Subject: Re: TP on Video: Official Info.
From: boyajian@ruby.dec.com (The Film Fan Man)
Date: 1991-09-12, 00:56
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

PEDANTRY ALERT!!!  PEDANTRY ALERT!!!  PEDANTRY ALERT!!!  PEDANTRY ALERT!!!  

In article <1991Sep11.144549.1@sask.usask.ca>, moorhouse@sask.usask.ca writes...

} You know, I'm tired of people calling the European film version of Twin
} Peaks 'the pilot episode...with a new ending by the way.' It's *not* the
} Pilot.  

} Now, I know episodes 2-7 will be sold through video stores, as is the
} European version, but is Episode 1 a.k.a. the Pilot,

And I'm tired of people calling the pilot "the first episode". As long as
you're going to make a big deal about nomenclature, you'd do well to get
things straight yourself.

The pilot is *not* Episode #1. It's the pilot. Call it Episode #0 if you
will. Episode #1 is the first one-hour episode. Lynch/Frost put no titles
on the episodes (even on the scripts), but designated them as "Episode #n",
and the seven one-hour first season episodes were referred to as #1-7, and
the second season episodes were referred to as #8-22. Lynch/Frost's
production numbers also reflected this, calling the first season episodes
#1001-1007 and the second season #2001-2022 (the production number for the
pilot is unknown).

Evidence of this?  Well, here is the way some of the 1990 Emmy nominations
read (relevant nominations only; while the format is mine, the data is
presented the way it was in the press releases):

    Writing, Drama             David Lynch and Mark Frost [Pilot]
                               and
                               Harley Peyton [Episode 3]
    Directing, Drama           David Lynch [Pilot]
    Single camera production
      Editing, series          Duwayne Dunham [Pilot]
    Art Direction              Leslie Morales [Pilot]
    Costume Design, series     Patricia Norris [Pilot]

Note that the pilot is referred to as "Pilot", not "Episode 1". And note
that Harley Peyton was nominated in the writing category for "Episode 3",
and if you look at a list below of the first season episodes and their
writers, you'll see that that can only be true if the pilot is *not*
considered to be "Episode 1".

0  pilot 08 Apr 90  Mark Frost & David Lynch
1  1001  12 Apr 90  Mark Frost & David Lynch
2  1002  19 Apr 90  Mark Frost & David Lynch
3  1003  26 Apr 90  Harley Peyton
4  1004  03 May 90  Robert Engels
5  1005  10 May 90  Mark Frost
6  1006  17 May 90  Harley Peyton
7  1007  23 May 90  Mark Frost

} the one we've all seen on T.V. way back on April 8th in 1990 ever going
} to be available on video? It would be stupid to have the entire first
} season of TP without the *real* first episode.

Well, yes it would, but...

While it's obviously too early to say that the "real pilot" will never be
released on video, there are no plans to do so. You see, there's a conflict
in the video rights. Aaron Spelling Entertainment holds the video rights
to all episodes of the series *except* the pilot. And the reason they don't
have the video rights to the pilot is because the rights to the Euroversion
are held by Warner Brothers. The release of the broadcast pilot by Spelling
would be an infringement on Warner's rights, since 90% or so of the content
of both versions is identical.

-- "Nice climate you have here. High oxygen content." "I rarely use it myself, sir. It promotes rust." --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, "The Mill", Maynard, MA) boyajian%ruby.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM or ...!decwrl!ruby.enet.dec.com!boyajian