[Switchblade]

Drive is a show that I felt got off to a really weak start but improved after the halfway mark. I've always felt that the show's reliance on over-the-top comic relief was probably a reaction to how dark Gaim got by the end. I was never the biggest Gaim fan - I thought it was overhyped at the time and that made me more resistant to it - but I still felt like shifting back to episodic two-part stories with lots of slapstick was a huge step backwards. It also drove me crazy (pun intended) how many times Machine Chaser would show up at the end of an episode just to pad out the runtime so that the story couldn't be wrapped up until part two.

The shift (pun intended again) towards more serialized storytelling in the second half of the show did a lot to win me over, though. I didn't love all the Gold Drive stuff, but the show absolutely benefited from having room to breathe in its plot. We also got Captain Nira, who is one of my favorite human villains in all of Kamen Rider. I love the multiple fakeouts we got with him: "He's another wacky Drive character!" "Actually, he's a really nasty piece of work." "But now he's seen the error of his ways and he's on Shinnosuke's side!" "Just kidding, he is so much fucking worse than you ever thought he would be." Great stuff.