Twin Peaks

Curtis and I just finished watching the Season One finale of Twin Peaks. Considered one of the best television shows of the 1990s, it was the brainchild of Mark Frost and David Lynch, who directed Blue Velvet (very similar in nature to Twin Peaks). It aired right around the time I was born (in 1990 and 1991), so I had never heard much about it until Curtis decided to order the episodes from Netflix.

I have to say, I have never seen anything quite like it. It combines aspects of crime dramas, supernatural thrillers, and soap operas. The characters in the show live in a small town, the made-up Twin Peaks, Washington, and seem to all be connected to each other through a complex network of love and money. When a high school girl in the town is murdered and FBI Agent Cooper comes to town to help crack the case, the inside story of Twin Peaks begins to unfold. The viewer slowly realizes that everyone seems to somehow be involved in Laura's death. Each episode, I let out several exclamations of "What the #&*%!? They are in this together?" or "Holy #$*@! Why did she do that?" The story is getting so complicated, we're wishing we had a flow chart. We might end up creating one, ourselves.

The other side of Twin Peaks that makes it so brilliant is the cheesy style in which it's made. The music, the acting, the love polygons, and the intense emotions in Twin Peaks are all signature traits of the dreaded daytime soap opera, but here they are used in a way that works. The show clearly pokes fun at itself whenever the characters are shown watching the outrageous fictional soap opera Invitation to Love, where over-the-top acting and unnecessary violence abound. I also sometimes feel like the show is making fun of me, the American viewer, for watching such garbage. But Twin Peaks isn't garbage. It takes the garbage of television and twists it into a beautiful synthesis of humor, suspense, endearing characters, and plot twists. Judging only from Season One, I would go so far as to say the show is very near perfect. Unfortunately, (according to Wikipedia) viewer ratings declined during the second season and the writers were forced to reveal Laura's murderer in the middle of it, with many loose ends left dangling when the show was cut off the air soon after. Another good show gone the way of Freaks and Geeks.

You can view the entire series (2 seasons, 30 episodes) for free (legally) here. The movie-length pilot isn't available here, though, and it provides a nice set-up for the story, so you might want to find it somewhere else or read a summary of it so you don't end up clueless.