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   Friday, November 02, 2007

   GOLDEN EGG, DEAD GOOSE

There's a charming interview with David Lynch in Entertainment Weekly on this week's release of the beautiful "gold box" DVD set of my favourite TV show, Twin Peaks (oh how I need this!). Lynch explains how the series was hobbled in mid-stream by the network's panicky insistence on wrapping up the show's central mystery as quickly as possible:

"[The] question of what happened to Laura Palmer was the goose that laid the golden egg. Then ABC asked us to snip the goose's head off, and it killed the goose."

This is ironic to me for two reasons: first, ABC is now the home of Lost, a maddening show that has remained popular over three seasons by constantly unveiling more mysteries than it solves.

Second, and more important, is the example of artists treated badly by their business partners. Companies like ABC are now panicking over the writers' strike set to begin on Monday. There's been some terrific new TV this fall (I'm loving Life and Reaper) but it's all about to dry up for quite some time because producers can't see why they should share profits from DVD and Internet versions of shows with the writers who created them. They argue that the whole Internet distribution thing is so new, there's no guarantee they'll make any money from it. This thought obviously occurred to them while passing the owners of Amazon and Google panhandling for change on Sunset Boulevard.

Here's the point: since I won't be buying the Twin Peaks set just yet (not until someone can explain to me why this brand-new product is $90 in Canada and $65 in the States), I decided to soothe my lust by buying the fabulous new soundtrack album from iTunes. I could have easily found it for free on the BitTorrent sites but I happily paid the ten bucks and had it playing on my computer within a few minutes. The network people, along with the movie studio executives, record industry thugs and software developers, don't understand this because they view their customers as potential criminals. They refuse to understand if you treat talented people badly and fill the marketplace with crap, the public will respond with the same amount of respect, no matter how many "you're a pirate thief" ads they place before the movie begins.

David Lynch created a weird and wonderful little series and I'm happy to reward him for it...well, him and the pack of corporate weasels who killed the golden goose but still get 95% of its egg. Stay strong at the bargaining table, Writers Guild of America!

Labels: media, music, technology, TV, writing