Is Twin Peaks a movie, a TV drama or a variety show?

Entertainment Weekly

It’s hard to really pigeonhole David Lynch’s work, says Darren Franich, since one of his most acclaimed movies, Mulholland Drive, was originally a failed pilot made for ABC. “Semantics are fun to debate,” Franich says in weighing in on the TV show vs. movie debate. “Saying that the new Twin Peaks is both television and film feels accurate, but also erratic. It’s just as easy to say Twin Peaks is neither television nor film, which isn’t an answer at all – and even the ambiguous endings of Twin Peaks have some final core truth, an emotional conjuration that goes deeper than mere confusion. You feel the need to get creative with your definitions. At one point in this past summer, I was hot on the idea that Lynch and Frost had turned Twin Peaks into their own private variety show, like their very own The Simpson Family Smile-Time Variety Hour. There was a weekly musical number. There were wacky Dougie sketches,  with important lessons for kids — Don’t Put Your Fork In An Electrical Socket. There were occasional check-ins from Dr. Amp, with an important advertorial message about shoveling yourself out of our modern pile of capitalist sh*t. There were occasional check-ins with Nasty Mr. C, who was for Twin Peaks what Uncle Traveling Matt was for Fraggle Rock.”

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