On the road again

HERE is what we love about television. It takes an implausible, inexplicable narrative, stocks it with really good actors, a decent script and, most important, a professional cinematographer, and we’re off, totally buying it, tuning in to see what happens on that crazy show next week. It happened on “Lost,” and now it could happen on “Drive.” (And someone should do a master’s thesis on the recent preponderance of single-word titles in TV and film. Or at least blog heavily about it.)

“Drive” opens with the currently requisite cool digital graphic -- in this case a My World-type map of the country -- that telescopes us into the lives of a far-flung group of characters having very bad days. Square-jawed Alex (Nathan Fillion) has just been beaten, his wife abducted, and of course the police suspect him; fresh-faced Wendy (Melanie Lynskey) has just had a baby and is in apparent fear of her absent husband, while tough-talking Winston (Kevin Alejandro) has been sprung from jail, presumably by a rich daddy who refuses to really acknowledge him.

Got all that? Wait, there’s more. Mysterious cellphones appear and command these three to get on the road to a hotel in Florida. There they and hundreds of others are told by round and smiling yet semi-sinister and as yet nameless Charles Martin Smith (Wallace Shawn was apparently unavailable) that they are part of a secret, illegal road race, with a jackpot of $32 million. Add Corinna, a mysterious (and conveniently glamorously blond) stowaway (Kristin Lehman) and “Drive” will either buckle quickly under its own weight or we’ll be seeing Fillion and his cohorts on lots of magazine covers. (Fox, a two-hour premiere today, 8 p.m.; Episode 3 airs Mon., 8 p.m.)

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-- Mary McNamara