Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 5: The One-Armed Man

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Yes, I, Claudius is like one of those things that everyone should see, but no one has time to. I think my wife and I watched it after finishing HBO's Rome, cause we wanted more Romans, of course. One of my friends was lamenting how HBO's Rome ended when it did cause he wanted to see the rest of the story. I tried to impress upon him that it had already been told in I, Claudius cause it picks up where Rome leaves off, basically. He never watched it. His loss. I mentioned I, Claudius for the spindly legs, but the casting for that is surprisingly similar to David Lynch's Dune. I haven't checked but there is probably a casting director in common: Patrick Stewart, Livia, and several others, I think.

 

However, I think this is a complete list of the actors who are in both Dune and Twin Peaks:

 

Kyle MacLachlan Plays Paul Atreides and Agent Dale Cooper
Everett McGill Plays Stilgar and Big Ed Hurley
Alica Witt Plays Alia Atreides and a minor role as Gersten Hayward (the child pianist)
Jack Nance Plays a Harkonnen (Nefud) and Pete Martell
Miguel Ferrer Plays nobody in Dune and Albert Rosenfield; however, his father is Jose Ferrer who played the Emperor in Dune.
Jurgen Prochnow Plays Leto Atreides and has a minor role in Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me as a character in the Black Lodge called “The Woodsman.”
 
This list isn't really that long, but now whenever someone mentions Dune, I get to say, “Yeah, you remember when Big Ed and Agent Cooper rode that sandworm together?”

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Completely off topic

 

Here is my best case for "Everyone Should Watch I, Claudius At Least Once:"

 

This is Livia's (Sian Phillips) speech to the gladiators from I, Claudius. Possibly the most cold hearted speech I have ever seen performed, because she is ordering men to die in an arena as if they are florists who have, in the past, given her the second best roses. Video should start at 30minutes 30seconds.

 

http://youtu.be/TaJlFZRlN8Q?t=30m30s

 

To tie it back to something Lynchian, here is the same actress asking you to simply PUT YOUR HAND IN THE BOX:

 

http://youtu.be/yIDtN8CDQmk?t=41s

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Then I wind up wondering if that was what passed for biceps in 1991?

 

No!

 

On the other hand, though, maybe yes? I saw a side-by-side comparison of these two images (spoilered below just for large images, no Twin Peaks related anything within) once and I can't find it now, but comparing Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in X-Men vs. the more recent Days of Future Past.

X-Men-hugh-jackman-as-wolverine-19520767

 

HughJackmanYoungWolverineXMenDaysofFutur

 

Obviously the first X-Men was ~a decade after Twin Peaks, but I think our expectations for muscular action guys have changed from what they used to be. Arnold was a bodybuilder before he was an actor; I think it's fair to consider him an exceptional case.

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And, sorry to double-post:

 

I also found the decoration in the bathroom very striking. In case anyone missed it and didn't want to go back:

 

high-school-bathroom.jpg

 

At first I thought the spikes were some kind of strange waveform thing, but they are, of course, twin peaks.

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On the other hand, though, maybe yes? I saw a side-by-side comparison of these two images (spoilered below just for large images, no Twin Peaks related anything within) once and I can't find it now, but comparing Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in X-Men vs. the more recent Days of Future Past.

X-Men-hugh-jackman-as-wolverine-19520767

 

HughJackmanYoungWolverineXMenDaysofFutur

 

Obviously the first X-Men was ~a decade after Twin Peaks, but I think our expectations for muscular action guys have changed from what they used to be. Arnold was a bodybuilder before he was an actor; I think it's fair to consider him an exceptional case.

 

Oh, I know, but when I saw " '91" (year of T2) I couldn't resist. ;)

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Completely off topic

 

Here is my best case for "Everyone Should Watch I, Claudius At Least Once:"

 

This is Livia's (Sian Phillips) speech to the gladiators from I, Claudius. Possibly the most cold hearted speech I have ever seen performed, because she is ordering men to die in an arena as if they are florists who have, in the past, given her the second best roses. Video should start at 30minutes 30seconds.

 

http://youtu.be/TaJlFZRlN8Q?t=30m30s

 

To tie it back to something Lynchian, here is the same actress asking you to simply PUT YOUR HAND IN THE BOX:

 

http://youtu.be/yIDtN8CDQmk?t=41s

 

Ah yes. She was so brilliant. Chase has spoken of the influence of Twin Peaks on Sopranos, but I've gotta think there's an I, Claudius influence too. Hell, just look at the character's name!

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An interesting thing I noticed about the show that you kind of commented on is that the idiosyncratic nature of the universe allows for actors to get away with what may not traditionally appealing acting. There are some geniunely bad performances (James), but then also there are performances that are so bizarre and intriguing I don't know what to think of them (Leo, Nadine, Pete)

So well put. It's like in The Room (also mentioned above by another user); by all accounts the horrible acting/everything was not intentional, but then you can use the revisionist defense of "wasn't it so off-putting, creepy, idiosyncratic?" "No, it was actually just bad. You're not fooling me." With Twin Peaks I'd be willing to bet most takes chosen in the edit were intentional though. Just wanted to touch on this though.

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I

 

-Toad, the gross diner-goer is introduced very briefly in this episode.

He later shows up in probably the worst subplot/episode of Twin Peaks, in season 2 when Norma is worried about the restaurant critic

Oh god, the restaurant critic! It's things like that and the James-and-the-cougar storyline that are making me dread some parts on the horizon of this re-watch...

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When listening to the cast I put together what seems to be another case of the mysterious or mystical being translated into the reality of the show. Dr. Jacoby says that, on the night of Laura's murder, he followed Leo's corvet out into the woods. In the rock throwing scene in episode 3, when determining who the "J" Laura was meeting, the rock hits the glass for Jacoby but does not break, while it breaks for Leo. This is my first time watching the show so I'm not sure if that is acknowledged or confirmed/denied later, but it seems like the intent was that Leo is who she was meeting, and Jacoby was nearby so the rock hit for him as well. Assuming that's all true, it validates the rock throwing technique (though most of the mysterious things cooper does, dreams etc, seem considered valid and don't need further proof).

 

I keep feeling like someone is going to call out cooper on the dream stuff, but everyone is bought in and I don't think that is actually going to happen -- its just something I get from more recent stuff, I suppose.

 

Also, Audrey is the best.

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I have a question for newcomers to the series (re-posted from a less busy thread):

 

In the New York article Chris & Jake mentioned on the podcast, the author speculates that perhaps "Twin Peaks has nothing at all in its pretty little head except the desire to please" in contrast to other prestige shows (he cites, for example, The Singing Detective and The Prisoner). At this point in the series, do you have a similar impression of its tone and purpose?

 

I guess this could be separated into a few different questions: Do you consider the show primarily as fun entertainment or as something else as well? Do you think the themes and motifs of the show are there just to bring us into this world or are we supposed to (or can we) take them seriously? Do you think Leonard's definition of meaning gives short shrift to the importance of style, mood, and emotion?

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Regarding the podcast discussion about the photo of Audrey and Laura on Ben's desk, I thought it was meant to keep Ben Horne in the running as a suspect and reflect more on him than on Audrey's contradictory story.

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Regarding the podcast discussion about the photo of Audrey and Laura on Ben's desk, I thought it was meant to keep Ben Horne in the running as a suspect and reflect more on him than on Audrey's contradictory story.

I thought it might be related to the tutoring or whatever that Laura did for Audrey's brother. Maybe its a trip that the Horne's gave her for the help, or something.

Or as further evidence that Audrey is still such a teenager, and is liable to make bizarre statements about people that are her friends but she isn't quite sure about.

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Chris and Jake talking about the Hank-Josie cliffhanger of this episode, and then Jake mentioning "JJ Abrams cliffhangers" for a moment made me think of something. While I could never say in full confidence that with Lost, JJ Abrams (but more so Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse; the actual showrunners) were the first to put a cliffhanger before every commercial, they definitely made it a huge trend in today's serialized golden age. (I think this technique was made even more noticeable by the ever-present trombone "bwaaaAAAAHHHH" right before a scene would cut.) IMO, this actually used the structure of commercial breaks in an inventive way. And this made me made me wonder if the Twin Peaks revival had been picked up by a network with commercials if we would see something like this. The majority of the Twin Peaks episodes usually operate on a low-key level. Yet it'd be odd to see a show now a days that didn't leave you hanging at least a bit before each break. Even a lot of comedies do this now. We know this won't be a problem with Twin Peaks being on Showtime, but I often think about what Twin Peaks could've looked like on different networks or in different time periods.

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I have a question for newcomers to the series (re-posted from a less busy thread):

 

In the New York article Chris & Jake mentioned on the podcast, the author speculates that perhaps "Twin Peaks has nothing at all in its pretty little head except the desire to please" in contrast to other prestige shows (he cites, for example, The Singing Detective and The Prisoner). At this point in the series, do you have a similar impression of its tone and purpose?

 

I guess this could be separated into a few different questions: Do you consider the show primarily as fun entertainment or as something else as well? Do you think the themes and motifs of the show are there just to bring us into this world or are we supposed to (or can we) take them seriously? Do you think Leonard's definition of meaning gives short shrift to the importance of style, mood, and emotion?

 

I'm not a newcomer, this is probably my third time watching it through. Although, it is my first time actually engaging with it on this level, probably because I have this forum to discuss the things I am noticing; but my thoughts are these.

 

According to the wikipedia pages for each episode, viewership was high for the first episode of season two, then descended thereafter. I don't know why the hell that would be, necessarily. I can't imagine people thought that they would reveal the killer at the beginning of the second season?

 

I think of Twin Peaks as a show that made a lot of ambiguity possible for its successors and it changed the way shows are written. However, I think it has a lot of things working against it. There should have been less writers. Season two found a lot of aimlessness and quirkiness (Ed and Nadine) that didn't do it any favors. David Lynch was less at the helm because, as someone mentioned, he had other projects he was working on. The fact that the ratings started to slip on what the TV executives thought was going to continue to be a phenomenon, made it so that they had to inject their opinions into the pacing. The execs probably projected add revenue for the whole season and when it dropped off almost immediately, they probably started pitching a fit.

 

My personal opinion is that the writers of the show not associated with David Lynch, not having access to David Lynch, and David Lynch not being interested in clearing up some of the ambiguities, had to address the ideas of the supernatural elements. Maybe Mark Frost was a bigger help in this arena. But there is a tonal shift that happens in season 2 that, as people have suggested, makes the nature of the magical elements a central piece of the show. Instead of Lynch's desire to have the surreal and the magical be a small piece of the show as magical realism and surrealism, we get to a place where the writing becomes about the nature of the magic and how it works shifting it into fantasy territory (exploring the nature of the magic is the realm of fantasy). I don't think it is a spoiler to say that David Lynch returns (thank god) for the last episode and returns it to its inscrutable and ambiguous roots. 

 

Honestly, before watching Twin Peaks this time around, I didn't understand how much the X Files must owe to Twin Peaks. I like the X Files. I have nothing against it. But I think someone mentioned earlier that the X Files is based on the premise of FBI agents going to small towns to investigate strange phenomenon. The difference being that it ends each episode with a decision on whether the things we have seen are hoaxes, scientifically explained (think genetic mutations), or actually belong in the unknown category with the central arc concerning the possibility of aliens. The purpose of the episodes in the X Files is to illuminate. What David Lynch wants to do is deny your scrutiny.

 

The fact that David Lynch directed the first two episodes of season two and the ratings started to drop is indicative of something, but I don't know what. I may have to go back and watch both of those to make some judgement.

 

I don't think this answers your question LostInTheMovies, but it's my thoughts so far having just finished season two.

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According to the wikipedia pages for each episode, viewership was high for the first episode of season two, then descended thereafter. I don't know why the hell that would be, necessarily. I can't imagine people thought that they would reveal the killer at the beginning of the second season?

 

...

 

The fact that David Lynch directed the first two episodes of season two and the ratings started to drop is indicative of something, but I don't know what. I may have to go back and watch both of those to make some judgement.

 

Good post. The question of when/why Twin Peaks' popularity dipped fascinates me too and I've spent a lot of time looking into it this year. To a certain extent this will always remain ambiguous because all we have to go by are Nielsen ratings. These have some inherent flaws when judging a show like TP (where people watched in groups, and also watched repeatedly via VHS tapings etc) and even to the extent they are helpful they don't tell us WHY viewers dropped away. That said, there are some things we can deduce.

 

1) The season 2 premiere aired on a Sunday night, just like the pilot (far and away the highest-rated episode of Twin Peaks). The following episode, however, aired on a Saturday as did all the other episodes through (I think) February. This has to be a big part of the dropoff because the demographic that made Twin Peaks at least a semi-hit in the first season skewed young, affluent, hip. The types of folks who are usually out on a Saturday night. This was remarked upon right away when ABC announced Saturday as Twin Peaks' new night (back in the spring, when it was renewed for a second season) and though Frost initially played along by saying that the weekend was perfect for social viewing, he later claimed that he and Lynch were shocked by the move. To this day a lot of people feel the execs sabotaged the show, and that this may have been the biggest single factor in its failure. That said...

 

2) The move to Saturday doesn't explain the critical reaction or, anecdotally, the average viewer reaction to the s2 premiere which was largely negative. This spring I rounded up lots of commentary on TP both from 1990-91 and later years. Laying the excerpts out in chronological order does offer some indication of the general response, although obviously it's just a sampling: http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2014/06/gone-fishin-collection-of-commentary-on.html

 

To get more specific, here come the dreaded spoiler tags...

 

The common complaint about season 2 was that it was just embracing "weirdness for weirdness' sake." Which is an odd thing to say given how much more purposeful the show was becoming in the resolution of its mystery. I get the sense that viewers were upset because the show's tone changed, its pace slowed (the waiter/giant scene was a huge audience killer), and its imagery grew darker, more disturbing, and more otherworldly. There was a sense in season 1 than Twin Peaks was a kind of joke that the critics were half-in on but in season 2 they came to feel the joke was on them and got resentful. What they didn't get was that it wasn't simply a joke anymore, if it ever had been. Here are some interesting reactions from the time, culled from the round-up I linked above:

 

"If the purpose of television drama is to communicate, however, what does all this cleverness mean? That "Twin Peaks" is a private joke? That co-creators Lynch and Frost are master obfuscators who enjoy teasing and toying with their audience? That it's necessary to have advanced electronic equipment to comprehend this series?" (L.A. Times, 10/6/90 - after the season premiere, in which the author - get this - insisted that Bob was giving Laura CPR, as proved by breaking the scene down in an editing bay!)

 

"Well, I don't mind being as teased and perplexed as I was at the start of Twin Peaks when Lynch sprinkled the landscape with tantalizing red herrings, but I don't like being taken for a sucker.

Lynch set me up when, after weeks of building elaborate clues and speculation around all the main (and secondary) characters, he suddenly refocused attention on Bob, glimpsed once by Laura Palmer's mother in a vision." & "This isn't mystery, this is manipulation. I think Lynch and friends ran out of story last spring and are making it up as they go along."(Orlando Sentinel, 10/10/90 - this is 11 days after the much-hyped premiere, concurrent with bestselling spin-offs, an SNL episode, and a Time Magazine cover and the author is ALREADY saying "no one cared anymore who killed Laura Palmer"!!!)

 

"We are still talking about it at the water cooler, but the words are not so sweet. Listen closely to these conversations, and you will hear a change of heart about that dish called "Twin Peaks."

"I've had it. Too weird."

"I feel cheated."

We are lovers turned to discontent. The bloom has so profoundly fallen off America`s romance with "Twin Peaks" that we have become as vitriolic as respondents in a divorce case."

"The two-hour movie with which "Twin Peaks" began its new season was a pale, postured image of the original. It meandered over old ground, asked a million questions and satisfied none of our expectations.

More disturbing was the potentially incestuous tango between father (Richard Beymer) and daughter (Sherilyn Fenn) on a bed at One-Eyed Jack's brothel. And the dream images of the mysterious Bob - whether he`s killing or helping Laura - imply that Lynch, whose attitudes about women are disconcerting, has gone slightly overboard in the violence department."

"Teasing can be fun, but this is getting ridiculous."

 

(Chicago Tribune, 10/12/90)

 

And just 6 weeks after the premiere, right after the killer is revealed, Richard Roeper writes in the Chicago Sun-Times:

 

"Less than a year after its premiere, less than a year after the explosion of magazine covers and ecstatic reviews, "Twin Peaks" is now as ice-cold as Laura Palmer's plastic-wrapped body. Mere mention of the show provokes groans and eye-rolling among fallen Peakheads, and nearly violent reactions from those who had stayed away all along."

 

Here's a great article someone shared recently (unfortunately after I did my round-up) which really dives into the widespread discontent/disinterest with Twin Peaks. Lots of anecdotal conversations with random viewers: 

 

http://www.newsweek.com/peaks-valleys-205850

 

Hopefully this all helps somewhat.

 

EDIT: Just re-read the Newsweek article and stumbled across this line: "Says New York attorney Franz Paasche: "There is this uncomfortable sense that the whole show is a joke on the viewer."

 

This REALLY seems to have been a common theme to the backlash. Which brings us right back to that question I asked about what how new viewers perceive the show's purpose (or lack thereof).

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I just found out that David Lynch directed a series of Twin Peaks themed commercials for a Japanese coffee flavored drink using a bunch of members of the original cast. Weirdly, they were filmed in 1993. I guess the show's popularity lasted longer in Japan. They're pretty hilarious and well done!

 

SPOILER WARNING: The last two ads contain references to episodes from late in the second season.

 

 

The spoilers start now!

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Good post. The question of when/why Twin Peaks' popularity dipped fascinates me too and I've spent a lot of time looking into it this year. To a certain extent this will always remain ambiguous because all we have to go by are Nielsen ratings. These have some inherent flaws when judging a show like TP (where people watched in groups, and also watched repeatedly via VHS tapings etc) and even to the extent they are helpful they don't tell us WHY viewers dropped away. That said, there are some things we can deduce.

 

1) The season 2 premiere aired on a Sunday night, just like the pilot (far and away the highest-rated episode of Twin Peaks). The following episode, however, aired on a Saturday as did all the other episodes through (I think) February. This has to be a big part of the dropoff because the demographic that made Twin Peaks at least a semi-hit in the first season skewed young, affluent, hip. The types of folks who are usually out on a Saturday night. This was remarked upon right away when ABC announced Saturday as Twin Peaks' new night (back in the spring, when it was renewed for a second season) and though Frost initially played along by saying that the weekend was perfect for social viewing, he later claimed that he and Lynch were shocked by the move. To this day a lot of people feel the execs sabotaged the show, and that this may have been the biggest single factor in its failure. That said...

 

2) The move to Saturday doesn't explain the critical reaction or, anecdotally, the average viewer reaction to the s2 premiere which was largely negative. This spring I rounded up lots of commentary on TP both from 1990-91 and later years. Laying the excerpts out in chronological order does offer some indication of the general response, although obviously it's just a sampling: http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2014/06/gone-fishin-collection-of-commentary-on.html

 

To get more specific, here come the dreaded spoiler tags...

 

The common complaint about season 2 was that it was just embracing "weirdness for weirdness' sake." Which is an odd thing to say given how much more purposeful the show was becoming in the resolution of its mystery. I get the sense that viewers were upset because the show's tone changed, its pace slowed (the waiter/giant scene was a huge audience killer), and its imagery grew darker, more disturbing, and more otherworldly. There was a sense in season 1 than Twin Peaks was a kind of joke that the critics were half-in on but in season 2 they came to feel the joke was on them and got resentful. What they didn't get was that it wasn't simply a joke anymore, if it ever had been. Here are some interesting reactions from the time, culled from the round-up I linked above:

 

"If the purpose of television drama is to communicate, however, what does all this cleverness mean? That "Twin Peaks" is a private joke? That co-creators Lynch and Frost are master obfuscators who enjoy teasing and toying with their audience? That it's necessary to have advanced electronic equipment to comprehend this series?" (L.A. Times, 10/6/90 - after the season premiere, in which the author - get this - insisted that Bob was giving Laura CPR, as proved by breaking the scene down in an editing bay!)

 

"Well, I don't mind being as teased and perplexed as I was at the start of Twin Peaks when Lynch sprinkled the landscape with tantalizing red herrings, but I don't like being taken for a sucker.

Lynch set me up when, after weeks of building elaborate clues and speculation around all the main (and secondary) characters, he suddenly refocused attention on Bob, glimpsed once by Laura Palmer's mother in a vision." & "This isn't mystery, this is manipulation. I think Lynch and friends ran out of story last spring and are making it up as they go along."(Orlando Sentinel, 10/10/90 - this is 11 days after the much-hyped premiere, concurrent with bestselling spin-offs, an SNL episode, and a Time Magazine cover and the author is ALREADY saying "no one cared anymore who killed Laura Palmer"!!!)

 

"We are still talking about it at the water cooler, but the words are not so sweet. Listen closely to these conversations, and you will hear a change of heart about that dish called "Twin Peaks."

"I've had it. Too weird."

"I feel cheated."

We are lovers turned to discontent. The bloom has so profoundly fallen off America`s romance with "Twin Peaks" that we have become as vitriolic as respondents in a divorce case."

"The two-hour movie with which "Twin Peaks" began its new season was a pale, postured image of the original. It meandered over old ground, asked a million questions and satisfied none of our expectations.

More disturbing was the potentially incestuous tango between father (Richard Beymer) and daughter (Sherilyn Fenn) on a bed at One-Eyed Jack's brothel. And the dream images of the mysterious Bob - whether he`s killing or helping Laura - imply that Lynch, whose attitudes about women are disconcerting, has gone slightly overboard in the violence department."

"Teasing can be fun, but this is getting ridiculous."

 

(Chicago Tribune, 10/12/90)

 

And just 6 weeks after the premiere, right after the killer is revealed, Richard Roeper writes in the Chicago Sun-Times:

 

"Less than a year after its premiere, less than a year after the explosion of magazine covers and ecstatic reviews, "Twin Peaks" is now as ice-cold as Laura Palmer's plastic-wrapped body. Mere mention of the show provokes groans and eye-rolling among fallen Peakheads, and nearly violent reactions from those who had stayed away all along."

 

Here's a great article someone shared recently (unfortunately after I did my round-up) which really dives into the widespread discontent/disinterest with Twin Peaks. Lots of anecdotal conversations with random viewers: 

 

http://www.newsweek.com/peaks-valleys-205850

 

Hopefully this all helps somewhat.

 

EDIT: Just re-read the Newsweek article and stumbled across this line: "Says New York attorney Franz Paasche: "There is this uncomfortable sense that the whole show is a joke on the viewer."

 

This REALLY seems to have been a common theme to the backlash. Which brings us right back to that question I asked about what how new viewers perceive the show's purpose (or lack thereof).

 

This is a really helpful analysis. I'll have to read up on your blog.

 

I love The Giant, always have. I don't understand how people couldn't love The Giant.

 

The moving of the show from one night to the next is really interesting as well.

 

I think one of the other things that makes reviewers nervous is the idea that what they are looking at might not be subject to deconstruction. Reviewers are supposed to provide answers. Especially, I feel, television critics. I feel there has been a wealth of commentary that has grown up about not knowing the whole deal. I don't feel modern reviewers would have as much hardship dealing with an initial viewing, but I don't have any examples. With shows like Lost and the Sopranos and a host of others, I think there are now ways to suggest possibilities without backing yourself into a corner? Movie critics have it a little easier, because the piece is handed to them complete.

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Another visual joke in the vet scene: Lydecker Veterinary Clinic "Aid to the beast incarnate."

post-34446-0-53307700-1415841491_thumb.png

 

And WickedCestus pointed this out already, but here's the shot just afterwards. Note the llama, fire hydrant, and the iguana just chillin' on the floor. Also the lady with the cat can't help smiling and looking up at the llama. That pink harness!

post-34446-0-46316200-1415841680_thumb.png

 

By the way, while Mike doesn't say it explicitly in his monologue at the end of episode 3, when Cooper explains his dream at the start of episode 4 he does say Mike and Bob's tattoo was "Fire walk with me". As a first-time viewer I was anticipating the one-armed man saying this, so it was even more jarring to hear him say "Mom." Weird.

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I just found out that David Lynch directed a series of Twin Peaks themed commercials for a Japanese coffee flavored drink using a bunch of members of the original cast. Weirdly, they were filmed in 1993. I guess the show's popularity lasted longer in Japan. They're pretty hilarious and well done!

 

SPOILER WARNING: The last two ads contain references to episodes from late in the second season.

 

 

The spoilers start now!

 

Wow, those are amazing. That's such a weird thing. Did they air just like that in Japan or did they dub them? 

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Wow, those are amazing. That's such a weird thing. Did they air just like that in Japan or did they dub them? 

 

My understanding is that they aired like that in Japan, without dubbing.

 

It's worth nothing that while Twin Peaks was a successful cult series in the US, it was an absolute phenomena in Japan. It was shown in both dubbed and subbed versions and gained such a large following that Fire Walk With Me was released there four months before it was screened in the US and travel agencies sold vacation packages to Snoqualmie, where the series was shot.

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Since this episode brought up the distinct character of David Lynch's voice, I thought I would take this opportunity to post this clip of David Lynch appearing on Letterman as part of an appeal campaign to keep Twin Peaks on the air. It doubles as a pretty great reflection on the culture at the time.

 

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Another interesting thing about Twin Peaks' popularity in Japan is that it was one of the few places were Fire Walk With Me was a bona fide box office smash, a phenomenon even. Fans there even staged a mock funeral for Laura Palmer!

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This is a really helpful analysis. I'll have to read up on your blog.

 

I love The Giant, always have. I don't understand how people couldn't love The Giant.

 

The moving of the show from one night to the next is really interesting as well.

 

I think one of the other things that makes reviewers nervous is the idea that what they are looking at might not be subject to deconstruction. Reviewers are supposed to provide answers. Especially, I feel, television critics. I feel there has been a wealth of commentary that has grown up about not knowing the whole deal. I don't feel modern reviewers would have as much hardship dealing with an initial viewing, but I don't have any examples. With shows like Lost and the Sopranos and a host of others, I think there are now ways to suggest possibilities without backing yourself into a corner? Movie critics have it a little easier, because the piece is handed to them complete.

 

I like him too but I think it was the pacing that did it (well, that and the fact that people didn't like it becoming too explicitly supernatural when they'd tuned in for a police procedural or soap opera). I showed that scene to someone recently on YouTube and he lost patience after about 6 minutes as the character spoke so slowly. And this was just a clip on the internet!

Imagine settling in on a Sunday night for a two-hour premiere, waiting to find out who killed Laura Palmer and shot Cooper, and being greeted with...this. I think it's this point that separated the wheat from the chaff as far as Twin Peaks viewers were concerned. Those who just felt like sampling the strangeness so they'd have something to talk about at the water cooler probably tuned out, while those who were truly devoted to this world felt, oh boy this is fantastic! Not that there aren't more mixed responses but I'll bet a lot of poeple fell into those two extremes.

 

And I agree that the ongoing nature of it created the potential for backlash and resentment. You can even see this as early season 1: a lot of the critics who were praising it to the hills were ambivalent that it had been picked up for a second season. There was a significant sentiment that it have been better off as a miniseries so as not to overstay its welcome or run the risk of becoming run-of-the-mill. So while I won't be surprised if there is is negativity in 2016 I don't think the same phenemonen will occur because there's an endgoal in sight. With Twin Peaks as a potentially years-long endeavor, the frustration of not knowing if/when its mystery would be resolved became too enormous.

 

As for resisting deconstruction, also agreed. The first season lends itself more easily to postmodern appreciation: it wears its more satirical and playful elements on its sleeve and the viewer, at times, feels in on the joke, conspiratorially part of the winking game. You can tell reading the reviews of season 2 (and later Fire Walk With Me) that most critics honestly didn't have a CLUE what it was doing. Not just where the story was going but what emotion was expected of them: how they were supposed to relate to it. These were qualities that were praised in the pilot, ironically.

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I have a bit of a thought on the visions but it's a spoiler so

 

So, all of this is predicated on me remembering right, so someone with a better memory please correct me if there are holes here.

We know of three characters who have waking visions (Cooper has dreams that tell him things but nothing in his conscious life).

These three characters are Mrs. Palmer, Laura as revealed here. And soon Ronette will also see Bob.

Immediately I wonder if this is specifically due to contact with Bob as he is possessing Leland Palmer? (take whatever you want from the nature of how that 'contact' would work) Is Bob giving these women the power to see these things? I feel it would be appropriate in a sense because it would be another aspect to the torture that Bob enacts on the women, and if Laura is having similar visions then being a wild cocaine fiend would be one way to try escaping it (as well as her father, obviously).

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