‘Drive’ Driven Off the Air by Fox
Series Crashes and Burns After Just Three Outings
In an attempt to join NBC as the broadcast network with the longest trail of recently canceled promising series, Fox has canned its latest new offering, the high-octane road-race drama Drive, after only three airings (the two-hour premiere consisted of two back-to-back installments) and just before the start of the all-important May Sweeps period. Like wow! What is it with television executives and their insatiable thirst to further alienate viewers? Although the network has not yet specified, this decision is most likely the result of lousy ratings in a time slot that was previously home to a popular show, Prison Break, with a loyal following. If everyone is so concerned about the impact of poor viewership, however, then why keep trotting out these ambitious series that are obviously a gamble right before a traditionally high-pressure occurrence like Sweeps?
The apparent biggest loser in the current situation, after the audience, is series creator, executive producer, and writer Tim Minear, who has now suffered through the demise of four promising shows he worked on at Fox. A frequent collaborator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, Minear wrote for such groundbreaking modern classics and fan favorites as The X-Files, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Wonderfalls, Angel, and Firefly. The last three series also aired on Fox, and all were eventually dealt premature deaths, a fact that irate fans like me have not forgotten. I personally hope that this is the last straw for Minear that will force him to leave Fox behind in the dust where the network belongs when it comes time to shop his next series—he’s too talented to keep going this route, and Fox is too quick to cancel the type of witty, imaginative shows he specializes in.
Fox intends to fill the Monday-8pm time slot that Drive occupied with repeats of House—Yawn!—on April 30 and May 7, and the series Web site presently advises viewers to “stay tuned” because the final two produced installments will air this summer. Great. Those who got hooked on the program during its brief run can only pray that they’ll still remember the preceding four episodes by then, not to mention be lucky enough to hear about the rescheduled broadcasts beforehand.
Drive photo courtesy of Fox
