Twin Peaks
Network: ABC
Years Aired: 1990-1991 – Two Seasons – 30 Episodes
Sunday, April 8. 1990. I’m a freshman at the University of Arizona. Something profound happened to me that day: I watched the pilot episode of Twin Peaks. And television, for me, would never be the same.
I seem to recall there was some buzz about the show back in late ’89, early ’90 – after the networks’ fall schedules started airing. I read a little blurb in USA Today regarding a David Lynch/Mark Frost project that ABC might plug in as a mid-season replacement. I talked it up a little bit with my friends, and then kind of forgot about it. So I have Dallas Dendy to thank, for passing by my dorm room that Sunday in April of 1990. “Hey, Craig – that Twin Peaks show you were talking about is on tonight.”
Twin Peaks was like nothing I had ever seen before on television. It had a strange but wonderful vibe all its own, a timeless quality that makes it stand up so well today. Angelo Badalamenti’s “dreamy” musical compositions were a perfect fit. And while it certainly had its freaky moments and oddball cast of characters, which often over-shadowed some of its subtler charms. Twin Peaks could be very funny and sometimes even naively sentimental. The characters and their relationships were overlooked as well, and at the center of this was FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper.
Cooper, played brilliantly by Kyle MacLachlan (who also teamed with Lynch in Blue Velvet), comes to town to solve Laura Palmer’s murder. He brings with him a guarded past and the outside world. Cooper refers to Twin Peaks as the kind of town where, “a yellow light still means slow down instead of speed up”. And he quickly falls in love with it, forging many friendships along the way. Most importantly, Sheriff Harry S. Truman, whom he teams with to catch Laura’s killer. And troubled, but wise beyond her years, teen Audrey Horne – who’s father owns half the town. Not everyone in Twin Peaks welcomed Cooper with open arms, though. Building off this fascinating character, Lynch and Frost constructed this elaborate universe. Anything could happen, and usually did.
Ratings were terrific in April and May of 1990. The pilot plus seven episodes that made up Season One had everyone asking “Who Killed Laura Palmer?” in much the same way people were asking “Who Shot J.R.?” ten years earlier. I honestly never got that caught up in the mystery. I was too busy enjoying everything else about Twin Peaks: Special Agent Dale Cooper, Ben Horne and the Great Northern Hotel, Shelley Johnson and coffee at the Double R Diner – I could go on and on. But the very catch phrase that initially made the show so widely popular with the mass audience was also probably its undoing.
Network executives, along with the general public, quickly lost their patience with Lynch’s strange twists and turns, dreams and midgets. It was actually his intention to push the Laura Palmer mystery to the background, and focus on all the other great characters in the small town “filled with secrets”. ABC forced Lynch’s hand, rushing he and Frost into revealing the killer. (Ironically, this wouldn’t be the last time ABC and Lynch didn’t see eye-to-eye. In 2000 ABC green lighted a little pilot called Mulholland Drive, only to dump it from their fall schedule at the last second).
Ratings went downhill in a hurry in Season Two. And after Laura’s killer was revealed, Twin Peaks was cancelled…only to be brought back thanks to a massive grassroots write-in campaign by the remaining dedicated fans who couldn’t get enough (including myself, of course).
But it wasn’t meant to be. ABC finally pulled the plug on June 10, 1991, after only 30 episodes. Whether it was the clueless network execs or the fickle viewing audience, placing blame isn’t really the point here. Twin Peaks arrived during a very stale dramatic period in television, consisting of shows like the burned-out L.A. Law and cheesy Hunter. Twin Peaks woke people up to other possibilities. Soon after its cancellation, unique dramas like The X-Files, Picket Fences and Northern Exposure (which filmed in some of the same locations as Twin Peaks) came along with aliens, quirky off-beat characters, small town locales in Wisconsin and Cicely, Alaska: suddenly nothing was off limits anymore. And its influence can still be felt today, from Veronica Mars and Carnivale to Lost and Desperate Housewives.
So maybe it wasn’t meant to last. Maybe it was too good for television. Like the influence the Sex Pistols, Guns N’ Roses or Nirvana had on the music scene, Twin Peaks came and went in a brilliant flash, but left an irreplaceable mark. Its presence will be felt long after shows with three times the episode count are forgotten. It proved that TV didn’t have to play second fiddle to film, or be looked down upon.
Rumor has it Paramount will finally be releasing the entire series, pilot and the second season included, this coming February. If you’re serious about television and haven’t witnessed it yet, do yourself a favor and give it a shot. Invite friends, host a weekend marathon, and keep the coffee coming…
