Twin Peaks: Classic or Dud?

Whilst still a student I lived with someone who had all the episodes on video. In our third year, due to freak timetabling I finished my exams earlier than everyone else I knew. For three days I sat on my own and watched series one and two back to back, only speaking to stressed flatmates when they came down to make coffee.

By all accounts I was a little odd at the end of it.

I *knew* there would be a Twin Peaks thread on here somewh

I know what you mean, but seeing as there is no ending it's a bit unfair to pick on it for being a crap one. "Nonexistent" would be better.

Last week I watched episodes of On the Air, the surprisingly sitcommy show Lynch developed after Twin Peaks. Slapstick. Most of it played out like the Twin Peaks beauty pageant. Very torn as to its classicness versus dudness.

Classic, of course. I wish David Lynch had the energy to involve himself in each episode, however. The ones he directed are a world apart from the rest of the series.

The actor who played BOB (Frank Silva) died not long after Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me came out, so no danger of spotting him on the street. The scene where he crawls over the coach to Maddy's horror is terrifying.

I'll try and chase the second season.

Classic. Classic. Classic.

the seldom seen Hayward sisters Harriet (twee and so hilarious - 2 scenes) and her piano playing sister Gersten (awesome boogie woogie retainer speech affect - sadly one scene).

Another continuity error that sticks in my craw was how in the last episode, Norma and Ed repair to her home to look after Nadine (thwacked by a sandbag during the Miss Twin Peaks contest), but make no mention of Norma's sister Annie who has been kidnapped by Wyndam Earle. My guess is that David Lynch (who wrote/directed the final episode) was not too fond of the plot contrivance that was Annie and just acted as though she were marginal to the story.

I haven't even watched this series for years, but such was my devotion to it that I remember such minutae even now. Embarrassing, isn't it?

Twin Peaks: mostly Classic. Faltered a lot in the middle, and then got canned just as things were really picking up at the end. Lynch had pretty much left the other writers to do as they please, if I remember right, only to come in and ditch their plans for the last episode, leaving us with ... well, that.

I spent a month in college doing nothing but watching David Lynch stuff, for a paper. I can never watch Eraserhead again.

It's hard to believe this was ever a network television show, I can't imagine any of the networks airing something like this now (I think the failure of Mulholland Drive as a series confirms this).

I always felt like Lynch just ran out of ideas or something.

We own the DVDs for the first episodes - they're great and the "extras" aren't bad, either. Purchased the vidoes from Amazon - quality so horrid that toward the end we could not hear the dialogue. But the creepy music came through.

I liked that I kept being thrown for a loop with the plot lines. I hate it when things are predicatable. (And, well, I thought that the sheriff was a hottie - but I found Audrey more enticing. Never understood how Cooper restrained from kidnapping her and showing her the error of her ways, or something equally as entertaining.)

my other theory is that lynch, with TP, had an almost perverse understanding of what makes teenage girls with a certain disposition tick. as a dude, i can be a fan of course, but all the sinister, hidden shit going on with mom, dad, boyfriends, sisters, etc., ... everything is not okay! anyway, these theories are, like, quarter-baked, obviously.

i like the show. it's weird!

Leland's death is a truly devastating and tragic moment, i was surprised at how affecting it was upon a decades-later rewatch, and my 13 yr old at the end simply said "wow."

Yeah that scene is a tour de force… I don’t remember it making a particular impression when the show first aired, but rewatching it as an adult I’m like.…”!!”

have to admit i was prepared for cringing my way through the Duchovny scenes all these years later but i thought the Denise character has been handled about as well as could be expected for a show of its time. obv there were the lame reaction shots from other characters but Cooper just being completely happy for Denise and at ease with the situation is very moving. no memory of how it goes the rest of the way forward but i'm only at the episode where Major Briggs reappears at the end wearing vintage pilot gear.

It’s far more realistic that Cooper is “yay!” and Harry’s face is “sure, if Coop says so” and Hawk’s face is “hmmm” than if they were all celebrating this person they’ve never met

especially given the past range of FBI weirdos that Coop’s brought to interfere in their work previously

iirc literally every line denise says is some kind of joke about how she’s trans. i could’ve been inclined to find it offensive but it was pretty funny sometimes, and it’s not mean-spirited

Duchovny plays it with a certain amount of panache where those comments come across more as lightly teasing everyone else rather than being self-deprecating

yeah “I still put my panties on one leg at a time” is an undercutting of cliche, of masculinity, and of binary expectations around transness all at once, while also being an okay joke, and more than anything, an incredible piece of character writing: showing how Coop and Denise were close enough colleagues to swap cliched banter in the field, genuine enough bros to share prurient admiration without performative leering, and trusting enough in each other’s open-heartedness that Denise knows Coop will take it both as rebuke and intimacy. But her lines totally could have played horribly with a different performance stressing the jokes.

Also, it provides me and my wife to use variations of this exchange on a regular basis:

“(something something)… if you know what I mean?”

“Not really”

Got the Z to A set, so started my first rewatch in at least 20 years, probably longer. First thing that struck me was a reminder of how iconic all the young female actors are, and how lame all the young dudes are, but in this show the soapy stuff is as entertaining as the surreal or supernatural stuff.

I watched the Blue Rose edit after learning about it from reading this thread, and kind of had a bad time with it. I ended up watching it in chunks over a couple of days; definitely not as fulfilling an experience as my theatrical viewing of the official cut. Am I correct though that the Blue Rose cut explains Teresa Banks's whole connection to BOB in a way that was cut out of the theatrical release? Because I sort of appreciated that that unified the Chris Isaak investigation scenes with the rest of the film. Mostly otherwise I couldn't tell at all what was an addition from The Missing Pieces, which I'd seen separately a few years ago (that might be part of my problem).

xp Bobby's not a cool character (like, as a person) but I think he's iconic! (James is iconically lame, I guess...)

most of the additional stuff in the blue rose cut is in the Laura portion of the film; the only main addition to the Chris Isaak/Banks section is the fist-fight with the sherif, I think. I can't recall now if the scene where Leland goes to meet Theresa was in the theatrical cut or not. the most important restored part is the longer Philip Jeffries/Bowie section.

I suppose as characters go they are all iconic, given the show and its legacy. Kind of amazing that none of the young actors amounted to much, acting-wise. I guess their particular abilities worked here and not anywhere else.

Alicia Witt was lowkey the breakout actor...

(she was already part of the Lynch Repertory Company, tho)

Leland going to see Theresa and almost running into Laura and Ronette was in the theatrical version.

Ah, OK. Been a while since I saw the theatrical version, then.

The four importantest scenes in Blue Rose for me were the fisticuffs scene, “bring me my axe”, “cigarette! cigarette!” and “no, YOU’RE the muffin”.

What I like about it is how addictive and contrasting the bucolic setup is— it’s necessary to have the second half make any narrative sense

As I was saying, I'm watching this for the first time in decades. Miracle this got on the air. I'd forgotten much/most of it, but there's stuff in the first season I could have sworn I remembered from the second. Anyway, I knew Lynch's actual involvement was inconsistent, but I did find this breakdown from a fan, which was revelatory:

Here’s a comprehensive guide to how Twin peaks worked (as I understand it from dozens of hours of interviews and commentary tracks from the production crew and cast and also reading a bunch). Hopefully this will clear things up and dispel some common misconceptions.

Pilot

The pilot was basically a movie written by mark frost and David Lynch. It was written and produced over a year before any of the rest of the show.

Season 1 Episodes 1-7

It got picked up as a show as a mid season replacement, which meant ABC only ordered 7 episodes. The short duration allowed them to write almost the entire season before a single episode was shot. Lynch and Frost wrote the first two episodes together and then for the remainder basically wrote very detailed outlines of each episode, and they hired other writers like Harley Peyton and Robert Engels to turn those outlines into full episodes. David Lynch left to shoot Wild at Heart after writing up the outline for season 1, so Frost mostly oversaw the writers room. After Wild at Heart wrapped shooting David Lynch came back in time to direct Episode 2 and oversee the editing process for the remaining episodes.

Season 2 Episode 1-9

This time, due to the success of season 1 ABC ordered a full season, 22 episodes, which meant they now had to be writing and producing episodes while others were already airing. At times, they were only 3 or even two episodes ahead of what was airing on TV. David Lynch reportedly had some problems with the direction the show had taken while he was gone, and was starting to experience burnout.

“When I came back from Wild at Heart I didn’t know what was going on with (Twin Peaks). All I remember feeling is that it was this runaway train and you had to commit to it 24/7 to keep it on track. I think if it had just been Mark and me writing together on every episode we would’ve been okay, but we didn’t do that and other people came in. This is nothing against any of them, but they didn’t know my Twin Peaks and it just ceased to be anything that I recognized. When I came back to do an episode I’d try to change things and make it what I wanted, but then it would go off again on other stupid fucking things. It just wasn’t fun anymore.”

Like he said he directed a few episodes early on in Season 2, but he wasn’t nearly as involved in the writing process. The last episode he actually wrote with mark frost was season 2 episode 1. The writers described getting less and less detailed outlines, until eventually they weren’t getting any at all. The breaking point for Lynch seems to have been when they revealed the killer. The network heavily pressured them to do it and both Lynch and Frost have expressed regret over this decision.

Season 2 Episode 10-16

It seems that they had only really storyboarded as far as episode 9 ahead of time, as the original planned story arc which would’ve come next was rejected by Kyle Maclachlan at the last minute. Because they were writing the show as they went along, after they resolved the Laura Palmer story the writers had almost no break to decide where the show was gonna go next. Lynch had stopped contributing at all and went to Japan, and Frost was mainly focusing on writing his movie Storyville, so for episodes 10-16 writer Harley Peyton basically became the showrunner. When people say “David Lynch left the show during season 2” they are referring to these 7 episodes.

After a few weeks of neither David Lynch nor Mark Frost being very involved and the show spinning out of control, Bob Iger took them out to lunch and apologized and asked them what he could do to get them onboard and working together again. It was here where David Lynch first started to contribute new ideas again, with his first being that the Josie Packard storyline end with her being trapped in a doorknob . After this episode ABC took the show off the air due to low ratings.

Season 2 Episode 17-23

Despite his creative differences with the show, David Lynch campaigned relentlessly to get it back on the air. He held press conferences, went on talk shows, and encouraged fans to write to ABC. The fan support was enough that ABC ordered 6 more episodes, and were even optimistic about a third season depending on how well these final 6 did. These six episodes were written and shot all together. Once again Lynch and Frost were involved in the writing process, with Lynch coming up with a love interest for Cooper and casting Heather Graham whom he had worked with previously as well as plotting out the direction the final episodes would take. Mark Frost began actually writing scripts again and Lynch directed the final episode. These final six shows didn’t do any better in the ratings than those that came before them, so ABC cancelled it for good.

All in all, David Lynch’s involvement with the show is kind of all over the place, so it’s hard to say which parts of the show are “him”. Overall Season 2 episode 10-16 are the episodes where he was the least involved, but even his involvement during season 1 and the rest of season 2 varies wildly. The pilot and fire walk with me and the Return are the only parts I consider pure David.

I wasn't sure where Lynch and Graham had worked together before, but it turns out to be a Calvin Klein ad, directed by Lynch and also featuring Benicio Del Toro!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrOyRLN6hXQ

Lynch did more than just direct the final episode, he basically totally rewrote it on the fly, from what I understand

Streaming on Mubi starting on 6/13

My local cinema is showing the first season 2 eps per screening over 4 weekends, so last week I got to see the pilot and “episode 1” on a massive screen in a packed theatre which was a hell of a thing. Audience skewed young, big laughs at the funny bits. That (poss apocryphal) story came up recently of Paul Newman attending a screening of the pilot & saying it was one of the few perfect films he had ever seen; obv I love it even on my little telly but seeing it in the cinema it’s even clearer what was getting ppl excited at those screenings. It’s a fucking masterpiece!
The music on those big speakers (Angelo’s, but also like the wind through the trees, the electrical hum of medical instruments)

That whole opening act of the town learning of Laura’s death, when it’s not yet a murder mystery — everyone seems guilty because they are — the palmer house already a nightmare (who’s upstairs?)

The sequence at the high school always stands out, obv you’ve got two of the greatest ever uncredited extras (dancing locker boy and running screaming girl) but also the unspoken breaking of the news in the classroom, Bobby's interrogation, the principals announcement (something interesting in how this is almost the first time anyone actually spells out what had happened and to whom, previously it’s either unspoken or incomplete (“she’s dead”) and by the end of the ep we have Audrey’s parodic announcement to the Norwegians)

Madchen and Dana even more smoking on the big screen

Even pouty lackwit James Hurley v effective this time round (i like him more than most anyway but still)

Maybe it was the crowd or just that I haven’t watched it in a while but I was surprised at how much I was charmed all over again by cooper, maclachlan is such a force & after the intensity of the first act having him just charge into the text in his car is a perfect disruption (& subverted so well in the first & last eps of s3)

Also this is my 1st time watching since s3 aired & inevitably a lot of things are hitting different: grace zabriskie’s whole (amazing) performance but particularly the animal noises she makes just before being sedated; ronette crossing the bridge, one of the scariest & spookiest shots in the series, & her trembling limbs called to mind American Girl’s juddery “when you get there, you will already be there”; Audrey is “here”; phones are already Very Weird; the twin peaks jail is a kind of hell

ep 1 was also great in the cinema btw despite being more in tv mode, I am hoping that they will show the other 2 seasons

My very slow rewatch has reminded me that this thing totally wouldn't work without Kyle.

Cooper may have been conceived with MacLachlan in mind from the start, which would make sense.

FWIW, I'm not sure if I ever knew this, but apparently Isabella Rossellini was originally cast as Giovanna Packard, who became Chinese when Rossellini dropped out and Joan Chen was cast in her place.

Streaming on Mubi starting on 6/13

― Lithium Just Madison (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 31 May 2025 bookmarkflaglink

Lol

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mubi-presents-twin-peaks-diner-experience-tickets-1387422300449

For anybody who’d like Twin Peaks-meets-Nancy Drew comics, I’d recommend the Hobton Mystery Stories by Kris Bertin / Alexander Forbes, set in a small Nova Scotian town in 1996.

Cooper may have been conceived with MacLachlan in mind from the start, which would make sense.

at least until he actually casts himself.

Picturehouse cinemas here in the UK are running day marathons of the first season at the end of July: https://www.picturehouses.com/movie-details/000/HO00016478/twin-peaks-season-one-all-dayer?filter=

Yikes.

The prince charles in London is showing all 3 seasons, in parts but also as 3 marathons. The season 2 screening is 1210 minutes!