timminear

Tim Minear has had a rough go of it with his post Whedonverse career. Wonderfalls and The Inside were both shut down early in the going, which is a shame because Wonderfalls was a fantastic show. I don't have a lot of hope for his current gig as Consulting Producer for Standoff either. The show just doesn't seem to be able to find an audience. But you know what they say... try try again.

USA Today's Coming Attractions has a little blurb about Minear's latest project, Drive, that says it is coming in March. They refer to it as "Amazing Race meets 24." Minear adds, "There's a giant purse of money at the end, but they don't know where the end is." Other than that, most things about the show remain up in the air. Early reports had Nick Lea (X-Files, Whistler) and Ivan Sergei (Hawaii, Jack & Jill) starring in the show. However, a recent post on nicklea.com reveals that many of the roles are being recast, including Lea's and Sergei's. Even with all the confusion, it's still a Minear show. That makes it worth watching.

Here's a bit of good news. Fox has ordered 12 episodes of Tim Minear's new show, Drive. That's a little surprising because it looked like the show was dead up until the announcement. In September, the network made Minear a Consulting Producer on Standoff, which implied that there wouldn't be any need for him to be off making his new show. Now they are saying that Minear will remain with Standoff until they finish their 13 episode production order, which doesn't really bode well for that show.

Drive tells the story of an underground race across America and stars Alan Ruck (Spin City), Kristin Lehman (Tilt), and Melanie Lynskey (Two and a Half Men). That's a pretty good start to a cast, but really, if it is made by Minear, it could star the finger puppet troupe from Mrs. Jablonski's first grade class and I would still watch it. The show is set to launch in the spring, hopefully not on Friday night at 9.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big Tim Minear fan. Actually, I never missed an airing of Angel, Firefly, Wonderfalls, or The Inside. He served as a producer on all of those, along with writing his fair share of episodes. Heck, I even remember watching some episodes of High Tide back in the day when Minear was just getting started as a writer. Still, news that Minear is being brought on as Consulting Producer for Standoff just boggles me.

Now, I think that Firefly and Wonderfalls were brilliant, and The Inside was solid. But that just means that 'I' think someone should give Tim another show. The part I don't get is that from the Fox perspective, these shows were all failures. They managed to last 11, 4, and 7 episodes. Three series, 22 episodes. What does a guy have to do to be shown the door?

The new FOX hostage negotiation drama Standoff has stopped production for a week, but not because the show is being shelved. It's actually a "writer's break," so they can get caught up (since they start the new season before the other networks) and new consulting producer Tim Minear comes on board to help out.

So, those of you who had Standoff in our contest can stop jumping up and down now and go back to watching television.