We just started watching Twin Peaks. Yes, I know I’m twenty years too late. But strangely enough, despite the furor over the show at the time it came out, neither my husband nor I had ever watched a single episode. I have to admit, the show’s pretty surreal. And I assume that’s intentional. But the number of people who are having affairs, are abusive, or just plain got an extra helping of crazy seems rather excessive. It’s like watching some ramped-up soap opera version of Lost.
A few things I’ve noticed… Kyle MacLachlan looks a little unfinished. He’s much better looking now than he was then. The credits are INSANELY long and boring. And the show seems to have a lot of screaming. We faithfully watch Doctor Who, which requires the characters to do an awful lot of running. Running, always running. In Twin Peaks, it seems to be screaming, always screaming. Especially Laura’s mother. Her lungs have gotten a fantastic work out in most episodes so far.
Besides that, both my husband and I were wondering how Twin Peaks would fare if created for today’s audiences, for different reasons. Hubby wondered how people would deconstruct each episode on blogs, etc. as they did for Lost. Myself, it’s more of an academic exercise, as in, what would they have to change (besides those clunky old phones) to account for the internet, and as a result, how the story would have to change.
Or would the story have to change? Could the same story be told, but use different mechanics and processes to come to the same conclusion? Could it be drawn out as long as it was? Would modern audiences be receptive to the deliberate, and at times plodding, pace of the story? Would modern forensics catch the killer more quickly?
Of course, we haven’t seen the entire thing yet. We’re about six or eight episodes in, and I think there are 30 episodes in total. I don’t even know if catching Laura Palmer’s killer is show’s raison d’etre or if there’s something else driving it. I might be able to answer some of my questions more readily afterwards. Or maybe I won’t. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to find out the show ended without resolving many of the conflicts that are coming to light.
Still, I’m enjoying the weirdness of it, and admit to being surprised that it became as popular as I remember it being. Because it is fairly weird, the characters are mostly nuts, and don’t seem particularly realistic or logical. Perhaps Twin Peaks was the progenitor of shows like Happy Town & Harper’s Island neither of which I could make myself watch more than a couple of episodes. Maybe Twin Peaks was a phenomenon that is destined to never be repeated.