Drive (TV series on Fox)

If you're not doing anything on Sunday night, I highly recommend checking out the two-hour premiere of this show.

It was on CTV here in Canada on Friday and it's really good. It's hard to sum up, but it's kind of like "Cannonball Run" meets "Amazing Race" meets Hitchcock. Basically it's about an illegal cross-country road race with various checkpoints and an alleged grand prize of $32 million, although some people have been forced into the race against their will, like the main character whose wife has apparently been kidnapped by the unseen and unknown organizers of the race. Pretty much everyone the characters meet along the way is involved in the race in some fashion, which is kinda creepy, but in an enjoyable way.

I've never heard of most of the cast members but there are a few faces that were familiar to me, notably the woman who has played Rose the stalker on "Two and a Half Men" and Brian Bloom, formerly of "As the World Turns" and my one-time competition for the heart of Debbie Gibson (she wrote "Lost In Your Eyes" for him, but she wrote "Foolish Beat" and innumerable other songs for me ).

Great plot, characters, writing and driving. I don't pay attention to a lot of TV but I saw the previews and it looked interesting - now I'm already hooked. Check it out.

 

Damn Canadians, not only do they have free healthcare, they also get to see our shows before we do.

 

I hope it's closer to Gumball Rally than Cannonball Run. And FreeHack, what does the overrated Marilyn Chambers have to do with this topic?

 

Gumball Rally was awesome.

I set my TiVo for Drive a couple of days ago hoping it would be good. Nice to hear a positive review on it ... I've seen mixed, but I doubt any show gets unanimous praise. My only question would be how they extend this thing for two years or three or four ... (if it gets picked up).

 

If I recall not incorrectly, Mark Hamill was in Gumball Rally. I think he made it before Star Wars but it came out after. And yes, I'm too lazy to check IMDB

 

Cannonball Run reference

 

I love me some Melanie Lynskey. And Brian Bloom was always a fave as Lily Walsh's boyfriend, Dusty.

I think I'm going to like this show.

 

Dools, are you thinking of "Corvette Summer"? IMDB doesn't list him in "Gumball Rally."

Some neat trivia about him on there, though. Apparently he was encouraged to audition for Luke Skywalker after his good friend tried out but didn't get the part. His friend? Robert (Freddy Krueger) Englund.

Hamill's dad and Kevin Bacon are fifth cousins, confirming once again that every single person in Hollywood is indeed connected to Bacon by six degrees of separation or less.

This bit of trivia, I knew - Hamill was the original David Bradford on the TV show "Eight is Enough." After filming the pilot, he realized he was about to hit big with "Star Wars" and, naturally, wanted out of his TV contract. The producers, just as naturally, refused. Then Hamill was in a car wreck and broke his nose, suddenly making him unavailable when filming was set to resume on the show. The producers had no choice but to replace him after all, which is how Grant Goodeve got to be a teen idol.

Jackie Chan (Japan's No. 1 race car driver, according to the film!) drives off the road while watching this film on his high-tech Subaru's in-car video player.

Here's another great picture of Marilyn Chambers (the woman, not the baby), although you'd better believe these packages were yanked off the shelves pretty quickly once P&G found out about their model's "other" career. 99 and 44/100% pure? Um, not quite. Overrated? Um, no frigging way!

 

"Luke be a Jedi tonight.
Luke be a Jedi tonight.
Do it for Yoda
while he gets you a soda ... "

 

Nothing wrong with figuring it out as they go along. "Lost" didn't lose a bit off its fastball by indefinitely extending a one-season storyline.