Talking Animals: Driving To Work Today

Worst Place to Work This Morning
You've think you've got it bad? Just imagine being the poor schmoes who have to answer the phones here.
"Hello, Thank you for calling Drive Insurance. Sigh. No sir, our standard policy does not include veering wildly in traffic, racing between semis and any mechanical problems with the hydraulics on your pimped-out lowrider. No sir, we have no connection to the show other than the fact that we are also controlled by a mysterious ruthless cabal... which is true of all insurance companies. What? Yes, perhaps Allstate is a better choice for you, given that it is run by that cool dead president guy from 24. You be sure to have a good day now. Thanks for calling Drive."

Driven to Ask...
Many questions were raised by the first episodes. One of the foremost : Who are the mysterious people behind The Race? I think I know. The clues :
- They are anonymous
- They are ruthless, amoral and will stop at nothing.
- They hold loved ones hostage.
- Without them, The Race would not exist.

Anyone else thinking that the mysterious "they" have to be TV execs? (Laugh all you want - just remember that another group of Fox execs turned out to be stronger than even Wolfram & Hart.)

Car Casting
I was intrigued by how the cars were characters, too. (Hey, if they wanted it to be solely about people, they would've called it "Driver.") I found it fascinating to think about the casting considerations of the cars as reflections of their owners. (I was actually pondering this even before the premiere due to this NYT article.)

I imagined some of the casting as relatively straightforward, with suburban mom Wendy Patrakas as a minivan and heartlander Alex Tully's battered Ford F100 pickup underscoring his honest, hardworking background. (While he was totally Bill Pardy in that POS, I was glad when he traded up. I was afraid that its gradual demolition would remain a plotline until, by episode 4, he would be running barefoot along the highway, clutching a headlight.)

I thought that the car first driven by Alan James was a particuarly inspired choice. The black Chrysler 300 was heavy, powerful, inexorable - just like the "Thems" behind the race.

This of course raises the question : what kind of car is you? A friend of mine told me that when she noticed the lack of alternative fuel cars on the show, she was moved to declare that her "Drive of Choice" would be a bright yellow electric car with Ed Begley, Jr. as her copilot. She then admitted to me that she had to change her mind as the show would be much less exciting if its top speed were 30 miles an hour...and that the plot device of "quick! sabotage them by unplugging their extension cord!" would get old quickly. She now is driving this. I hope she wins.

Flubber

Annoucing the great "Driving Into the Black Where No One Has Gone Before" FanFic Challenge
So, now that Drive has aired...where is the fanfic, dang it? I was hoping we'd have at least some Drivefic by now..if not the ultimate in uber-cross-fic (forget Egon Spengler, yo.)

I think it is up to us to start this genre. (Of course by "us" I mean the 5 people who read this blog - thanks for the traffic, by the way.) Because it's just the 5 of us, I'm going to trust you - and let you share my writer's process as I plot the first masterpiece. (Of course, by "writer's process" I mean "this is going to suck but why don't you just be quiet.")

Ready? Okay, so like Serenity goes back in time, 'cause they want to ... save Wash. (Or maybe to stop Jayne's mom from knitting that hat.) And they do this by .. um .. slingshotting around the sun, right? Um, while they're in mid-sling, they ... run across the Enterprise (which has become a tourist attraction timetravelling 3x a week, twice on Saturdays.) Because the enterprise is now under the command of Quark the Ferengi ("Geordi, you drive like a spaz!") there is a screw up and :

1 : Mal gets split into two parts, the good and the bad.

2 : Both Mals catch amnesia

3 : Mal1 and Mal2 are sent back to earth in our time.

Evil Mal (or as the French would say "Mal Mal") lands naked in California, where he has to steal biker clothes from George Thorogood. However, his distorted memory of Shepard Book's teachings become all evillated and stuff to such a degree that MalMal quickly stops being a biker guy in order to become a man of the cloth and changes his name to Caleb. (He goes on to do many mighty works, including ophthalmology and UK urban renewal, until he himself is split in two, thereby leaving us with two evil 1/4 Mals. This might become important later.)

Meanwile, Good Mal (or BonMal, to belabor the French thing) is subconsciously drawn to places where long brown dusters are still in fashion. This leads him to the rural town of Wheelsy, (talk about Drive serendidpity, yo!) where he takes on the name of Bill Pardy and ends up becoming the sheriff. There he fights off aliens, but loses his bid for re-election. This causes BonMal to become a landscaper (in order to continue his war on evil slugs.) Evil Studio Executives (I mean "them") kidnap his wife and he enters The Race. Cuz he is a space pilot and can think in three dimensions (unlike certain Eugenics war veterans - take that Ricardo Montalbone!) he is like the best driver and is about to win when suddenly um.. something bad happens, we'll fill that in later... and his car is going over a cliff. Wait! I know - he is attacked by Reavers who followed him around the sun! But got assimilated by the 'Borg! (Note : the Reaverborgs are still cannibals but now only eat computer parts. This might become important later.)

Anyway, they are about to blow up Mal when suddenly SERENITY swoops to the rescue! Piloted by Wash! YEAH! Who was rescued from performing 7x a week in Spamalot! Yay! And everybody is wearing knitted hats! WHOO!

Thus ends my "process" and why yes, Mr. Whedon, I would be happy to write for you and thank you very much for the box of money.

Oh what, anonymous blog-reader-person? Like you think you can do better, hwun dan? (or jien huo, yer choice.)

Prove it! Throw down, right here, right now with your best take.