Jake

Twin Peaks Discussion

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In this thread we talk about Twin Peaks errata. Anything interesting you find or observe, and want to share and discuss.

A couple notes:

- If you want to talk about a specific episode, try and use that episode's rewatch discussion thread if possible.

- Please try your to give context to your spoilers so people reading will know if they can click them.

- That said, if you are a reader who is concerned about being absolutely unspoiled, the advice, as always, is to just avoid spoiler tagged content.

Woo!

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Great idea. FWWM in particular has been hijacking recent episode threads. And probably will continue to do so as some of the upcoming TP episodes prove slightly less...compelling.

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Currently, there's no way to stream FWWM in the US, as far as I know (which is like Hulu, Amazon Prime, or Netflix) and online "legally obtained" copies often are bad cuts that are missing scenes or are fan-cuts that include Missing Pieces footage. However, you can buy the DVD in the usual places. I got mine from Amazon. 

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Errata from recently:

 

Please watch Psych, season 5, "Dual Spires" because it is the most hilarious homage/send-up of Twin Peaks obviously made by fans on the show's team. It includes a lot of actors from S1/2 of Twin Peaks, albeit in different kinds of roles, but worth it. The jokes are hilarious. 

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Yesterday was David Lynch's birthday!  In tribute, a group of artists released a Twin Peaks "Retro Synth" tribute album.  I have not yet listened so I have no idea what I just linked.
 
Also, the Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews I linked in another thread were apparently a lead-up to his article "Twin Peaks Revisited" which he wrote for Spanish magazine Caimán Cuadernos de Cine.  It covers the entire series and film and it's nice to know Rosenbaum shares my dislike of (spoiler?) Windom Earle.

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Errata from recently:

 

Please watch Psych, season 5, "Dual Spires" because it is the most hilarious homage/send-up of Twin Peaks obviously made by fans on the show's team. It includes a lot of actors from S1/2 of Twin Peaks, albeit in different kinds of roles, but worth it. The jokes are hilarious. 

Man I love Psych and that episode in particular I managed to catch not long after I watched Twin Peaks for the first time. It was incredible.

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My girlfriend got into Twin Peaks because of that episode of Psych. That then sent her into the X Files. I wonder how much that Psych episode actually got new people onto the show, especially since it was around the same time the Gold Box dvd set came out? I know for a fact that it is a non-zero number!

It is my hope that, at the end of it, we can do a couple weird Rewatch episodes about Missing Pieces, and things like the Dual Spires Psych episode and any other longform or really impactful Twin Peaks hits in culture. (I don't know if I want to read the Secret Diary and other book that came out, though. I read a bit of Secret Diary and didn't really enjoy it, personally.)

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Yesterday was David Lynch's birthday!  In tribute, a group of artists released a Twin Peaks "Retro Synth" tribute album.  I have not yet listened so I have no idea what I just linked.

 

Also, the Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews I linked in another thread were apparently a lead-up to his article "Twin Peaks Revisited" which he wrote for Spanish magazine Caimán Cuadernos de Cine.  It covers the entire series and film and it's nice to know Rosenbaum shares my dislike of (spoiler?) Windom Earle.

 

Thanks again for the Rosenbaum link. I was hoping he would have more to say than just those intros. Can't wait to read it.

 

EDIT: Good stuff, but still short especially compared to what he originally wrote back in 1990. I'd love to read another long Rosenbaum piece on the series (and film), if he ever decides to write one.

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Oh good, I hope we get an episode about The Missing Pieces. There's so much good stuff in there. I particularly like

Ed and Norma's scene in the car and Cooper's scene with Diane

. They're both really sweet without feeling cheap.

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It is my hope that, at the end of it, we can do a couple weird Rewatch episodes about Missing Pieces, and things like the Dual Spires Psych episode and any other longform or really impactful Twin Peaks hits in culture.

Like, maybe, perhaps, Deadly Premonition?

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Way back when Twin Peaks was first on the air, I, and my other obsessed friends watched with microscopic intensity.  One of the things we discovered from context of the shows is the dates that each episode took place.  The pilot opens at dawn on February 24, 1989 which is the same date that Laura died.  Each episode is about one day in length, though some episodes end well after midnight, still, the following episode picks up after dawn on the same day.  The end of season one takes place on the day and night of March 3, 1989 yet ends well after midnight on March 4, 1989.  Season two opens later in the day on March 4, 1989.  This stands throughout the first season, and well into the second until you get to the episode that has the text that says, "Several Days Later", which makes it harder to determine what days things happen from then on.

 

February 24, 1989 was a Friday, so the 25th and the 26th were a weekend.  Once you know the days of the week, the lack of school attendance on the part of some of the high school characters begin to make sense.  Donna isn't skipping school to deliver food for the Meals on Wheels.  She's just delivering it on a Saturday.  That's not to say that characters aren't skipping classes, though.

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I just thought I'd share this great find with you all. I remember the hosts pointing out that Twin Peaks was crazy popular in Japan and that's true. I'm sure many of you have seen the Georgia Coffee commercials. This is something different and neat though. This series of videos appears to be from a Japanese release of something called the "Twin Peaks Visual Soundtrack". What they are is footage of the Snoqualmie Valley shooting locations from the time of the series. They are a really neat time capsule. 

 

The most interesting one in my opinion is this one:

 

It explores the train graveyard where they filmed the exteriors of Laura's death location. Now in the series the interiors of the train were built on sets. In this video you can see the actual interior of the old trains. It's pretty cool/gross. I went to the Twin Peaks Fest last year and visited most locations, but this wasn't on the trip. I don't even think it's still there. I'd still love to go to the location and see what I can find, but the train graveyard is really mysterious. It's one of the few sites not mentioned on this excellent site that shows shooting locations then and now: http://www.intwinpeaks.com/2008/02/locations.html (They even located the exact branch the bird from the credits perches on for Pete's sake!)

 

From what I can tell I'm guessing these Visual Soundtrack videos were taken in maybe 1992 by a Japanese film crew (In some of the videos you can see the towns folk staring). The double R diner is already sporting the "Twin Peaks Cherry Pie" sign, so I think it's after the series run. However the town of North Bend is still in full Twin Peaks promotional mode as you can see some gift shops in the videos selling all sorts of memorabilia .

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I just thought I'd share this great find with you all. I remember the hosts pointing out that Twin Peaks was crazy popular in Japan and that's true. I'm sure many of you have seen the Georgia Coffee commercials. This is something different and neat though. This series of videos appears to be from a Japanese release of something called the "Twin Peaks Visual Soundtrack". What they are is footage of the Snoqualmie Valley shooting locations from the time of the series. They are a really neat time capsule. 

 

The most interesting one in my opinion is this one:

 

It explores the train graveyard where they filmed the exteriors of Laura's death location. Now in the series the interiors of the train were built on sets. In this video you can see the actual interior of the old trains. It's pretty cool/gross. I went to the Twin Peaks Fest last year and visited most locations, but this wasn't on the trip. I don't even think it's still there. I'd still love to go to the location and see what I can find, but the train graveyard is really mysterious. It's one of the few sites not mentioned on this excellent site that shows shooting locations then and now: http://www.intwinpeaks.com/2008/02/locations.html (They even located the exact branch the bird from the credits perches on for Pete's sake!)

 

From what I can tell I'm guessing these Visual Soundtrack videos were taken in maybe 1992 by a Japanese film crew (In some of the videos you can see the towns folk staring). The double R diner is already sporting the "Twin Peaks Cherry Pie" sign, so I think it's after the series run. However the town of North Bend is still in full Twin Peaks promotional mode as you can see some gift shops in the videos selling all sorts of memorabilia .

 

Related - this really bizarre Japanese special on Twin Peaks. Unfortunately, there's no English translation for the hosts but these are cued up to short moments that speak for themselves:

 

Bob's "message" to Twin Peaks fans:

A fast-forward stop-motion paper cutout re-enactment of the final Lodge sequence (yes, you read that correctly):

And the hosts stumbling around in the Red Room for the opening sequence of the special:

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Probably linked in at least a couple of the episode threads, but here is David Foster Wallace's piece about David Lynch on the set of Lost Highway. It discusses the David Lynch and the sickness and menace in his movies.

 

http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.html

 

It is a fun, well-written piece. Just don't read it on that website, because it will most likely give you a headache. The essay can be found in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again which I can't heartily recommend if you are at all into essays.

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Probably linked in at least a couple of the episode threads, but here is David Foster Wallace's piece about David Lynch on the set of Lost Highway. It discusses the David Lynch and the sickness and menace in his movies.

 

http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.html

 

It is a fun, well-written piece. Just don't read it on that website, because it will most likely give you a headache. The essay can be found in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again which I can't heartily recommend if you are at all into essays.

 

And of course goes without saying, but don't read it if you want to avoid any future spoilers about Twin Peaks (I don't think he discusses one of the biggest upcoming ones, but this was written after the series and the film and discusses both in their entirety).

 

I don't agree with all of Wallace's takes on Lynch (I don't see Lynch as being as "cold" as Wallace does, although to be fair his early works are much colder and at the time this was written, only Wild at Heart and Fire Walk With Me offered a sense of the more fluid, impressionistic filmmaker Lynch was becoming).

 

But boy does he hit the nail on the head with Fire Walk With Me and the critics' hatred of it (and, to a certain extent, the TV show). And (spoiler if you don't want to know what FWWM takes as its subject, although that's probably already been spoiled by now)

his description of Laura transforming from object to subject is one of the most pertinent statements ever made about that movie.

 

Also love the bits about Balthazar Getty. They had me literally laughing out loud.

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Having heard that David Lynch improvised the Black Lodge scenes of the final episode in one long night and that he tossed the shooting script aside for that, I was curious to see what was written in the script. Suffice to say that Lynch significantly improved on the original plans. But it's not only interesting to observe what he changed, but also what he kept. Some concepts that he introduces in the Black Lodge scenes were already part of the shooting script, like

the doppelgänger stuff and the idea of giving up one's soul, like Windom Earle asks Cooper to do. And then what Bob does to Earle.

While it's not necessarily worthwhile to delve into every episode's scripts to observe the differences that were made while shooting, I think for the final episode it's very telling what was changed and what stayed the same. Would love to hear the take on that on the podcast.

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Having heard that David Lynch improvised the Black Lodge scenes of the final episode in one long night and that he tossed the shooting script aside for that, I was curious to see what was written in the script. Suffice to say that Lynch significantly improved on the original plans. But it's not only interesting to observe what he changed, but also what he kept. Some concepts that he introduces in the Black Lodge scenes were already part of the shooting script, like

the doppelgänger stuff and the idea of giving up one's soul, like Windom Earle asks Cooper to do. And then what Bob does to Earle.

While it's not necessarily worthwhile to delve into every episode's scripts to observe the differences that were made while shooting, I think for the final episode it's very telling what was changed and what stayed the same. Would love to hear the take on that on the podcast.

I recently read the ones that Lynch directed, and there are some interesting changes there too (most notably in the episode discussed in next week's podcast

Cooper is more hesitant about the Log Lady's invitation to the roadhouse). But nothing like the Lodge changes, of course. One interesting thug to note about the doppelgängers is that Cooper's double does not replace him in the script and is glimpsed only briefly in passing. It was Lynch's idea to have Cooper split. I think this made the idea of Cooper's "possession" by Bob - which was Frost's and Harley Peyton's concept - more palatable to him.

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A couple of tid bits.

 

2 things I remember from the director commentaries, One is that the set directors always put a different crazy soup on the board at the double R you can look for it if you are patient. The other was that it was a running thing that the people staying at the great northern always had a different theme in each episode, some are subtle and then there is the singing barbershop quartet convention. 

 

Check out the tarot cards some one made of twin peaks on Esty, Pretty awesome.

 

If you like David Lynch try reading some of Haruki Murakami's Novels or short stories. Pure Awesome.

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I'll be away from the forum for a little while, and when I return we will probably already be in a rough patch of episodes. With that in mind, I wanted to share this viewing chart. It's not recommending you "skip" any episodes - the series is worth watching all the way through - but at least let's you know where you are in the scheme of things, as far as upcoming quality.

 

This is obviously one person's subjective take (I didn't make this chart but I generally agree with his assessment). From what I've seen it reflects the general consensus. In case anyone would rather fly blind and discover the good, the bad, and the ugly on their own terms (as I did on my first run).

 

The only reason I am spoiler-tagging the chart is in case any forum readers want to fly blind (as I did on my first viewing) in terms of quality. There are no plot spoilers - the description contained one but I blacked it out with my beautiful MS Paint skills.

 

Twin_Peaks_Guide_main.jpg

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The romance that never was between Agent Cooper and Audrey Horne got me thinking about one of Kyle MacLachlan's other great screen romances:

 

BwTKjq6CcAIo34K.jpg

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