Drive—Premiere Event

Part One: The Starting Line

We start with a brief introduction to our characters. Alex Tully, whose wife has mysteriously disappeared, Wendy Patrakas, who's just given birth and appears to be fleeing from her husband, and Winston Salazar, who's just gotten out of jail. There are a few others, presented more in the background. All three of them get phone calls on mysterious cell phones, giving the opportunity to drive to Key West, Florida, to find the answers they're looking for. Tully thinks the phone call is directly related to his wife's disappearance, and immediately acts on the orders he's given. It's not what he thinks, though, and to make things worse, he's late to the orientation. He goes all badass on the person in charge and gets a quick rundown--an illegal cross-country race, 32 million tax-free dollars at stake.

Things are pretty ruthless. One of the other participants drives Alex's car off the road and comes after him with a gun. At which point another contestant appears in the back of Tully's truck and jumps into his passenger seat. A cute blonde contestant, conveniently enough for Tully. This is Corinna, who's escaping from her insane boyfriend. Except he's not her boyfriend--he's one of the people who runs the race. She stole a flash drive from him that might have all the information they need on it to win the race.

Wendy's husband has reported their car stolen, so she gets pulled over by the cops and ends up in jail. Her husband comes after her--she's obviously afraid of him. But the "husband" is actually one of the race personnel, sent to get her away from the cops. She has a doll with her in a carseat to take the place of her baby who she apparently left behind. She refers to her leaving as "escaping"--have to wonder why she's gotten involved in the race. She comes in last and is given a loaded gun and a picture of one of the other participants, Ivy, as a penalty.

The race participants are sent cryptic text messages over their phones that they then have to interpret for the next leg of the race. Apparently the people who run this race will go to extreme measures to get participants, including coercing people into racing. The implication so far is that they may have kidnapped Tully's wife in order to bring him in as a participant. With a 32 million dollar prize, one has to wonder why it's so hard to get people to "play."

Salazar stops by his dad's house to steal a bunch of his stuff. His dad doesn't seem to like him very much. Neither does his brother, but they both dislike Dad enough to team up.

At the first checkpoint, a lighthouse in Jupiter, FL, we discover the sheer size of the race--there are at least 50 cars at the checkpoint, perhaps more.

I'd call this a solid start. The premise is a bit outrageous but the execution is great. Nathan Fillion's Alex Tully is the great mix of wit, befuddlement and badassery that made him so appealing as Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly. The exposition isn't too heavy-handed, and the story moves along at a quick pace, the race segments taut and involving, the lulls between peppered with emotional moments as well as humor and intriguing characterization. The overall tone is very Minear--reminiscent of Angel, Firefly and Wonderfalls. Hopefully the more contemporary setting will make this show more accessible to audiences than other of Minear's work, which was excellent but not ratings-heavy.

Note of Possible Interest:
I was lucky enough to have seen the first six minutes of the original pilot when I saw Tim Minear at the Screenwriting Expo in LA last fall. In that version, the drivers received their instructions via large, clunky orange phones rather than the text messaging cellphones in this version. In at least one of the shots of Wendy in her car, the orange phone is still visible on the dashboard, making me wonder if they recycled a bit of footage from the original pilot.

Coming Tonight...

Reviews of the first 2 episodes of Drive. Also review of the season finale of The Dresden Files. Watch this space...

Robin Hood—The Brothers a Dale

AKA "Brothers in Arms." It appears my DVR/satellite listings are showing the original BBC titles, while the show itself has the changed BBC-America titles. Which means "Turk 'Flu" was originally called "The Arrow and the Optic." And thus explains my confusion that week about the mismatched titles.

Our villain of the week is Lucky George, who buys people's things to "help" them pay their taxes. Robin ambushes him--repeatedly--to recover the items he's taken from the villagers and return them to their rightful owners. These ambushes lead the sheriff to believe there is a traitor in the castle, tipping Robin off to when and where Lucky George will be. Of course, he's right--Marian's passing information to Robin. But Gisborne's attempts to suss out the traitor lead him to believe it's his sergeant.

Back at Sherwood, Allan-a-Dale's brother Tom shows up. He's been stealing things from people claiming to be part of Robin's band. One problem with his cover--he doesn't recognize Robin. Allan asks Robin to let Tom join their group, since he does have some mad pickpocketing skillz. Robin agrees, but Tom is unable to conform to Robin's rules, and ends up annoying Robin so much that when he's abducted by the sheriff, Robin initially decides not to bother rescuing him.

In Guy of Gisborne Subplot Land, Guy takes a necklace from a village woman to pay for her marriage ceremony. And in a supremely crappy act of regifting, gives it to Marian. The following sequence of events leads Gisborne to suspect Marian as the castle informant, and in the end Marian finds herself backed into a corner where she must agree to marry Gisborne to keep herself and her family out of danger.

This was an initially light episode that took a darker turn about two-thirds through. Not that this is a bad thing--it fit with the tone the show has been building. Although earlier episodes were more light-hearted adventure, the last several have offered darker plots and more layered storytelling. This episode had some nice twists, and all the disparate storylines dovetailed nicely at the end. I was surprised by the sheriff's decision to move the hanging forward an hour, thus rendering Robin's rescue attempt moot and breaking the usual pattern where Robin is able to storm the castle and rescue everyone. The subsequent bonding between Allan and Djaq was nice, too--I wonder if that's being set up to lead somewhere romancey. And Marian's quandary is, of course, not a good one. She stated she would marry Guy when Richard returned from England--but what is she going to do when the inevitable return actually occurs?

Odd moment of the week:
The sheriff smacks Guy on the ass with an arrow. Guy's lack of response was particularly interesting. What is going on between those two? Does this explain the preponderance of leather wardrobe? Hmmm. Must ponder.

Preorder:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight—The Long Way Home

Issues One and Two by Joss Whedon, art by Andy Owens, Dave Stewart and Richard Starkings. Featured covers by Jo Chen.

While I was bummed that Joss Whedon had decided to end his run on Astonishing X-Men, the news that directly followed this annoucement perked me up heartily. Joss is now writing a Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic for Dark Horse that picks up where the series left off. An Angel comic from IDW, also continuing where the show left off, will follow in a few months.

To say I enjoyed these first two issues would be an understatement. I've read and enjoyed the comics that have come out since the end of Buffy's television run, but having Whedon behind the pen again feels like coming home. As good as the writers at IDW are, most notably Peter David, they lack the exactness of voice that comes from Whedon. Which is understandable, since Whedon created these characters, after all.

The Season Eight series opens with Buffy holed up in a castle in Scotland with a cadre of Slayers, as well as familiar faces like Xander, Willow and Dawn (who, by the way, has been transformed into a giant). The new population of over 2,000 Slayers is scattered throughout the world, presumably killing evil things.

Speaking of evil things, there's a new one afoot. And by the end of issue two, the Buffster is in the midst of a passel of trouble once again. Just like old times.

Overall, the first arc of this new series has gotten off to a great start. The story is good, the art is solid, and I can't wait to see more. The only thing I find disappointing--deeply disappointing, in fact--is some of the reader letters published in the backs of the issues. The series has just gotten underway, and already "fans" feel the need to write in pushing their own agendas regarding the stories. Fortunately, Joss has proven in the past that he'll follow his own agenda, regardless. And I'm okay with that.