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Watch: David Lynch and Mark Frost’s On the Air
Following the warm reception of Twin Peaks (1990-1991), ABC commissioned a little seen follow-up from Lynch/Frost Productions in 1992 called On the Air. The series was a characteristically off-kilter sitcom about a ’50s television network struggling to rejuvenate their variety spot, The Lester Guy Show. What sounds like a quixotic collision of Network and 30 Rock instead turned out to be an unmitigated disaster: ABC put the ax on On the Air after only three episodes. Still, as cult followings are want to do, the series attracted a cluster of devotees when it screened in its entirety in the UK and Australia.
The first (and only) season is now available on YouTube, and you can dive into the Lynch-directed pilot above. While more stilted and heavy-handed than Twin Peaks, there are still some experimentations that make it worthwhile, particularly its use of silence.
