There's no point in pretending otherwise; the main reason "Drive" is so great is that it is almost entirely about cars. But the show is also really smart. It knows that there is something that is much cooler than really fast cars. After all, would we watch "American Idol" if the only contestants were those awful theater kids from high school who could sing "Tomorrow" in one breath? Would we watch wrestling if it didn't have the backstories and wasn't fixed so the strongest didn't always win? Absolutely not. What makes the cars on "Drive" so notable is that they are not just fast cars; they are cars with personality that also happen to drive fast.
The cars concerned are all involved in an illegal cross-country road race. (How cool is that?) The most interesting car is driven by the de facto protagonist (though the show actually has a very large ensemble cast), Alex Tully, played by Nathan Fillion, best known for his role as Malcolm Reynolds on "Firefly." He drives a beat-up pickup truck (not one of those SUV jobs - this is actually meant to carry large objects from one place to another) and is in the race because he has reason to believe that his kidnapped wife will be returned to him if he wins.
Riding shotgun is a woman of dubious motives, and very likely Alex's love interest. In this situation, "Drive" successfully takes a page from "Lost"'s book (more successfully than, say, ABC's "The Nine") and introduces in its pilot episode about a dozen characters with questionable pasts, and takes its time exploring their histories. So far, the show has only flashbacked one character, the dying father of a petulant and rowdy teenage girl. You better believe we're rooting for them - he's dying.
The second-most interesting car is actually a minivan of the soccer mom variety. It's being driven by a wife fleeing her abusive husband about two days after she gave birth to a son whose whereabouts remain unclear. She drives around with a doll in place of a baby and acts somewhat irrationally throughout the show, but by gosh we do love her. She's not driving towards anything; she's driving away from a painful past (as we may believe many of the racers are).
And yes, the car race scenes are terrific. The cars weave in and out of some crazy highway traffic, unafraid to bump into each other and, in the case of a few drivers, apparently unafraid of an early demise. It's been said that the difference between Boston drivers and New York drivers is that Boston drivers are actively rude because they don't like you, while New York drivers have only one goal in mind: getting where they're going, and nothing but nothing can get in their way. You can be run over by either, but at least know that the New York driver probably didn't even notice you. In any event, this dichotomy seems to exist in "Drive". There are some Boston-style drivers and some New York-style drivers, and we're meant to root for the latter.
The motives of the organizers of the race are extremely obscure. No clues are yet given as to why the race exists, why the prize ($32 million) is so high, or why the powers that be are so cruel. Is it anything like "It's a Mad ...World" (1963), and the race is held merely for the amusement of those in charge? Who even knows? We can only hope that the show's creators (including "Firefly"'s Tim Minear) have a long-term plan in mind, further learning from "Lost"'s improbable blueprint, because the show has all the makings of a long-term hit. Frankly, it doesn't matter if Alex ever finds his wife - just watching him race in that jalopy is reason enough to tune in.
