Getting into “Twin Peaks” in the nineties hipped me to the
idea that television could be cinematic, experimental, genuinely scary, and
uncomfortably challenging. I tried to sate my yen for such shows with things
like “Northern Exposure” and “The X-Files”, but nothing came close to
recapturing that air of dreamy creepiness and creeping dreaminess unique to “Twin
Peaks”. So when I read that David Lynch would finally be returning to the
little screen with a new show called “Mulholland Dr.” for ABC in 1999, I was
thrilled. Unfortunately, after seeing Lynch’s pilot, the confounded ninnies at
the network passed on it in favor of contemporary classics like “Oh, Grow Up”
and “Odd Man Out”. Though heartbroken, Lynch has never been a guy who allows a
good idea to go to waste. He reclaimed his 90-minute pilot, shot a new ending
for it, and released it theatrically in 2001, thus cobbling together the best
feature film of a decade that had barely begun.
(Spoilers Ahead, so
you may want to skip to the next bolded heading.)
