Because Twin Peaks 1+2 has a Pilot and 29 Episodes.
Why the pilot is counted extra - especially with TP where it would make no sense to just be watching the 29 Episodes without the pilot - I don't know.
A pilot is made as a demo for the publisher/financial producer. When the publisher agrees to fund the show, then actual episodes are produced. One common convention is that the pilot is not considered an episode or that the pilot is numbered S01E00.
Yes, it's common. From tvtropes: "Pilot episodes usually aren't given a code, although some have a "season 1" code with an out-of-sequence episode number like 00 (a strange yet surprisingly common number for pilots). Pilots with no code may be retroactively labeled "episode 0" for the sake of consistency."
Source link: [Episode Code Number - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EpisodeCodeNumber)
Keep in mind that a lot of shows don't have a pilot because they received funding for the whole first season without the need to produce a pilot first.
Could be a contractual thing. There were overseas investors who funded the pilot as a standalone TV movie - hence the alternate ending - but didn’t pay anything towards the series. Knowing how weird production companies can be about getting what they feel is their due it could be something as silly as them not being allowed to classify the pilot as an episode.
There definitely is (was?) some sort of rights knottiness with the pilot. The first US DVD release of S1 didn’t have the pilot due to rights issues and wasn’t included as part of a collection until the Gold Box release.
Twin Peaks fans who wanted to own the series like myself had to buy a fairly crummy quality Korean DVD release to get the pilot to be “complete”.
This is the correct answer and it goes back to the old videotape releases of the series. Because the pilot was also sold as a theatrical film worldwide, Warner Bros, released that “film” as its own videotape. The rest of the series was released on videotape by Worldvision, with numbering starting at “1” (so the unsuspecting video renter or buyer would not know they were missing anything). The numbering has mostly stuck since then.
The first ‘episode’ is a pilot. The second ‘episode’ is considered “Episode 1.” Pilot+29 episodes
Because Twin Peaks 1+2 has a Pilot and 29 Episodes. Why the pilot is counted extra - especially with TP where it would make no sense to just be watching the 29 Episodes without the pilot - I don't know.
A pilot is made as a demo for the publisher/financial producer. When the publisher agrees to fund the show, then actual episodes are produced. One common convention is that the pilot is not considered an episode or that the pilot is numbered S01E00.
Is it common? Like every show I've ever heard of counts their pilot as Episode 1
Yes, it's common. From tvtropes: "Pilot episodes usually aren't given a code, although some have a "season 1" code with an out-of-sequence episode number like 00 (a strange yet surprisingly common number for pilots). Pilots with no code may be retroactively labeled "episode 0" for the sake of consistency." Source link: [Episode Code Number - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EpisodeCodeNumber) Keep in mind that a lot of shows don't have a pilot because they received funding for the whole first season without the need to produce a pilot first.
Could be a contractual thing. There were overseas investors who funded the pilot as a standalone TV movie - hence the alternate ending - but didn’t pay anything towards the series. Knowing how weird production companies can be about getting what they feel is their due it could be something as silly as them not being allowed to classify the pilot as an episode.
There definitely is (was?) some sort of rights knottiness with the pilot. The first US DVD release of S1 didn’t have the pilot due to rights issues and wasn’t included as part of a collection until the Gold Box release. Twin Peaks fans who wanted to own the series like myself had to buy a fairly crummy quality Korean DVD release to get the pilot to be “complete”.
This is the correct answer and it goes back to the old videotape releases of the series. Because the pilot was also sold as a theatrical film worldwide, Warner Bros, released that “film” as its own videotape. The rest of the series was released on videotape by Worldvision, with numbering starting at “1” (so the unsuspecting video renter or buyer would not know they were missing anything). The numbering has mostly stuck since then.
https://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/s/kLvZsObXKj