Skip to main content

Casting Couch: Amy Acker Takes a "Drive" with FOX

Looks like the Whedon-verse is starting to come together again. Sort of.

Actress Amy Acker, best known for her roles as scientist-turned-monster hunter Winifred "Fred" Burkle and monster hunter-turned-ancient goddess Illyria on Angel (and a recurring stint on the final season of Alias), has joined the cast of FOX's midseason drama Drive.

Drive, of course, is the brainchild of Tim Minear, who created Firefly with Joss Whedon. Whedon is himself currently shooting an episode of NBC's The Office to air during February sweeps. (Here's hoping that Pam's ex-fiance Roy, ably played by David Denman, will have a part to play in the episode. After all, he did recur as the demon Skip on Whedon's Angel.)

Still with me? Here's the best bit: Acker will play Kathryn, the wife of landscaper Alex Tully, whose kidnapping by a shadowy syndicate forces Alex into the illegal (and very dangerous) underground race that propels the plot of Drive. And Alex is played by none other than Captain Tightpants himself, better known as Nathan Fillion, who starred on Whedon and Minear's Firefly and recurred in the final season of Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Whew.

TimMinear.net has listed the rest of the reconstituted cast assembled in Drive, which kicks off on FOX in March, and includes: Kristin Lehman, Melanie Lynskey, Dylan Baker, Emma Stone, Kevin Alejandro, J.D. Pardo, Riley Smith, Mircea Monroe, Taryn Manning, Michael Hyatt, Rochelle Aytes, Charles Martin Smith, Brian Bloom, Richard Brooks, Wayne Grace, and K Callan.

Meanwhile, FOX unveiled its midseason schedule today, which includes a two-night, 3-hour launch for Drive, beginning Sunday, April 15th.

The series will air in its normal Mondays at 8 pm timeslot, once its been vacated by Prison Break (which wraps its second season a bit earlier than expected), beginning April 16th.

While I was a little less than impressed by the original pilot of Drive (shot last year with Ivan Sergei in the Nathan Fillion role), I'm really looking forward to seeing the new version, with its new cast and a slightly altered direction.

Stay tuned as I try to get my greedy little mitts on the premiere episode.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Amy Acker is smoking hot, so I will definitely watch anything with her and the cast is really good. Bring it on!
rockauteur said…
Amy Acker was the best thing (actually only good thing) about the final season of Alias. I am happy to see her back on television (though I think Lost would have been a good fit for her)
Anonymous said…
Illyria and Mal Reynolds together in the same show???? I am so there. Just bring on Gina Torres as well and I am one happy woman.
Anonymous said…
What a great cast...I hope it got better!
Normally I would have no interest in a show like this but it has such a great cast I think I'll have to check it out!

Popular posts from this blog

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

Pilot Inspektor: CBS' "Smith"

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian

The Daily Beast: "How The Killing Went Wrong"

While the uproar over the U.S. version of The Killing has quieted, the show is still a pale imitation of the Danish series on which it is based. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "How The Killing Went Wrong," in which I look at how The Killing has handled itself during its second season, and compare it to the stunning and electrifying original Danish series, Forbrydelsen , on which it is based. (I recently watched all 20 episodes of Forbrydelsen over a few evenings.) The original is a mind-blowing and gut-wrenching work of genius. It’s not necessary to rehash the anger that followed in the wake of the conclusion last June of the first season of AMC’s mystery drama The Killing, based on Søren Sveistrup’s landmark Danish show Forbrydelsen, which follows the murder of a schoolgirl and its impact on the people whose lives the investigation touches upon. What followed were irate reviews, burnished with the “burning intensity of 10,000 white-hot suns