{"id":4666,"date":"2009-05-31T17:00:53","date_gmt":"2009-05-31T21:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=4666"},"modified":"2009-05-31T17:00:53","modified_gmt":"2009-05-31T21:00:53","slug":"very-dead-things-and-a-small-box-of-chocolate-bunnies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/very-dead-things-and-a-small-box-of-chocolate-bunnies\/","title":{"rendered":"Very Dead Things, and a Small Box of Chocolate Bunnies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"If you’ve read my most recent Friday post<\/a>, you’ve probably figured out that the early-1990s TV series Twin Peaks<\/em> looms large in The Missus’s and my collective imagination.<\/p>\n

(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<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

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<\/em>, 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.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"(That’s that<\/em> 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.)<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n