Coming to you LIVE from the Terrorism Capital of the United States (which, on a global scale, is like saying I live in the Soccer Capital of the United States), it's your trusty, slothful television watcher here with another review of another show long-dead that most likely nobody's ever seen or will ever see.
Truly, this has been a marathon couple of months worth of TV watching on my end, with none in sight I might add. On the docket this week - in addition to the Season 3 Finale of Entourage and the next-to-last episode of The Sopranos - is Twin Peaks.
First off, you know a show is gonna be big time when the pilot episode is two hours long. They had it with ER, they had it with Firefly (a show I haven't seen, but have heard excellent things about), they had it with the Incredible Motherfucking Hulk, and they had it with the show I would most associate with the likes of Twin Peaks: they had it with Lost.
I think.
And even if they didn't, who cares? The point is, both Twin Peaks and Lost were/are ABC shows, both are mysteries with numerous amounts of clues and twists and strange, freaky occurrences, and both hit it big right from the get-go with audiences (while ultimately frustrating audiences at the same time because they held/hold back the big payoff to an excruciating degree). Differences: Twin Peaks is a murder mystery, it only lasted for 30 episodes (1990-1991), it is set in Northeast Washington State in a ficticious city called ... Twin Peaks, it was filmed in Northwest Washington State, and it was co-created by one of the most distinctive directors ever, a Mr. David Lynch.
He directed Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive ... pretty much, he's actually turned himself into dismembered brainwaves and LITERALLY directed every nightmare you've ever had. To watch something he's created and be able to say, "Oh, I get it now" would mean that you ... are a fucking liar! No one EVER gets ANYTHING that David Lynch has ever made, not even that movie "The Straight Story" which was inexplicably Rated G and not created by Disney - even a movie like THAT has people going, "What the fuck is that Lynch guy thinking???"
Irregardless, here's what I learned while watching the 2-hour series premiere of Twin Peaks followed by three more episodes:
Twin Peaks has, by far, the worst theme song intro ever in the history of theme song intros.
Kyle MacLachlan has finally been in something that not only DOESN'T make me want to punch him in the face repeatedly (that's including Blue Velvet, The Doors, Showgirls and even The Flintstones movie), but I find that I generally enjoy his presence and look forward to seeing his character in future episodes.
Lara Flynn Boyle is a skinny piece of ass any way you slice it.
The girl who plays Audrey is that David Lynch It Girl - that classic beauty, that example of feminine perfection that he has in everything he ever does: Isabella Rossellini in "Blue Velvet"; Laura Harring in "Mulholland Drive"; Patricia Arquette in "Lost Highway"? OK, maybe I'll buy that.
Including the pilot, there were 8 episodes of Twin Peaks in the first season. Since it was such a runaway smash right out of the gate, they extended the second season to something like 22 episodes before calling it a day. Here's the rub: while the series opened and surrounded the investigation into the murder of Laura Palmer (no relation to presidents David or Wayne), apparently Lynch and co-creater Mark Frost took too long in revealing the killer, so the audience for the show got turned off on the whole thing. And, I think Lynch was more hands-off in Season 2, leading to a diminished quality compared to the epic first season.
So, we'll see. All I now is that the melodrama is flowing like wine, the overacting runs wild over the whole show, the dialogue is campy (presumably by design, but that could be me giving David Lynch too much credit and benefit of the doubt), and I simply can NOT get enough.
Plus, the Log Lady is a superfox.