Prior to its initial airing, ...
Question: Prior to its initial airing, I sent two "e-mauls" to the official
Drive site predicting the show would fail and ultimately be canceled. I can sum up the reason in two words:
Kristin Lehman. I have absolutely nothing against this woman, but facts speak for themselves. Check her history: Each and every show she has joined has tanked, and I suspect that, sad to say, it has something to do with the way she looks. While not a terribly ugly woman, she
does have this look about her that says, "Do not leave this woman in your place alone, 'cause she'll steal all the change out of your dish and let your cat run off out of sheer meanness." Perhaps it's her beady eyes, who knows? Whatever the case, there is
nothing either warm or inviting about this woman. Aside from
The Office, there isn't one program that I have been wrong about being canceled in the past 15 years. Let's wait and see if I'm right this time also.
Answer: Generally speaking, if you predict a TV show will fail, you'll be right more often than you're wrong. I'm not sure that's a statistic to be proud of. Still, yikes! While I agree that Kristin Lehman is one of the weakest of the show's many weak links, and I might agree that she's a bit icy (or is it bland?) for what is meant to be such a hot-blooded show, I'd never get so personal about it. Beady eyes? What you're really referring to here is the "show-killer" syndrome (see: Paula Marshall), someone whose casting in a show, for whatever reason, sends up a red flag that it's in trouble and probably doomed. Lehman has appeared in some successful series, but the list of shows she has been involved in from the launch include quite a few fast flops:
Killer Instinct,
Tilt,
Strange World,
Century City. I'm not sure I'd blame her for all of them, but it is cause for concern. Though, as a fellow critic put it to me: "
Drive stars
Nathan Fillion. Who noticed
her?"
