Hotel Room: the secret history of David Lynch’s lost HBO series

After an early cancellation, the 1993 miniseries fell into obscurity – but it may be some of the filmmaker’s best work. This month, David Lynch’s Hotel Room turned 30 years old. The miniseries remains an overlooked work in the auteur’s illustrious cannon, overshadowed by the acclaimed Twin Peaks and his other film work. On paper, Hotel Room should have been as much of a success as these projects – an HBO-produced anthology series with episodes written by Barry Gifford (author of Wild At Heart), directed by Lynch himself, and also featuring music by the late, great Angelo Badalamenti.

Unfortunately, the show never really clicked with audiences, and after an early cancellation and years of gathering dust, it soon fell into the darkest depths of r/davidlynch (much like his equally obscure and short-lived 1992 sitcom, On The Air). This is probably because the show was written as three separate half-hour-long television plays, making it a more character and dialogue-driven project – a step back from visual spectacles like Dune and Blue Velvet. “[Making Hotel Room] was actually a wonderful experience,” reflected Gifford in 2021. “David and I collaborated on two episodes of the series, which aired at the beginning of 1993, and the plays have subsequently been performed all over the world… read more >

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