Fastlane (TV series)

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Fastlane

The main characters of Fastlane
(from left to right), Van, Billie, and Deaq.
Format Crime drama
Created by McG
Starring Peter Facinelli
Bill Bellamy
Tiffani Thiessen
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
No. of episodes 22
Production
Running time 60 minutes
(with commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel FOX
Original run September 18, 2002 – April 25, 2003
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Fastlane was an action TV series that was broadcast on Fox from 2002 to 2003. On August 14, 2005 G4, began rebroadcasting the complete series.[1] After finishing its initial run on G4, Fastlane stopped airing altogether. The reruns now currently air on TV One in the U.S.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

Van Ray and Deaqon Hayes are two mismatched cops teamed together by shady vixen police lieutenant, Wilhelmina "Billie" Chambers, in a secretive undercover division of the LAPD. Operating with the motto "Everything we seize, we keep. Everything we keep, we use," their base of operations is the "Candy Store" - a warehouse containing a fortune in confiscated cars, clothes, weapons and everything else needed to blend into the seedy criminal underworld of Los Angeles. Given criminal covers, the officers use all of the resources at their disposal to apprehend dangerous miscreants while walking the line between cop and criminal.

[edit] Series run

The series consisted of twenty-two episodes, forty-five minutes each, plus an unaired pilot which ended up being very similar to the first episode broadcasted. Episodes 13 and 14 ("Defense" and "Offense") form a two-part story, while episodes 21 and 22 ("Dosed" and "Iced") form a two-part story ending on a cliffhanger which sees Billie Chambers kidnapped and forced to do drugs. As the series was canceled at that point, fans were left clamoring for a resolution. It is unknown how many episodes the remaining plot would have covered.

Each episode cost the two studios making it (Warner Bros. and Fox) $2.6 million. The show's hallmarks — unconventional cinematography, explosions, guest appearances, licensed soundtracks, supercars and other exotic vehicles — were the root cause of the exorbitant production costs. As a result, the show was canceled because of these high production costs and the ratings drop it suffered from being moved from Wednesday nights to Friday nights.

The series paid numerous homages to the original Miami Vice, of which it was a spiritual successor. Watching the first aired episode of each series reveals numerous similarities in plot and music, in addition to the obvious similarities in premise and ambiance.

[edit] Release to DVD

On Peter Facinelli's MySpace account [1], it was announced that the series will be released on DVD in the summer of 2008. The show was not released beforehand due to the fact that the elaborate soundtrack originally used was contracted for television only, and not for DVD use. There is no word yet on how many discs the set will be, if there will be any extras, and whether or not many of the musical scores will be changed in the DVD release.[citation needed]

According to TVShowsonDVD.com [2], Fastlane-The Complete Series will be released to DVD on July 8th, 2008.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Main cast

[edit] Recurring cast

[edit] Episode listing

Episode Number Production Number Episode Name Original Air Date
----- 100 Unaired Pilot -----
1 101 Pilot September 18, 2002
2 102 Girls Own Juice September 25, 2002
3 103 Gone Native October 30, 2002
4 104 Things Done Changed November 6, 2002
5 105 Ryde or Die November 13, 2002
6 106 Ray Ray November 20, 2002
7 107 Wet November 27, 2002
8 108 Mighty Blue December 4, 2002
9 109 Get Your Mack On December 11, 2002
10 110 Dogtown January 10, 2003
11 111 Strap On January 17, 2003
12 112 101 January 24, 2003
13 113 Defense (1) January 31, 2003
14 114 Offense (2) February 7, 2003
15 115 Popdukes February 14, 2003
16 116 Slippery Slope March 7, 2003
17 117 Simone Says March 14, 2003
18 118 Monster March 21, 2003
19 119 Overkill March 28, 2003
20 120 Asslane April 4, 2003
21 121 Dosed (1) April 18, 2003
22 122 Iced (2) April 25, 2003

[edit] Guest appearances

Over the course of its run, Fastlane featured cameos and guest appearances from a good number of known figures, including Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Mischa Barton, Jenny McCarthy, Krista Allen, Jake Busey, Bokeem Woodbine, Hudson Leick, Jaime Pressly, George Hamilton, Eric Mabius, Michelle Forbes, Navi Rawat, Iggy Pop, Naomi Campbell, Tommy Lee, Terrence Howard, Isaac Hayes, Tatyana Ali, Paul Gleason, Antonio Fargas, Biz Markie, Treach, and Ali Landry.

Mischa Barton's role as Simone in "Simone Says" led to producer McG casting her in his next project – The O.C..

[edit] Trivia

[edit] References

  1. ^ g4tv.com/fastlane

[edit] External links