The most compelling two hours of television in recent memory was Monday from 8 to 10 PM: “Drive” and “Heroes.”
“Drive” literally hit the ground running and didn’t slow down. Incredibly compelling, expertly directed, confidently written, well-acted, Kath and I were immediately pulled in. I mean, sure, the fanboy in me loved the notion that Captain Malcolm Reynolds was married to Winifred Berkel, but there was way more to the series than. WAY more.
By the third episode, I knew. I knew beyond question:
Fox would cancel it.
Why?
Because it’s Fox, the network that wouldn’t recognize a quality show with both hands and a flashlight. If Fox were airing “Heroes,” they would have canceled it by the fourth episode.
After the third episode, I turned to Kath and said, “You realize Fox is going to dump it and we’re never going to find out how any of it ends.”
Sure enough, they just dumped it. One more episode will air next Monday, and two more already in the can will never be broadcast.
They’re idiots. It’s that simple: Idiots.
PAD
• 
I’m surprised too – the general rule of thumb is that FOX can’t handle quality sci-fi programming (with the possibly debatable exception of ‘The X-Files’) – and figured that because “Drive” isn’t sci-fi, it would be safe. That said, I wasn’t particularly impressed with the first night of ‘Drive’, but that might be because after handling several hours of Hunt Valley, MD traffic every day, any TV show that requests I not flip off at reckless drivers (because they might be participating in an “illegal secret high stakes race”) is setting off on a wrong step.
Yup. Fox has one stupid hair trigger for killing good shows. It’s gotten to the point that I don’t even get too involved with a Fox show because I’ll end up getting ticked when it goes “flush.”
I may even be alone on this one, but I’ve never forgiven Fox for dumping Brimstone.
Oh, well.
The last two eps will be burned off in May on Fridays.
Love the show, and am convinced the race was Amy Acker’s anniversary present to Nathan Fillion so he could be “that guy” one last time.
Jerry, you’re not alone. Hey, I’m still ticked that they cancelled Beans Baxter and Werewolf. It really seems like Fox tries out these really good series, never gives any of them time to breathe, then cans them.
On the flip side, though, they haven’t had a “When Harmless Things Inside Your House Attack” special in quite a while, so maybe SOMEWHERE in there is someone with SOME sense.
Yup, I remember Beans Baxter, Werewolf, Brimstone, and Herman’s Head, for that matter. 🙂
PAD, is it possible tha we are beginning to see a kind of parallel to the infamous “I’ll wait for the trades”, only now for TV?
I know that theer are a few shoes I intend to catch up with this summer on DVD or from the internet. I don’t even feel like doing so is in any way hurting the show since, as a non-Neilson family, whether or not I watch the show has no impact on the ratings.
Doing it that way has a few advantages–I get to watch the show all at once, which I like (I used to do the same with comics, get a few months worth and then read them all at once), I get to watch it on my own time and I don’t fall in love with a show only to have it go poof.
Obviously though, if the folks who ARE the ratings families start thinking that way, it will have some bad effects.
MAN! I should have KNOWN. STUPID FOX!
Sure Drive isn’t as great as Heroes or 24 imo, but I like it. Its a good show. It has a ton of potential. I really like Nathen Fillion as the lead (and the plotlines in it are fun). AND its a great lead-in to 24 now that Prison Break is, well, on a break. *SIGH* I just should have known….
Not even sure if I should even watch the next episode of Drive on Monday. I really shouldn’t have started watching it in the first place (my dad didn’t think it would be any good, but I thought it might since Tim Minear and Nathon Fillon are invovled with it. So we watched it, liked, and have been watching it. Big Mistake)…
I know. I know. I shouldn’t be suprised by this. This is the network that killed Firefly, Wonderfalls, Lone Gunmen, Tru Calling, Sliders, V.R. 5, Strange Luck, Family Guy (ya, I know, they brought it back, but still…), Futurama, and…the list goes on and on and on.
Though I think its especially bad when I show like Drive gets cancelled. Just imagine if Prison Break had been canceled after only 4 episodes…..(or like Wonderfalls getting canned after that many)
*sigh*
Well, I don’t know…
Might want to skip Mondays Drive…..
And I should definitly stop watching any new FOX shows. Or at least not watch them till I know their going to last more then one season. DVDs are our friends! *sigh*
DF2506
” On a positive note, Heroes was really good on Monday. Next Mondays looks GREAT. Wish NBC would put Heroes at 7 so that I could watch Heroes and then 24, instead of having to tape Heroes and watch 24…”
I’m not at all surprised that this happened, and neither should anyone else be, nor am I angry at FOX about it, for one simple reason: the show tanked in the ratings.
FOX did everything they could to promote this thing. In the two weeks leading to the premiere, you saw Nathan Fillion’s mug on FOX more often than Kiefer Sutherland’s.
And the ratings for the first three episodes were dreadful.
FOX isn’t a public service to provide quality programming, FOX is a network that has to make money. They weren’t going to make any with Drive.
I’m surprised FOX didn’t cancel your blog before you had a chance to post this.
No surprise really.
Drive is pulling in an anemic 2.9 rating and 5 share, which ranks it 4th overall in that time period. Whereas the show that follows it, 24, is pulling in 6.3/10. (Heroes is coming in at 7.2/11, by the way.)
Dancing with the Stars and Deal or No Deal have killed in the time slot. But the main reason for Drive’s demise is that 2 comedy reruns on CBS kicked its butt handily.
If the ratings really were that bad, then it’s hard to fault FOX for cancelling it.
At least this time it seemed like FOX really tried. With Firefly, they screwed it up right from the start. Commercials that didn’t communicate what the show was about, episodes aired out of order, FOX really didn’t seem to get Firefly at all. However, Tim Minear built Drive to have a simple, salable plot: it’s an illegal cross country race. FOX has been pushing that like crazy, and I think the commercials represented the show as well as anyone could have.
But I still think they should have put more effort into it. I can’t *fault* then for cancelling it, but I really wish they’d tried more. The night that Cheers debuted, it was 77th out of 77 network shows. They got lucky that NBC didn’t cancel them right away, and that paid off. Drive really has potential, like Cheers did, and it’s a shame to not even try moving it around, growing the fanbase over time, or seeing how it does in reruns when everyone has already seen Dancing with the Stars.
I’m fairly certain there’s no episode next Monday. There’s already been four episodes (the two hour premiere was really two episodes), and there’s only been 6 eps produced. The worst part of all this is that unlike with Wonderfalls or The Inside, there isn’t even a full arc in the can.
Sure enough, they just dumped it. One more episode will air next Monday, and two more already in the can will never be broadcast.
WHAT!?
NO!
Augh – I *really* liked Drive! Ðámņìŧ. It was the first serial I’ve liked in a long time! Ðámņ, dámņ dámņ.
Since they held the show until April, I suspected all along that they knew it was only going to run whatever number of episodes had already been taped and that it was just being used as filler after some other show, Prison Break in this case, had had its season finale. I have a problem with using low ratings as a justification for canceling the show when you put it on a night in a time slot where it has to go against two ratings monsters with established audiences. That says to me that it never really had the network’s support. They could have rerun the episodes on different nights on Fox or FX. If there really were a commitment from the network, more effort could have been put into it than this. Whatever filler they put in its place now won’t draw better ratings.
This will make me unpopular but FOX’s lauded canceled programs, to me, deserved cancellation.
I am the only sci-fi fan in the world who wasn’t impressed with Firefly. While many praise FOX for sticking with Arrested Development as long as they did, I did a tap-dance when it finally died.
I haven’t tried Drive yet and don’t really want to. I’m tired of TV shows with plots that sound like movies (How did Prison Break last beyond two hours?) Furthermore, that guy who’s looking for his wife is the same actor from Firefly and he’s playing another rough-edged hero. I can’t stand him! He was a cliche in Firefly and he seems to be a cliche in Drive but I haven’t seen the show–and don’t intend to yet–so I can’t really say for sure.
I welcome all your rotten tomatoes.
No surprise really. Drive is pulling in an anemic 2.9 rating and 5 share, which ranks it 4th overall in that time period.
If the ratings really were that bad, then it’s hard to fault FOX for canceling it.
See, that’s something that I will argue and that I will say is crap on behalf of Fox and other networks. Yeah, a new show came out, started building a small but loyal fan base in it’s first few weeks but ended up getting yanked because that fan base was too small. But did it really need to be yanked?
Some of the best shows out there, some of the most beloved shows out there and some of the biggest hits in TV history started out slow and ratings challenged. Granted, some shows are going to start out slow and ratings challenged and go downhill from there, but does that mean that the nets have to cancel or yank every freaking show by the second episode?
A new show in a timeslot that puts it against an established ratings winner is , 9 times out of 10, going to take a beating. But if you leave it on long enough for channel surfing due to repeats of the other shows, sometimes a new show catches on. One of my all time favorite TV shows is M*A*S*H*. It died in the ratings in its first season. Cheers anyone? Star Trek anyone?
Fox started out as the little network that could because it didn’t pull the trigger on a lot of shows that it would flush in a heartbeat these days. If Fox was run then the way it is now, X-Files, Married With Children and The Simpsons would likely be D.O.A. in season one. NBC in the 80’s pulled out of its ratings slump by putting on good shows and giving them the time to find an audience.
What ever happened to network program directors and executives who think like that?
The night of the two-hour premiere, I made a joking phone call to a friend of mine, and I told him that this show had three strikes against it:
1. It’s on FOX.
2. It’s actually a pretty good show.
3. My friend and I were watching it from the beginning, and we both liked it.
Apparently I was more correct than I would like to admit.
I didn’t watch it, so I can’t really comment as to its quality, but the thing that really gets me is… what are they going to put in that slot now? Reruns of House!
So it’s not like they’re pulling it to try out something new, they’re just pulling it for the sake of pulling it. There’s no plan here, just random acts of stupidity.
Is there any network that might make a decent fit for Drive? I know this is the ultimate long shot. I thought the same thing when Firefly was canceled (I still wish Sci-Fi would have stepped up for that one).
It has happened, though. Family Guy got new life through Comedy Central reruns and DVD sales, The Hogan Family was canceled at NBC and picked up by CBS, even Laurence Welk got cancelled by ABC and then survived in syndication. Life after cancelation is rare, though.
24 is still on Fox, and 24 is awesome, therefore it invalidates your argument.
Okay, I’ll admit, the tail end of 24 Season 6 has been pretty weak, but the point still remains.
Well this is the same who couldn’t properly promote Justice, Victor Garber coming off Alias, CSI meets Law and Order, and they couldn’t keep it in a timeslot that could get viewers.
Pulling the plug on Wedding Bells or Justice makes some sort of sense… they are ongoing series, no specific end. From what I’ve heard about the premise of Drive, it could have a planned end, the race is over eventually just like for example Daybreak. If you are going to approve a series like this how about approve the whole thing.. say I’ll give you a 2 hour pilot and an order for 11 episodes.. we will know by episode 5 or so if we are going to wrap it up as a completely story in 13 episodes or continue for the rest of the season. See Reunion. 🙂
Eventually they are going to have to have something to watch besides 24, America’s Most Wanted, American Idol, and Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader (which if you are asking that question about Fox Executives.. the answer is no)
Until later
John
“Yup, I remember Beans Baxter, Werewolf, Brimstone, and Herman’s Head, for that matter. :)”
…and ‘The Tick’! Don’t forget ‘The Tick’!
Hooper
You’d think that, before pulling the plug, FOX’d give the go-ahead for a two-hour wrap-up. This way they’d have a complete story arc to put out on DVD.
Oh, sure, it’s not a perfect solution, but at least you’d have a conclusion, and FOX’d be able to recoup their investment in the DVD set and limited syndication.
BTW: I second the motion that all continuing storyline series should have a contract guaranteeing the producers the chance to complete their current arc.
I’m reminded of a quote from when “Family Guy” returned to the airwaves…
Peter: Everybody I’ve got bad news. We’ve been cancelled.
Lois: Oh no Peter! How could they do that?
Peter: Well unfortuantely Lois, there’s just no more room on the schedule. We just gotta accept the fact that FOX has to make room for terrific shows like Dark Angel, Titus, Undeclared, Action, That 80’s Show, Wonder Falls, Fast Lane, Andy Richter Controls The Universe, Skin, Girl’s Club, Cracking Up, The Pitts, Firefly, Get Real, Freaky Links, Wanda At Large, Costello, The Lone Gunman, A Minute with Stan Hooper, Normal Ohio, Pasadena, Harsh Realm, Keen Eddy, The Street, American Embassy, Cedric The Entertainer, The Tick, Louie, And Greg The Bunny….
Lois: Is there no hope?
Peter: Well I suppose if ALL those shows go down the tubes we might have a shot.
I wasn’t happy to see “Dark Angel” go myself, and to a lesser extent “Titus.” “The Street” had potential. They had a good show called “Strange Luck” on the network in the timeslot either before or after “The X-Files” years ago and got rid of it after a single season. Their treatment of “Futurama” was just criminal. As Matt Groening said, “It was frustrating to have a show on Fox at 7 on Sunday night when Fox’s slogan was ‘The fun begins at 8!'”
IIRC, in the first season of “24” the show was critically acclaimed but the ratings were disappointing. In that case, in a rare display of patience, Fox brought it back for another season, and that’s when it began to pay off for them. You would hope that they’d learn not only from only other networks’ histories with shows that took a while to catch on, but their own as well.
Meanwhile, somehow the lame (judging from the YouTube clip I saw) Fox News knockoff of the Daily Show is attracting enough viewers to *avoid* cancellation. Quality shows die, sub-par shows survive. Sad.
But lest we blame Fox too much—look at that list of cancelled shows, ratings losers all. Then look at what people are watching.
Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader probably costs less to make per episode than any minute of Drive. And yeah, you get what you pay for but I doubt that any network can ignore the bottom line for very long.
I think one of the problems Drive had was that it had to overcome the perception that it was going to be a mindless chase drama. Word of mouth should have built up a following but given the likely cost of the show I don’t know how long they could have waited. The show would have had to double it’s ratings and it would still have fewer viewers than the show that follows it.
All that said, it’s pretty sad when so much potential dies while so much crap goes on and on…
I can’t believe that ANYONE is surprised by this. Drive was doomed before the first commercial for it ever aired.
I mean, a Tim Minear show on Fox? They shouldn’t have even bothered naming it. Just called it “The Canceled Show starring Cancel and and Cancelsons.”
SEAN
Well, I have to say that the ads did absolutely nothing for me. If it was a good show, I’m sorry that it got cancelled, but none of the promotion for it got me interested at all. My wife and I actually lamented how uninterested we were because we wanted to support a Nathan Fillon show.
Eric
And one of their worst cancellations in recent years…Tru Calling. They didn’t even air the second season until months after they were filmed. It didn’t get good enough ratings the first season (I wonder why…they had it running against the last season of Friends). And they kept the X-Files on and cancelled Brisco when they both did the same on the Nielsons the year before. Unfortunately, Brisco had the bad luck to be viewed and counted for acts of violence by a parents group. The episode they counted was one having to do with boxing. Let’s not only hit Fox, CBS cancelled American Gothic early on, and also killed the Flash after one season (putting it up against number one Cosby at that time). Tru Calling was really coming into it’s own, at the end of the first season, and into the measley six episodes they ordered of season two. Oh, and yes, I loved Brimstone and the Tick also. I wish Sci-Fi and TNT would save more shows 🙂
“FOX isn’t a public service to provide quality programming, FOX is a network that has to make money. They weren’t going to make any with Drive.”
You know, Keith, for someone who makes his living writing novels based on quality shows that were canceled despite great potential, I would have thought you’d be less myopic.
PAD
Fox hyped this sucker like crazy for about six months! I remember not being able to watch even a Simpsons rerun without seeing three or four ads for Drive each break.
You can’t say Fox didn’t stand behind this show. They hyped it and hyped it. And no one watched it.
I sorta knew it would happen. It was overkill before the first episode even aired.
I think we indeed are seeing the “I’ll wait for the trades” mentality happening with television. Boxed sets of a season are hitting the shelves usually around the time the next season begins airing, and not everybody has a Tivo or DVR — and many of those that do still don’t get around to watching the shows in anything like a timely manner.
I’ve thought for a while now that someone, somewhere, is going to start developing episodic dramas strictly for the DVD market, bypassing television altogether.
I know, for myself, when watching the commercials for Drive, I found myself asking “is there enough there for a series”. To me, the concept seemed better for a movie than a multi-season series…but I admit I did not watch the actual show. And speaking of cancelled show, the lost Mercy CoveReef (?) (the Aquaman pilot) is now airing on AOl in2tv, so you can see what might have been….it’s listed as just the Aquaman pilot
Not again – but, obviously, I should have known better.
I will miss Drive. I like the series and my husband also got into it very quickly. I know, he will be very disappointed and angry at US TV politics again when I tell him what I have just learned.
The problem with US television is, people have no patience at all and give a show a chance. If it is not an instant success it gets kicked, no matter what potential it has. Do people really want a TV landscape consisting of low budget reality shows, sitcoms and plenty of repeats?
Here’e the link to the Aquaman pilot for those of you interested:
http://video.aol.com/video-category/aquaman/2816
enjoy!
The thing I don’t understand is that when it comes to Network tv even the worst rated show would be dominant if you put it on cable. For example, FOX’s own cable network shows The Shield which is a critical daring and has been on for five or six seasons. The recent premiere drew 2.3 million viewer, which was up from last year. Now take Drive, the premiere drew 5.66 million viewers. If they moved Drive to FX just 50% of the audience came back that would be one of the strongest shows on cable. Why doesn’t any one of the cable networks ever scavenge cancelled network shows and build them into signature shows for their network? Budget issues?
(On a slight tangent, I get why you have to pay for HBO, but they don’t show commercials. Yet I pay for basic cable AND they hit me with the same commercials that supposedly make Network tv free? How does that work?)
I’m not surprised at all. First instead of doing a run of 13 episodes they decided that they would split it up by having 6 here at the end of the season and then the rest (presumably) in the fall. Then it is another Tim Minear show up against the bloody Dancing with the Network Stars plus the suitcase show. Of course the ratings only count ratings families who is watching a show live. Drive, having a two-hour premiere and a third hour the next day definitely would lend itself more to being watched later on tape or DVR. Having three hours in one week, and then cancelling after hour 4 the next week is not showing any patience at all or allowing for any word of mouth to build.
They are putting House repeats on instead the next few weeks (per Futon Critic FOX May sweeps article http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=20070425fox02_
Neil
> I am the only sci-fi fan in the world who wasn’t impressed with Firefly.
No. Blame the way the idiots at the network showed it out of sequence, but it utterly failed to grab me and I dropped it pretty quick.
> Wonderfalls, … Sliders, V.R. 5
V.R. 5 also failed to really grab me, although I gave it more of a shot than FIREFLY. SLIDERS? It lasted at least three if not four seasons – so hardly a quick death – and deserved to die when they replaced John Rhys-Davies’ character with the supposedly competent military type who rapidly devolved into the obligatory bimbo. That killed me off it before it was pulled off the air.
WONDERFALLS was a variation on QUANTUM LEAP which was annoying to me because, instead of a neurological hologram giving the character fairly precise instructions (ie person ‘a’ will die in a car crash on ‘x ‘date, you have to prevent it) we have a supposedly all-knowing ‘force’ making with obscure comments next to which the Vorlons were the masters of clarity. Any military commanding officer who gave such unclear orders would be demoted in a hurry. People wrote that off as being the central character having premonitions and then feeling a need to act on them. OK, I could buy that. But that she then argues with herself about it, and via the intermediary of inanimate objects? That, in the words of the theme, tips me right over the edge.
>I second the motion that all continuing storyline series should have a contract guaranteeing the producers the chance to complete their current arc.
That won’t necessarily work. STARGATE: SG1 had a 4-year guarantee from the studio before going into production. Didn’t help me as they then seemed to show them in random order, shifting from night to night, and then having seemingly interminable reruns. It wasn’t until a friend egged me into getting the DVD sets (I now have all but the current season) that I realized it was much better than the network’s broadcast practices made it seem to be. Heck, there were actual story arcs!
>And one of their worst cancellations in recent years…Tru Calling. They didn’t even air the second season until months after they were filmed…. CBS … also killed the Flash after one season.
I watched some of TRU CALLING and agree it wasn’t bad. When you could find it. I was taping it for a friend in Japan at the time and wasn’t even aware there was a second season until after the fact. Ditto THE FLASH. One needed to hire a bounty hunter to try to locate it as CBS moved it around from night to night, and time slot to time slot. “It couldn’t find an audience” complained the twits at CBS. Uh, how about letting it sit in ONE PLACE and having the audience find it?
As for cancelled shows … JAG was cancelled partway through one season, then went on for another nine seasons on another network.
> Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader probably costs less to make per episode than any minute of Drive.
Precisely. Network observers have flat-out stated that, though ratings are down for ‘reality shows’, they’re still around because the network can get them on the air for peanuts compared to many of their other shows. Thus PROBE, MURPHY’S LAW and others disappear in their first season, while drek such as SURVIVOR goes on and on and on and …
Does anyone out there know if Heroes is returning next season? All the commercials now just say “x more episodes”, and not “of the season”…Also, anyone looking for a great show that seems to keep going, check out FX June 12th for the fourth season of Rescue Me. I didn’t start watching until last season, but got hooked very fast. It’s a show that makes you say, “I can’t believe they can show that on commercial tv”
When I first heard about the cancellation I thought, well this is what I get for not telling my friends and getting them to watch but then I remembered that it was Fox and I know where the blame lies.
Maybe CW will pick it up.
I believe they’ve got a comitment for a second full season of HEROES.
As to Heroes, I believe that NBC made the commitment for a second season VERY early. No one is sure now because NBC renewed it that long ago…like when Studio 60 still had a real chance to go on.
As to another network picking up Drive, I think it would only be possible if the new guys managed to get the DVD rights from Fox with the rest of the show. Form everything I’ve heard, that’s where the real money is nowadays. Without that, anybody picking up the show is REALLY shooting themselves in the foot, putting all the money into making the thing but not getting anything back AND channeling money at Fox for when the DVD finally comes out. I think I heard that that was one of the final nails in Angel’s coffin (no pun intended) but I can’t be sure anymore.
Disappointing news, but at least I didn’t get a chance to love it; I only watch about 2 hours of tv a week as is, so this is one less hour for me to spend.
I had reservations about this show from the get-go, as soon as the mysteries began cropping up. It brought back too many bad memories of Lost.
“You can’t say Fox didn’t stand behind this show. They hyped it and hyped it. And no one watched it.”
Then they should consider keeping the show and firing the people in charge of the hype.
I have to say, the commercials–as numerous as they were–gave me zero idea of the quality of the series. Quality? I wasn’t even clear on what the show was about. I had no intention of watching it until one day I suddenly said, “Wait a minute…is that Nathan?” The only reason I watched it was because of him.
Quantity of advertising means nothing if the quality isn’t there.
PAD
Minear should have known as soon as they cleared such a high budget that Drive was doomed. I think if you look at some of the unlikely-to-survive-but-have-thrived shows, they tend to have small budgets. Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica come to mind. They spend, what, half a million per episode, but make it look really good and make it hard for the network to bother with cancellation. If I were a producer shopping anything but a gameshow or reality program and they offered me more than a million per episode I’d probably walk. Or just not get my hopes up.
And the whole ratings system seems deeply flawed. Do many people even watch TV as it airs anymore? There are so many ways to avoid commercials and watch when it’s convenient. I don’t have Tivo but I still tape the few shows I actually watch for later viewings, and have done so since I first got a VCR in high school. Add in online viewings and those Nielson numbers just become increasingly meaningless.
The last thing I saw was that Heroes was returning next year. Hopefully the last several episodes will ‘sensibly’ wrap up the main story.
As for Drive. I wasn’t sure I was interested in it until I read a review in my local paper. It got a good write-up and I decided to watch it. (Due to other things I missed the first 75 minutes of the premier, but my wife was watching so it wasn’t a complete loss.) I thought it was interesting and they were going in a good direction.
Some one at Fox needs to be betten with a stick.
I want Greg the Bunny back!
I have to say, the commercials–as numerous as they were–gave me zero idea of the quality of the series. Quality? I wasn’t even clear on what the show was about. I had no intention of watching it until one day I suddenly said, “Wait a minute…is that Nathan?” The only reason I watched it was because of him.
Ditto.
I only found out what the show was really about after I read a news paper bit on it. Fox’s ad people did nothing clearly show people what the show was before it came on. The ads were all as generic actiony and bland as possible.
Greg, the Independant Film Channel carries new episodes of Greg the Bunny. It’s not quite the same show, and more raw than what was on network TV, to be sure.
Making comparisons to Heroes is kinda odd because it was a ratings success from the start, but I’m going to make a comparison to Heroes.
One thing that NBC did that I think is really smart is putting the episodes online. For a serial show, this seems like a great idea to me. It lets anyone who misses an episode catch up. They’ve also had marathons on Sci-Fi, to help others else catch up who might not have noticed it on the internet.
I think that kind of stuff is something that should change the way networks think about TV shows. If a highly serial show like Drive doesn’t catch on right away, that doesn’t mean it’s screwed because new fans can’t come into the show.