I'd rather be watching TV![IMDB link] [Not available on Netflix. Good luck finding it if you don’t have the right connections.]

PLOT SUMMARY: Same as the movie, except it doesn’t finish because it’s a pilot for a TV series, and thus the story was supposed to be stretched out a lot longer than the 2001 movie.

PEOPLE: David Lynch directs this (duh). The cast is actually more or less exactly the same as the movie.

QUIRKS: Same as the movie.

VISUALS: Much worse. This looks bad, even for an ABC series. Perhaps it was the worn VHS tape it was recorded on? Or the fact that ABC didn’t shoot in high def back then? Or the fact that it’s fullscreen instead of widescreen? Or the hissy, buzzy audio from the VHS tape. But overall… It just looked worse. Even Naomi Watts seemed to be about 5% less hot.

SOUNDTRACK: Angelo Badalamenti FTW.

GOOD STUFF: …Any good in this is overshadowed by how much better the actual movie is.

BAD STUFF: They didn’t even really get to the part where all the characters change and everything gets insanely crazy and confusing. No Naomi Watts masturbation. No lesbianism. The story never finishes (because it’s not supposed to). This is just kind of disappointing if you’ve already seen the movie. Some parts just came off as cheesy — like the cops talking to each other.

CONCLUSION/RECOMMENDATION: Completists … You’ve been warned. This is a good glimpse of what could have been, but does not provide any additional insight whatsoever to the experience of watching the later-produced movie version.

READ THIS LINK ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THIS AND THE MOVIE

“”All I know is, I loved making it, ABC hated it, and I don’t like the cut I turned in. I agreed with ABC that the longer cut was too slow, but I was forced to butcher it because we had a deadline, and there wasn’t time to finesse anything. It lost texture, big scenes, and storylines, and there are 300 tape copies of the bad version circulating around. Lots of people have seen it, which is embarrassing, because they’re bad-quality tapes, too. I don’t want to think about it.”” –David Lynch

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 2/5 stars (vs 3/10 for the movie). IMDB: 5/10 (vs 8/10 for the movie).
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10. “I wasn’t disappointed. It was supposed to be a whole series… you had warned me about that, so I didn’t get my hopes up too high for a resolution.”

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 8.4/10 — which is higher than the 8.0/10 rating of the actual movie! But that’s also comparing 120,000 votes to 330 votes. I’m sure if the 120,000 people who watched the movie then watched this pilot — that the pilot would get a lower rating.Mood: sweaty
Music: Ramones – Go Mental