Tim Minear

Fox’s ’Drive’ ads accelerate hype around new series

Are those Drive promos driving you crazy?

Certainly, anyone who watched American Idol would have been hard pressed to miss the ads for this new Fox drama, which premieres April 15. Starring Firefly’s Nathan Fillion, the show follows 12 people on a secret cross-country race that looks to be a combination of Cannonball Run, Amazing Race and a demolition derby.

Fine. What you can’t tell from the ads is what, exactly, is going on. Producer Tim Minear, who did Firefly, Wonderfalls and The Inside for Fox, says there is a yet-to-be-revealed web that connects these people, and some of the connections predate the race. You can expect alliances, romances, betrayals, arrests and car crashes, all wrapped up in a strange conspiracy.

"The race is a secret," says Minear, "so the race itself, I guess you could say, is a conspiracy. And not all the participants in said race are there of their own free will ... Every character has either a desperate reason or a mysterious reason to race that will be revealed over the course of the episodes."

But if the race is a secret, how come so many people seem to know about it?

"It’s a little bit like my last three shows on Fox," Minear says. "People hear rumors, and then eventually they either download them or get the DVDs." -Robert Bianco