Wonderfalls is worth watching even as 13, because they did it with cancellation in mind. The 13 episodes form a complete arc. It's more like a mini-series. Another one that's like that is The Inside.
Another thing those two have in common is you don't really get completely connected to the characters until about the fourth or fifth episode, so an opinion based on the first 3 is incomplete. It's hard to convince people of that until they push past, and see it for themselves though.
If you were watching Drive, they appeared to be doing the same thing. That seems to be the problem with the 13 episode arc. They have to build the drama towards the conclusion at a specific point towards the end of the 13. They can't just blow your doors off early the way the can with stand alones, or a longer arc like Lost.
Another mistake people make with the Tim Minear 13, in my opinion, is they think they know the characters right off, but they don't, so they mistakenly think it's bad acting. Really though it's the fact only the 2 dimensional surface of the characters have been revealed in the first 3 or 4 eps.
Poor Rachel Nichols got totally blazed by the critics in The Inside as a bad actress based on the first three eps, and it so wasn't her fault. She did exactly what was required of her. The whole thing of her character was we were only supposed to see the automaton shell of her at the beginning, and then build towards what was really beneath. The complete arc of The Inside 13 is the story of Rebecca Lock, and how the horror of her personal history pushes the real woman she is "inside".
