Fastlane (TV series)

Fastlane
The main characters of Fastlane (from left to right), Van, Billie, and Deaq.
Format	Action Crime drama
Created by	McG John McNamara
Starring	Peter Facinelli Bill Bellamy Tiffani Thiessen
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	23 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	45–48 minutes
Production company(s)	Warner Bros. Television 20th Century Fox Television
Distributor	Warner Bros. (USA) 20th Century Fox (International)
Broadcast
Original channel	Fox
Original run	September 18, 2002 (2002-09-18) – May 25, 2003 (2003-05-25)

Fastlane is an American action/crime drama series that was broadcast on Fox from 2002 to 2003. On August 14, 2005 G4 began rebroadcasting the complete series. After finishing its initial run on the network, Fastlane stopped airing on G4. Fastlane also aired on TVOne sometime around 2006.

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 Los Angeles Police Department. 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, in a close relation to the Miami Vice series.

Cast

Main cast

• Peter Facinelli as Donovan "Van" Ray
• Bill Bellamy as Deaqon "Deaq" Hayes
• Tiffani Thiessen as Wilhemina "Billie" Chambers

Recurring cast

• Jay Mohr as Roland Hill
• Mark Famiglietti as Jarod
• Big Boy as Aquarius
• Vondie Curtis-Hall as Andre Hayes
• Jennifer Sky as Cassidy Shaw
• Robert Forster as Raymond Ray
• Jamie Brown as Sophia Jones
• Bill Duke as Captain Parish

Guest appearances

Over the course of its run, Fastlane featured cameos and guest appearances from several 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, the Red Elvises, Tatyana Ali, Paul Gleason, Antonio Fargas, Biz Markie, Kurupt, Treach and Ali Landry.

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 due to the high costs of each episode, there is no known resolution.

Each episode cost the two studios making it (Warner Bros. and Fox) $2.6 million. The show's hallmarks—unconventional cinematography, pyrotechnics, guest appearances, licensed soundtracks, supercars and other exotic vehicles—were the root cause of the exorbitant production costs. 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.

Episodes

#	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Production code
0	"Unaired Pilot"			N/A
1	"Pilot"	McG	Story: McG Teleplay: John McNamara	September 18, 2002 (2002-09-18)	475183
After Deaq's brother's death, Billie partners Van with him to work on catching Deaq's brother's murderer. Meanwhile, Van seems to be interested in the murderer's fence, Cassidy Shaw.
2	"Girls Own Juice"	Paris Barclay	Kim Newton	September 25, 2002 (2002-09-25)	175752
After taking a 1965 Mustang for a ride, Van and Deaq run into a group of three female jewel thieves. Billie subsequently puts them on the case after they convince her they can do the job better than RHD can.
3	"Gone Native"	Josh Pate	Alexandra Cunningham	October 30, 2002 (2002-10-30)	175754
Billie assigns the duo to take on a brother-sister team of arms dealing Russian mobsters. After getting their cover almost blown by an ATF agent, Billie wants them to find out whether he's dirty or not.
4	"Things Done Changed"	Josh Pate	Salvatore J. Stabile	November 6, 2002 (2002-11-06)	175755
Deaq's ex-girlfriend contacts him to get him to help her get rid of her husband. As it turns out, her husband is a known criminal and Billie decides to let them go undercover anyway to get him off the streets.
5	"Ryde or Die"	Winrich Kolbe	Josh Appelbaum	November 13, 2002 (2002-11-13)	175753
Billie forcefully assigns the boys to go after an Ecstasy dealer for no apparent reason. As the case unfolds, it's revealed Billie is a former heroin addict, and that the Ecstasy dealer was her provider of said heroin.
6	"Ray Ray"	Marcos Siega	Matthew Carnahan & John McNamara	November 20, 2002 (2002-11-20)	175756
To stop a recently inherited crime boss seeking counterfeit to pay off Colombian mobsters, Van seeks help from his father, Raymond 'Ray-Ray' Ray.
7	"Wet"	Chris Long	Kevin G. Boyd	November 27, 2002 (2002-11-27)	175757
When the contracted murder of club owner/thug, Wisdom Bailey, goes awry, Billie sends in Van to find out if a suspected hit woman, Sophia Jones, is the woman who tried killing him.
8	"Mighty Blue"	Guy Bee	Josh Appelbaum	December 4, 2002 (2002-12-04)	175758
Billie's best friend, Alexa Tan, receives help from Van and Deaq to take down Chinese Triad leader, Jackson Yu. Deaq and Alexa, however, seem to be more interested in each other rather than the case itself.
9	"Get Your Mack On"	Leslie Libman	John McNamara	December 11, 2002 (2002-12-11)	175751
After several prostitutes go missing, Van and Deaq are sent in after a murderous pimp, Nathan, to make sure it never happens again. Everything goes wrong when one of the prostitutes they're using to get in with Nathan turns out to be dating a federal prosecutor, and he wants her dead.
10	"Dogtown"	David Barrett	Matthew Carnahan	January 10, 2003 (2003-01-10)	175760
After busting one of Billie's former snitches, the snitch opts to let them take out the "Circle Gang" he's part of and their marijuana dealing schemes. But the snitch seems to have his own scheme in mind, instead.
11	"Strap On"	Greg Yaitanes	Kim Newton	January 17, 2003 (2003-01-17)	175762
With several rich people's houses being recently robbed, Billie sends in Van and Deaq to take down the girls behind the burglaries, only to discover they are lesbians. Instead, Billie opts to go undercover with Van as a lesbian coming out of a marriage to a criminal.
12	"101"	Sanford Bookstaver	John McNamara	January 24, 2003 (2003-01-24)	175761
The entire team helps rookie officer, Jarod, solve his first case against blackmailers who may be involved in the suicide of Jarod's friend.
13	"Defense (Part 1)"	Marcos Siega	Josh Appelbaum	January 31, 2003 (2003-01-31)	175763
The team begins a case against a cop killer known as "Cyrus One", only to discover his tribe is involved in far more than that. Internal Affairs officer, Roland Hill, seeks out Billie to tell her she, Van and Deaq are being watched closely. The episode ends with a cliffhanger.
14	"Offense (Part 2)"	Sanford Bookstaver	John McNamara	February 7, 2003 (2003-02-07)	175764
The cliffhanger is resolved, Billie gets sentenced to jail for the murder of Cyrus by an agent on the inside, Skylar Case. Internal Affairs gives Van and Deaq 72 hours to solve the case and find out if she's dirty, without use of the Candy Store.
15	"Popdukes"	Josh Pate	Leonard Dick	February 14, 2003 (2003-02-14)	175765
Van's father is released from prison and as far as Van can see, he's no longer interested in the life of crime. Until Nigerian criminals attempt to kill him, then Billie wants him to go under with Van and Deaq to settle it by giving the crime boss savings bonds of enormous amounts, which will result in the boss's arrest.
16	"Slippery Slope"	Guy Bee	Kim Newton & Case Krell	March 7, 2003 (2003-03-07)	175767
Cassidy Shaw, who was let go at the end of the pilot, has been scamming and conning her way across the country and Billie puts Van and Deaq up to the challenge to get her. Many things go wrong, even so much as criminals contracted by Cassidy's boyfriend's boss trying to kill her. Eventually, Sophia Jones (from the episode "Wet", who escaped prison in the end) is one of the contract killers.
17	"Simone Says"	Paris Barclay	Alexandra Cunningham	March 14, 2003 (2003-03-14)	175766
A former arms dealer recently gone straight is worried about his own safety and the safety of his teenage daughter, Simone. After realizing its best for her to know that she's being protected, he decides to let Van and Deaq guard her in public.
18	"Monster"	David Straiton	Alexandra Cunningham	March 21, 2003 (2003-03-21)	175759
A gang banger's brother is murdered and Aquarius wants Van and Deaq to find the murderer and promises no gang related crimes will result from finding the man, who ends up being a rich white guy who runs a modeling agency with his wife.
19	"Overkill"	Bill Duke	Hunt Baldwin & John Coveny	March 28, 2003 (2003-03-28)	175768
Van and Deaq are sent after worldwide arms dealers who ship the weapons from Los Angeles to many international cities. Once their initial bust in Morocco goes awry, they discover the guns were stored in crates containing CD's from one label and they assume he, or someone working with him, is behind the distribution.
20	"Asslane"	David Barrett	Josh Appelbaum	April 4, 2003 (2003-04-04)	175769
Billie splits the team up for their latest assignment against a bimonthly meth deal called "The Summit" that goes down between two parties. Deaq goes after Murdoch and Ghost Goucher, the producers, as a dirt bike loving, meth smoking criminal. Van goes after the distributor, Lena Savage, a porn producer, as a porn star agent. Billie joins Van in the case as a porn star. Internal Affairs officer, Roland Hill, requests Billie sends in her old friend and informant, Nat Raiden, to help die mark the meth produced.
21	"Dosed (Part 1)"	Sanford Bookstaver	David H. Goodman	April 18, 2003 (2003-04-18)	175770
After going on a date with his hotel clerk, Hillary, Van gets poisoned by an unknown man who calls him offering Van the antidote in exchange for breaking out a prisoner. During the cliffhanger, Billie discovers clues that lead her to think the blackmailer is her former protege.
22	"Iced (Part 2)"	Sanford Bookstaver	John McNamara	April 25, 2003 (2003-04-25)	175771
Billie's former protege is revealed to be the blackmailer all along, apparently looking for revenge against her. He requests this time that they rob a bank in exchange for him giving up the names of the families he's poisoned with the same drug Van was poisoned with. The episode ends with an unresolved cliffhanger.

DVD release

Warner Home Video released Fastlane: The Complete Series on DVD as a six disc set on July 8, 2008 in the Region 1. The soundtrack was significantly altered for the DVD release due to licensing issues. Episodes are presented in 16:10 rather than 16:9 widescreen as they initially appeared on television.

The complete series was instant streaming on Netflix until the summer of 2011 when it was taken off for unknown reasons.

External links

• Fastlane at the Internet Movie Database
• Fastlane at TV.com