Relax and enjoy the ride
If “Lost” is “Survivor” bred with “Fantasy Island,” then “Drive” is “Lost” crossed with “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”
Confused? You will be, but that’s sort of the point of Fox’s new hourlong drama about an illegal, high-stakes, cross-country road race between a diverse group of “ordinary” folk.
Created by Tim Minear, best known as Joss Whedon’s wingman on the short-lived sci-fi/western cult classic “Firefly,” “Drive” knows better than to give us too much time to ask pesky little questions about origin, logistics or even logic. Instead we are thrown right into the drama. Alex Tully, played by Nathan Fillion, also of “Firefly,” has just been the victim of a home invasion and wife-napping. Wendy Patrakas (Melanie Lynskey) is a brand-new mother with an apparently abusive husband.
Sometimes a cellphone is just a cellphone, but not in “Drive,” where they begin appearing like so many Easter eggs -- Alex’s comes wrapped as an anniversary gift from his wife. A message instructs him to drive immediately to a hotel in Florida. With nowhere to turn -- the police clearly think he is the perp in the kidnapping -- he has to comply.
In Florida we learn that Alex and Wendy and a host of other people are part of a carefully orchestrated, slightly sinister road race with a prize of $32 million. And, in a few cases (here comes the sinister part), something more: Alex’s wife and Wendy’s baby are dangled as bait.
As they all dash about, following clues provided by that cellphone (strangely, a charger did not seem to be supplied, but there you go worrying about logic), other characters emerge -- such as Corinna (Kristin Lehman), the blond with the extra-special encoded zip drive who hides in Alex’s truck; she is in the race for revenge. And to give Alex many chances to show off his tough but tender noble nature. (With his furrowed brow and broody blue eyes, Fillion is a natural action hero.)
Although the people, and meaning, behind the race are not revealed (I’m betting it’s “Lost’s” John Locke), “support staff” occasionally pop up. Mr. Bright (Charles Martin Smith), for example, is the balding, affable guy who meets the players at every stop and, via cellphone of course, keeps the bosses apprised of events -- “Drive’s” Bosley to its invisible Charlie.
Much of “Drive” is unabashedly derivative. All the bells and whistles of modern TV are accounted for -- digital graphics track the various locations, flashbacks fill in the characters’ recent past and possible motivations. Much of it is also unbelievable -- everyone has money for gas, hotels have plenty of rooms, Wendy’s rotten husband reported her car stolen (one of the support staff got her out of jail), but still she has credit cards, and amid all the reckless driving, no one gets pulled over for speeding.
But two episodes in, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is, as they say at the Writers Guild, the story. Or stories. The idea that life-and-death games exist alongside America’s commuter traffic and suburban strip malls is the stuff of much gripping modern literature, from John Updike to Stephen King.
A group of people asked to blindly follow the directions of a secret entity to win freedom and wealth is especially resonant today when everything, from one’s retirement fund to the future of the country, seems controlled by forces unknowable by the average citizen. The rat race has never seemed so ratty, and that alone may be worth the ride.
But as with “Lost” or “Heroes,” it will come down to the characters. Lynskey and Fillion are especially compelling actors, and pros like Dylan Baker and Taryn Manning, who cornered the white trash tough girl in “Hustle & Flow,” fill out the cast. The writing is, by necessity, elliptical and economical, since much of it takes place in cars.
The implied danger of the race lifts it out of the absurdity of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” in which a host of comedians competed for buried treasure, but the basic premise remains: how characters are peeled away layer by layer by greed and fear and duress until everyone finds the line they are unwilling to cross.
And unlike “Lost” or “Heroes,” these characters are in an environment anyone can appreciate, more harsh and unfeeling than even the jungle -- traffic.
*
‘Drive’
Where: Fox
When: 8 to 10 p.m. Sunday; regular time 8 to 9 p.m. Monday
Rating: TV-14-LV (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14, with advisories for coarse language and violence)
