Thoughts on "Twin Peaks"

Twin Peaks (1990-1991): Besides "Arrested Development" another series I watched over the past semester and just recently finished is "Twin Peaks." The best way to describe it would be I guess to say it's a David Lynch soap opera, and all the expectations that go with that. It's written as a show with a central mystery of who killed Laura Palmer, but it's directed and acted with a sense of weirdness and off-the-wall humor and dialogue. The latter is what made this show so great and unique. Creating a mood on television is very rare on television, and only when you get a gifted film director like David Lynch did television finally get a show that combined great writing with a great sense of mood and atmosphere.




The show also establishes all the characters in the town of Twin Peaks fairly quickly and does a magnificent job of getting you invested into the city and even into subplots that don't have anything to do with the murder mystery. It plays with the same theme in Lynch's great film "Blue Velvet", which also shows the deep rooted secrets and violence of a seemingly small and quiet town. Though this show is different from "Blue Velvet" in the sense that the characters are much more quirkier. They constantly reminded me of the characters in one of my favorite Coen Brothers movies, "Fargo." If you've seen the film, you know the quirky I'm talking about. There are lots of great small details about many of the characters that help you get through the lackluster parts of the second season.

Now is probably a good time to tell you that when I compliment this show, I'm probably mostly talking about the first season and maybe a third of the second. The rise and fall of "Twin Peaks" is another very fascinating point. The contrast of the great first season and at times horrible second season shine an interesting light on the trajectory of a series. From an artistic and critical level, at its peak the show was one of the best mysteries ever on television, but at its worst it was a lame, average soap opera. From a ratings level, at its peak it was a huge hit that made star Kyle Maclachlan and David Lynch almost household names, but in that second season it fell and became a cult show. Once the killer of Laura Palmer is revealed, the show struggles slowly and painfully to figure out what to do. Both creators, Lynch and Mark Frost, admitted ABC pressured them to reveal the killer and that the second season was not good. There are subplots that are sometimes painful to endure and the show takes some time to really find its stride again, and when it does in that Lynch directed finale, the show is over. It's almost too bad that the show got good again in the last few episodes, because otherwise I could have recommended that you stop watching after Laura Palmer's killer is revealed, but because those last few get good again I can't do that.

While it's not perfect, there are lots of unique things to love (including the unconventional nods to Eastern philosophy) about "Twin Peaks" that it make worthwhile for everyone, and a must watch if you like Lynch.

The first season: A-
The second season: B