I watched the entire Twin Peaks series (the pilot and 28 episodes) over a period of 4 days this week, imagine my state of mind. I hadn't seen it since the original broadcasts in 1990-91. I have thought of it often over the years and seeing it now has reaffirmed my initial response of almost 20 years ago; hypnotic fascination during Season One, hopeful interest at the beginning of Season Two, glassy-eyed boredom in the middle episodes of same, and, at the end, frustrated excitement and even anger that we have been deprived of the continuation of the series into at least a third season.
The first season of Twin Peaks is generally regarded as splendid, a magical, disturbing and moving recreation of a small community of us flawed and beautiful humans. The second season starts well but then chugs and splutters, the tires go flat in the middle episodes only to be pumped up and set back on the road going full-tilt only to crash into the wall of oblivion, not to be renewed for a third season.
It is amazing to me how obviously Lynch and his team dropped the ball after Laura Palmer's murderer was revealed. Once that was done the writers launch into the most sophomoric and tedious bilge about Ben Horne going cuckoo and reliving the Civil War in his office at The Great Northern Hotel, high school pep-rally stuff, and it killed the show dead. This sorry sub-plot was coupled with another one about the most uninteresting character in the series, pouty James Hurley and his Harley. I was tired of his James Dean imitation after episode one, but to be pummeled by two episodes about him and some rich bitch trying to frame him for murder is too much. The poor guy is too stupid for words, as Laura Palmer noted early on in her diary. These 4 middle episodes are pointless and hideously boring and were, I have no doubt, responsible for the loss of a substantial number of the loyal audience at the time. To add insult to injury we are also subjected to a new guest star in the form of the worst actor known to man, Billy Zane. This over-exposed, fatuous vanity-victim is brought in to relieve Audrey Horne of her virginity, then flies off in his private jet, piloted by his perfect self, to fight the ecology war in Brazil or something (burning tons of jet fuel in the process no doubt.) I was bored stiff by these three interminable, adolescent and totally non-Lynch-like sub-plots.
Things revive markedly as the writers got their heads together and made the wicked genius Windom Earl the centerpiece of the end of the season. We get to The Dark Lodge in the end. But this was truly The End as the show was canceled. I wanted to see The White Lodge where love triumphs over evil, as it is we are left with evil rampaging through Twin Peaks for eternity. I find that sad.
We'll never know how Agent Cooper deals with Bob residing in his head, or if Norma and Big Ed get married or if Ben was conked dead or just cuckoo (again) by Dr Hayward, or whether Audrey and Pete Martell were blown to jell-o in the bank vault or whether Leo's teeth hold out keeping the tarantulas at bay until Sheriff Truman and Andy come to his rescue and take him to the Home.
Why did David Lynch allow his 3/4 brilliant creation to dribble away like it did? Where was his commitment? I love his work but I will not forget how he left me in the lurch with the unfinished Twin Peaks, the short-lived prodigy of television, gone down in undeserved television ignominy.
What might have been if the commitment had been as strong as the initial vision. You're better'n that Dave. Dammit.
The first season of Twin Peaks is generally regarded as splendid, a magical, disturbing and moving recreation of a small community of us flawed and beautiful humans. The second season starts well but then chugs and splutters, the tires go flat in the middle episodes only to be pumped up and set back on the road going full-tilt only to crash into the wall of oblivion, not to be renewed for a third season.
It is amazing to me how obviously Lynch and his team dropped the ball after Laura Palmer's murderer was revealed. Once that was done the writers launch into the most sophomoric and tedious bilge about Ben Horne going cuckoo and reliving the Civil War in his office at The Great Northern Hotel, high school pep-rally stuff, and it killed the show dead. This sorry sub-plot was coupled with another one about the most uninteresting character in the series, pouty James Hurley and his Harley. I was tired of his James Dean imitation after episode one, but to be pummeled by two episodes about him and some rich bitch trying to frame him for murder is too much. The poor guy is too stupid for words, as Laura Palmer noted early on in her diary. These 4 middle episodes are pointless and hideously boring and were, I have no doubt, responsible for the loss of a substantial number of the loyal audience at the time. To add insult to injury we are also subjected to a new guest star in the form of the worst actor known to man, Billy Zane. This over-exposed, fatuous vanity-victim is brought in to relieve Audrey Horne of her virginity, then flies off in his private jet, piloted by his perfect self, to fight the ecology war in Brazil or something (burning tons of jet fuel in the process no doubt.) I was bored stiff by these three interminable, adolescent and totally non-Lynch-like sub-plots.
Things revive markedly as the writers got their heads together and made the wicked genius Windom Earl the centerpiece of the end of the season. We get to The Dark Lodge in the end. But this was truly The End as the show was canceled. I wanted to see The White Lodge where love triumphs over evil, as it is we are left with evil rampaging through Twin Peaks for eternity. I find that sad.
We'll never know how Agent Cooper deals with Bob residing in his head, or if Norma and Big Ed get married or if Ben was conked dead or just cuckoo (again) by Dr Hayward, or whether Audrey and Pete Martell were blown to jell-o in the bank vault or whether Leo's teeth hold out keeping the tarantulas at bay until Sheriff Truman and Andy come to his rescue and take him to the Home.
Why did David Lynch allow his 3/4 brilliant creation to dribble away like it did? Where was his commitment? I love his work but I will not forget how he left me in the lurch with the unfinished Twin Peaks, the short-lived prodigy of television, gone down in undeserved television ignominy.
What might have been if the commitment had been as strong as the initial vision. You're better'n that Dave. Dammit.