If you’ve read my most recent Friday post, you’ve probably figured out that the early-1990s TV series Twin Peaks looms large in The Missus’s and my collective imagination.
(Actually, we have a habit of latching onto odd, off-center network series which don’t have a chance in hell of surviving past the first season or two — simply because of the confusion and venality of network executives. Don’t even get us started on American Gothic.)
When we met, online, in 1991, the show was in its first season. Prior to the premier, I’d read a review by — of all people — Pauline Kael, in The New Yorker, and it made up my mind that I just had to watch that episode, even if none of the later ones. I can’t find this review online anywhere (even though, with my subscriber’s credentials, I’ve got access to the magazine’s entire archives; maybe I read it somewhere else?). But Kael was nuts about the premier episode; she wrote of the first glimpse of Laura Palmer as something like “quite possibly the deadest thing you will ever see on network television.”
(That’s that Laura Palmer at the right. Above and to the left is Laura Palmer as the folks of Twin Peaks, Washington, tended — through their rose-colored glasses — to think of her.)
It’s hard to describe the show’s appeal, without sounding like a groupie or someone with a twisted sense of humor. But I can tell you the things that (aside from our relationship) The Missus and I value about it:
- The music: It’s become a threadbare convention of TV series to incorporate real music — pop hits, often oldies — as their soundtracks. This can be more or less effective, depending on the sensibilities of the show’s producers. The Sopranos, for instance, consistently chose perfect songs both to accompany the on-screen action and to play over the closing credits. But Twin Peaks had a real film composer, Angelo Badalamenti, working on its score. And damn did it work, from the title song to the jazzy, finger-snapping music which accompanied the scenes during which (say) Audrey Horne danced by herself, as here:
- The characters: Any list of these would start with the one played by the show’s star, Kyle McLachlan: FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper.
He first appears well into the premier episode, on the trail of a serial killer whose most recent victim, he believes, may be Laura Palmer. Cooper’s in a car driving through the evergreen woods of the Pacific Northwest, and rhapsodizing into a little tape recorder to “Diane” (his presumptive assistant, whose voice or face we never encountered throughout the whole series) about the trees, and the coffee, and cherry pie, and — oh yes — the gruesome murder of this young girl. Cooper’s probably one of the five weirdest characters ever portrayed on TV, including cable TV, and yet also one of the most strangely endearing. - The “look”: Douglas fir branches thrashing in the wind; a traffic light, changing at night from green, to yellow, to red, to green; Cooper’s dreams of a mysterious red-curtained room in which a little man dances, and Laura Palmer (or is it?) whispers secrets (or are they?) into his — Cooper’s — ear; doughnuts, in a dozen stacks of two apiece, arrayed across the top of a conference table at the local Sheriff’s office; a gaunt bald giant, spotlighted, informing Cooper It is happening again; Windom Earle throwing knives at Major Briggs, mounted like a magician’s assistant on the big revolving disk… Unforgettable.
The humor: Considering how dark and frightening are the events depicted, and considering the nightmares many of the characters are clearly living, it’s surprising how damned funny the series is. Most of this is bizarre humor, especially centered around the characters’, er, foibles. (Viz., Big Ed’s one-eyed wife Nadine, and her quest to invent 100% noiseless curtain runners, or the forensic genius Albert Rosenfield, surely the rudest man ever to cross the town line of Twin Peaks, or the cross-dressing/undercover FBI agent Dennis/Denise played by David Duchovny, pre-X-Files.) But it’s hard — for me, anyway — to get through even 15 minutes of an episode without laughing out loud.
I’m not out to make converts of anyone — I know the series wasn’t to everyone’s taste. (And I know how much it threatened to ride off the rails, especially during its second and final season, especially after we learned Who Killed Laura Palmer. (Many viewers think that the “threatened to,” there, is superfluous.)) And I can’t ignore the knowledge of all the great TV that preceded and followed it — nor the knowledge that, after all, it’s only a TV show.
But Twin Peaks continues to have the allure and appeal of a cultural milestone; I’m really glad to have experienced it when it happened. If you missed it then and since, you might want to take a peek at it via Netflix or your local video store. Just the first episode. Just that one.
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About this post’s title: The “very dead things,” of course, refers to the Pauline Kael quote. As for the second phrase, it’s one which Cooper utters. He is going through the personal effects of Laura Palmer, including a diary with some unsettling contents, and he’s narrating all of what he sees and his reactions to it into his little tape recorder. The scene ends with the line, “Diane, I’m holding in my hands a small box of chocolate bunnies” — one of those lines which is pretty much guaranteed to bring a hoot of recognition from just about any TP fan.
Oh you know I love Agent Cooper. And the music. And it was funny and dark. The other day when I read your lovely post about the show I listened to the music three times. Sigh.
Why did that show have such an impact on me? I admit to wanting to write something similar. Two people have told me that my novel reminds them vaguely of Twin Peaks–and they didn’t know I was a fan of the show! That made me very happy, of course.
ha. recaptcha: the swoon
Ah, you take me back. Just seeing Laura Palmer there — both alive and dead — gave me the creeps again. (Hmmm…I wonder what that actress is doing now.)
You’re right about the humor, too. They don’t make shows like that anymore. (Number 7,000 in the Grumpy Old Man series of mine.)
I need to watch these all again on DVD one day soon.
The uncanny coincidences of taste continue! Check out this post of mine to see how Twin Peaks had taken over my life in 1991.
ReCaptcha: spokesman Caiaphas
How does it keep doing that??
Of course, if ReCaptcha confronted me today with How’s Annie?, that would be just way too scary.
No one quite knew what to make of Twin Peaks here – always enjoyed it, hyper-surreal American gothic.
marta: Were (are) you a fan of David Lynch’s other stuff, too? I couldn’t watch all of Eraserhead — was just too freaked out by it — but his other movies, oh yeah!
We started rewatching the series on Friday night. Damn, is all I can say. Just damn.
Jules: I hesitated before incorporating the dead version of LP because it is quite disturbing to see it next to the homecoming-queen version.
I think while Twin Peaks was still on, another network introduced a show starring Jim Belushi (?!?) which was supposed to be in the TP mode. Title had something to do with palms, I think. Wild Palms? Something like that. Anyhow, I NEVER watched that show; I would’ve felt cheap, if that makes any sense!
froog: You know, in the future I should just open up these pop-cultural lookbacks with boilerplate text saying something like “Before reading further, check both Froogville and the Round-the-World Barstool for similar and probably earlier posts on the same subject”… That’s quite a memory you blogged about. I expect never to meet another soul who can tie a Twin Peaks memory to Crete. :)
Kate: That’s funny, about the across-the-pond reaction. At least 3/4 of the audience here didn’t know what to make of it either.
Your mentioning American lowercase-g gothic reminded me that I meant to include a link from my second paragraph to information about the uppercase-G version. Another show washed away by the tides of mismanagement.
froog: Forgot to mention — although I know it will probably just frustrate your YouTube-crippled self — YouTube has a LOT of TP material, including the moment when Coop rams his head into the bathroom mirror and starts the “How’s Annie?” chant, while grinning demonically.
Many of the carpers about that last episode always missed the point, it seems to me; the right question (besides “How’s Annie?” itself) to ask was along the lines of, “Well, for what OTHER show could this possibly be the finale?” Heh.
I’ve never seen one of David Lynch’s movies. Not sure why. Sometimes when I love something a lot, I’m afraid to see more work by that person. Weird, yeah. Also, the tv show was about as out that as my nerves can handle. My friends would say, “Marta, you should NOT see Blue Velvet.”
It’s like Torchwood–it really stretches my nerves as far as I want them to go. I’m a wimp.
This is a LONG video, but if you’re interested, you could check this out. http://forum.wgbh.org/lecture/consciousness-creativity-and-brain
Thank you for that trip down Twin Peaks memory lane. I too was a fan and you have inspired me to Netflix it. As for Laura Palmer being the deadest thing on network TV, I thought you were referring to the picture of her alive, and I still believe that picture is deader than than the dead one.
marta: Not weird at all, no. For the same reason, I’ve never read any Tolkien other than LotR. (And for what it’s worth, I agree with your friends. :)
Appears to be an excellent video, based on the first few minutes. But you’re right — watching the whole thing will definitely have to take place outside the workday!
Squirrel: I love that comment about the dead photo(s).
The series seems to hold up pretty well, now that we’re watching it again. Some things obviously dated, like the forensic science (matching the blood on a shirt based on blood type only?!?). And the medium itself seems to have learned some things from Twin Peaks: not sure that without it, there could have been an X-Files, say, or a Lost. I’ve read some recent looks back at it which talk about over-the-top acting, that sort of thing, but I think that has more to do with over-the-top characters than o-t-t actors.
(Last night, I noticed something I’ve never seen before, for all the times I must have watched the episode: in a brief scene-setting pan of Big Ed and Nadine’s living room, among all the dainty china dolls and other ornaments is a porcelain Degas-style dancer… with a black patch over the left eye!)
Just perfect. Wonder what else we missed.