Brief spoilers for "Drive" and "24" coming up just as soon as I check my glove compartment...Not that it's going to matter unless the ratings are significantly better tonight than they were for the Sunday premiere, but night two of "Drive" didn't do much to change my opinions, positive or negative. When Nathan Fillion's on the screen, it's a show I'd get stupid over. When Fillion's not around, it's a show I would forget existed. I mean, there's some decent stuff in the non-Tully portion of the race, this time Dylan Baker's daughter teaching him how to lie (and him revealing that he's known all along), but there's one part of the show that's playing for keeps and a good chunk that's just there to kill time and maybe have a laugh.
Since the "Lost" comparisons are so inevitable -- down to the shadow conspiracy playing a mind game with Tully in which they pull his old car out of their magic box (should I have titled this post "It's my car in a box!"?) -- it's interesting to note that, leading man-wise, the shows are polar opposites. Matthew Fox did fine at first on "Lost," but over time the writers have made Jack such an obnoxious, willfully ignorant, bullying prig that I think the bulk of "Lost" fandom would be happy if he got eaten by Smokey. There, though, the supporting characters are interesting enough to usually make up for him. Here, the other racers are necessary to support the premise of the show, but Fillion/Tully is so much more compelling than they are that I'd be fine if they were just faceless blurs. So which is better: a donut show where everything's okay but the guy at the center, or an Oreo show where the center's the only part worth eating? (Your mileage may vary on the cookie portion of the Oreo; choose your own mass-produced desert with a yummy filling and a bland exterior if you must.)
"24," meanwhile, has reached the self-parody portion of the season, wherein the writers repeat a lot of stuff that's happened before -- sometimes a few seasons ago, sometimes only a few weeks ago -- because they don't know what else to do and are hoping you won't notice. Wayne's in a coma, again. Jack goes rogue twice within the same damn episode. Etc. I figured nothing could be lamer than the hunt for Fayed, but Gordon, Surnow and company may just prove me wrong. Bring back the cougar, says I.
What did everybody else think?
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