Uncomfortable TV

[Mr Craig Clark]

 "Henry Musikar" asks:

> Speaking of David Lynch, am I and the people that I loan the tape to, 
> the only person that has ever seen "On the Air"? It was supposed to 
> be a television series about the putting on a show in the early days 
> of television. My 11-year old daughter has watched it many times and 
> laughs out loud

After the delights of _Twin Peaks_ I positioned myself in front of 
the TV with a video already set to tape _On The Air_ when it aired in 
South Africa in 1992.

I lasted one and a half episodes before giving up. What was 
principally wrong was the idea of treating it as a comedy. Now Lynch 
has made some exquisite comedies, inter alia large dollops of _Twin 
Peaks_, _Eraserhead_, _Blue Velvet_ and _Wild at heart_, but what 
distinguishes all of those comedies is the fact that not one of them 
exactly strikes one at first as being a comedy. In _On The Air_ I 
felt Lynch was trying very hard to be funny - which is exactly what 
is wrong with the TV Comedy genre in the first place.

Henry - you may well be right, there may be much to recommend this 
series, but alas, I couldn't see it.
Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"