown. The said date of when they are going to show the episodes is July 4^th. But who knows what will happen...personally, I'm hoping that they at least try and put the show out on DVD, not just the six episodes, but like the half season it was originally was supposed to be shooting for. I'm sure that they'll be other great shows that'll come around and then wind up in the TV Show Graveyard; shows that don't deserve to be there. That's how life goes. So for those that haven't seen the show or know anything about it, check it out and see if you enjoy it as much as I did.