I can’t stand this bloody series. ‘It’s art for the sake of art’. ‘This is really Lynch’s gift to all subsequent media’. ‘There is so much we owe to this series.’
What the hell. It’s just random pieces of script written by monkeys on a typewriter, slapped together. No part of the story is ever finished. ‘Ah but that’s where the depth resides!’. Rubbish. Anybody can write a story that doesn’t properly finish.
Oh I know I will introduce 20 new characters, this will add so much depth. Yeah, they have no motives, no character development BUT I will add this random surreal thing that happens to them, for additional depth. But what happens to X? Who knows! And to Y? You have to guess! And to Z? No one can tell!
Maybe using steel-faced actors will improve the plot? I know I will cast myself in one role with quirky details because it’s so fun. Yeah I don’t know how to act, why? Is it necessary?
And the goddamn music is unsufferable. ‘You can’t separate Lynch’s work from Badalamenti’s music’. Yeah I know they’re both shit. Oh and the effing gigs in the sequel of the series. Aaaaaah!
But at least there is some symbolism! Yes, what is it? Who fucking knows!
It was patchy, especially in the middle of season 2, and somewhat compromised. The studio forced Lynch to name a killer (he wanted to keep the mystery open, as he would have in a film), and sometime after that it sagged into soap-opera tropes. On its own merits, it is a mixed bag, and if judged as “high-quality TV drama”, it’s middling.
Though its main impact was the shows that followed. Before it, TV drama was mediocre soaps and sitcoms with formulaic plots, of the sort that didn’t aspire to be more than chewing gum for the eyes. Twin Peaks and its success showed that TV could aspire to be more than that. If it hadn’t had its cultural impact, there’d have been no X Files, Sopranos, West Wing, Breaking Bad or similar series, just more variations on General Hospital, Hill Street Blues, The Young And The Restless and so on.
If you look at the credits for the patchy part in session two, you find out that’s when Lynch was working on other projects and wasn’t really involved. When he comes back it immediately gets better.
Chris Carter named Twin Peaks as a direct inspiration for the X-Files.
Exceptionally well put. I wish I could make words like you make words. This is a weird comment, but I’m jus saying i like the cut of your jib a lot