Drive, Gorramit!

Nathan Fillion has been cast in Tim Minear's upcoming series Drive. Fillion, for those of you who don't know, and are thus just uncool, played Captain Malcolm Reynolds on Firefly and in Serenity and played Caleb in the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Minear, meanwhile, wrote, executive produced, and directed episodes of Angel, Firefly, and Wonderfalls. If you've ever read this blog, you can guess that I think this is a case of chocolate meeting peanut butter.

For the record, here's the 'Pedia's description of the Drive:

The series is set across the backdrop of an illegal road race with the central focus being on the competitors and eventually on the puppet masters behind the race. Regarding the tone of the show, Minear has described it thusly: "A secret, illegal, underground road race can be anything from Cannonball Run to The Game to North by Northwest to Magnolia-on-wheels. Ours is all those things."

I'm skeptical about the setup, but I 'm optimistic that the pairing of Fillion and Minear will be well worth watching. The show was picked up by Fox*, as a mid-season replacement, based on a pilot episode, which featured Ivan Sergei in the role Fillion has been cast to play. It's not clear to me whether (a) the relevant scenes in the pilot will be re-shot before it's broadcast, (b) the entire pilot will be re-shot before it's shown, or (c) the pilot will not be broadcast at all.

Look for Drive to hit the small screen in March or April.

* The single word "Fox" has me worried, given the tendency of the company to cancel good shows before they can find their audiences.** Still, I'm hopeful that Fox will give the series a fair shake.

** See, for example, the aforementioned Firefly and Wonderfalls.