In an effort to do battle with the summer doldrums and malaise that arise from every worthwhile show going on hiatus, we elected to check out “Twin Peaks," an early ‘90s series that I had never watched. What I found was a mesmerizing story that rather quickly and abruptly turned into a cautionary tale about the triumphs and pitfalls of originality in mainstream media.
The brainchild of creators David Lynch and Mark Frost, the show kicked off with the shocking murder of high school student Laura Palmer -- a crime never meant to be solved by Lynch and Frost. The resulting investigation, in which nearly every resident of Twin Peaks was found to be either hiding something or a suspect, was far-reaching, incorporating elements of religion, the spiritual world, Native American lore, UFOs, demonic possession and a villanous natural world.
After a phenomenal first season that had us burning through DVDs with frightening speed, “Twin Peaks” embarked on a truly mind-boggling second season. It was a menagerie of bad, confusing and illogical plot lines, from transtesticle FBI agents to superhuman housewives, and though Lynch and Frost did their best to salvage the series at the end of the season, it was too late -- just when it was starting to feel like “Twin Peaks” again, it ended. As I watched the train slowly careen into the forest, I couldn’t help but wonder: Has any show ever gone off track more quickly?
I do understand Lynch’s excuse that suits destroyed the series -- after all, Laura Palmer’s killer was never intended to be revealed, but the network demanded it -- but I feel that’s a bit of a simplistic answer. Lynch is right to be bitter and full of regret (he maintains that his idea was that Laura was the tree, and all the other secrets were just branches.), but his own ego and hubris certainly played a role as well. Not only did he cast himself as Gordon Cole, but both he and Frost allowed themselves to be distracted by the pursuit of movie efforts in the second season, relegating “Twin Peaks” back to “just” a TV show and creating a void of oversight. A turnstile of guest directors stymied the show’s momentum and more often led you to think, “Where the hell is this going?”
The meteoric rise and fall of “Twin Peaks” is a shame, because at its best, it was such a formula-shattering show, intertwining comedy and creepiness, sci-fi and after-school special, horror and drama, love story and murder mystery, soap opera and cop show. The fighting-against-convention bent extended to casting, where, on the one hand, Lynch cast a litany of hot young actresses; on the other, he tabbed a set dresser in the vital role of “Bob” basically on accident. [But for me, the actor who stole the most scenes was Miguel Ferrer, who played the hysterical forensic examiner Albert Rosenfield.]
It’s hard not to believe something special was at work on “Twin Peaks,” especially when cast members admitted that they experienced strange dreams and some talked about spirits while the filming was going on. The brutal weather endured for the shooting of the pilot made filming very difficult, but the impact on atmosphere and tension was very important to the show ever being picked up by the network.
There will always be unanswered questions (why did Jocelyn Packard become part of a bedside hotel table? Who is this Diane that Cooper constantly spoke to on the dictaphone? And what was the deal that Cooper truly made at the very end?), but the DVD set did a pretty good job of providing context for what went right—and wrong—for “Twin Peaks.” I was disappointed that they didn’t include the European pilot ending, which wrapped up the whole series in case it had to stand alone and never made it to network.
I’ll say that “Twin Peaks” did a tremendous job of capturing my riveted attention over the course of a week and a half -- it’s only a shame that the series itself couldn’t sustain its own momentum for a much longer period of time.
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