Nathan Fillion

Ready? Set. Watch.

As premises for TV shows go, a secret $32 million cross-country road race is right up there in terms of utter preposterousness.

But you know what? I kind of liked "Drive," which has its two-hour premiere this Sunday on FOX at 8 p.m. Now granted FOX has only sent out the first hour of the series but, so far, I like what I see (three and a half stars).

Nathan Fillion (who we all fell in love with because of "Firefly") stars as Alex Tully, a man who enters the race in search of his missing wife (played by Amy Acker of "Angel"). Other contestants include a new mom escaping from her abusive husband (Melanie Lynskey, who left her gig as Rose on "Two and a Half Men" for this role), a father who went to pick up his daughter from school and ended up in the race (Dylan Baker) and three Hurricane Katrina survivors (Michael Hyatt, Taryn Manning and Rochelle Aytes). What works is that I was immediately drawn into the disparate story lines. And, frankly, I’m so exhausted by "Prison Break" that I’m happy for any series to take over its time slot ("Drive" moves to Mondays at 8 p.m. on April 16).

The series has some things working against it, starting with the fact that many of the car scenes look extremely fake (you can tell the car isn’t really moving). But the biggest obstacle a show like this faces is if the audience buys into the series and the show becomes a success, do the people behind the scenes know what they are doing? Do they have a vision for the series? Because if they don’t, we end up with the second season "Prison Break" and that was torturous for everyone wasn’t it? (I mean I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t stop watching. I am so relieved that the second season ended. I couldn’t take it any more. It was a hellish version of "choose your own adventure.")

"Drive" has a good chance at success because Tim Minear, who created the short-lived but much loved "Wonderfalls" and executive produced both "Angel" and "Firefly," is the creative mind behind this show.