Twin Peaks returns in 2016 on Showtime (1 Viewer)

[Winston T. Boogie]

I really enjoyed it and I feel like fans of Lynch or Twin Peaks will really enjoy it. Lynch really delivered, I think, for fans of Twin Peaks and it felt like he was really trying to draw them right in.

I do wonder what people that had not seen Twin Peaks or may not be so familiar with Lynch's work might have thought if they tuned in. I mean this looked like it could have been shot in the 1980s. It moved slowly, lots of long pauses and locked down camera shots, explained nothing, unless you know the show the dialogue and characters were likely a total mystery, the acting often was bad, amateurish, or over the top, and the effects were fairly cheesy. I think all of this would totally throw new viewers...but I guess we will see.

Most of us responding here I think are already fans so we are all in but I really feel like this was not a point where new folks could dive in. I feel like people if they wanted to get into this would have to go and watch the original series and movie first. If you have been there...well...you would enjoy being here.

 

[TravisR]

Was Balthazar Getty the guy shooting his fingers at Shelly? I was trying to think if that looked like Pete Dayton, and I don't recall a character being called Red.

I thought that was him too. Speaking of that scene, I really loved seeing James again. His big toothy smile really brought me back to the old episodes.

I hate to think that the doppelganger has been out in the world for 25 years. Coop is such a good, decent man, and the doppelganger . . . is not.

Yeah, if I had a criticism of the show, it would be how horrible I find it that poor Coop has been trapped for so much of his life while his doppelganger has been out doing evil stuff in the world. That being said, if everything was going well for the characters, there wouldn't be a story.

I do wonder what people that had not seen Twin Peaks or may not be so familiar with Lynch's work might have thought if they tuned in. I mean this looked like it could have been shot in the 1980s. It moved slowly, lots of long pauses and locked down camera shots, explained nothing, unless you know the show the dialogue and characters were likely a total mystery, the acting often was bad, amateurish, or over the top, and the effects were fairly cheesy. I think all of this would totally throw new viewers...but I guess we will see.

I think the shooting, glacial pacing and the occasional deliberately bizarre performance was less 1980's and just pure David Lynch. I was surprised by how they didn't really reintroduce characters (Hawk, the Log Lady, Sarah Palmer, all the inhabitants of the Black Lodge) and just assumed that the audience knew them or didn't care if they don't. No lifelines for the new viewer.


How funny is it that almost all (or all?) the new characters that were shown in the commercials are dead already? I just assumed that since they were featured in the ads that they were main characters.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I think the shooting, glacial pacing and the occasional deliberately bizarre performance was less 1980's and just pure David Lynch. I was surprised by how they didn't really reintroduce characters (Hawk, the Log Lady, Sarah Palmer, all the inhabitants of the Black Lodge) and just assumed that the audience knew them or didn't care if they don't. No lifelines for the new viewer.

How funny is it that almost all (or all?) the new characters that were shown in the commercials are dead already? I just assumed that since they were featured in the ads that they were main characters.

One of the things I was most excited about was just seeing new work from David Lynch. I was not sure how the new episodes would be because today when they bring something back it is often reworked to please the audience of today. In this case they made no...I mean absolutely none...alterations to appease a new viewer. It was totally geared toward us, fans of Lynch and the old show. Nothing was altered, modified, sped up, no nods to the way shows are shot today or any attempt to dumb this down so somebody just getting in could understand it. It was beautiful in this sense to me because I felt like I stepped into a time machine. My wife walked into the room while I was watching it and asked what I was watching and why the acting was so awful and it was so weird. I laughed and said, this is the return of Twin Peaks and she asked if this is how the old show was and I said "Pretty much."

Definitely no lifeline for the newbies.

In terms of how many people are dead, if you look at the IMDB cast listing there are a handful of people in more than one episode but pretty much the vast majority of the cast are listed as appearing in only a single episode. So, they are mostly one and done...which could indicate a really high fatality rate.

Also as an aside, I liked Tracy, the New York coffee girl, and hoped she might stick around.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

So we're all the guy sitting on the sofa watching the glass box waiting for something to happen, right?

(And wow, does he get screwed.)


(btw I enjoyed the return, couldn't resist the gag)

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I know that episodes 3 & 4 were supposed to be "available" right after midnight last night...but, forgive me here, where are they available? I mean they did not air on Showtime right? Because all I saw after watching that last night was they reran the episodes we had just watched.

 

[mattCR]

I know that episodes 3 & 4 were supposed to be "available" right after midnight last night...but, forgive me here, where are they available? I mean they did not air on Showtime right? Because all I saw after watching that last night was they reran the episodes we had just watched.

They are on Showtime on Demand.

 

[Lord Dalek]

I know that episodes 3 & 4 were supposed to be "available" right after midnight last night...but, forgive me here, where are they available? I mean they did not air on Showtime right? Because all I saw after watching that last night was they reran the episodes we had just watched.

Showtime on Demand. Amazon Networks. Hulu.

 

[Joe_H]

I haven't been on this forum in forever and I definitely will not be able to parse the craziness as well as some of the others... but definitely was awed by every minute and haven't been able to stop thinking about it all day - and knew there would be other like-minded lunat... people here.

Also, while Twin Peaks is a show I've rewatched probably 5-10 times over the last 25 years, it was just a little before my time to have been able to watch it on first airing. I don't have live TV any more but just had to sign up for Showtime.com to be able to watch this live. And for any of you who haven't watched 3 and 4 yet, I admire the willpower.

Overall thoughts other than just 'wow' are that David Lynch leaned right into the weirdness... and I love it.

Edit: also, jarring to see these people actually aged. I mean of course they have over 25-26 years, but as characters who stayed the same age forever in our minds that have now aged (except for Madchen Amick who has found a fountain of youth apparently), it's still a bit viscerally shocking.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Yeah, everyone looks ancient (they've done a good job deaging Coop), but Shelly is still stunning. David Patrick Kelly is probably the most shocking. It's been a long time since he's asked anyone to come out and play.

Travis, the saving grace is that I don't think Cooper is even aware of how much time has passed. I hope the first thing he gets is some of Norma's coffee.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

No spoilers on 3&4 please (or at least labeled) for those of us sticking to the Sunday premiere schedule.

I have Showtime On Demand with sub, but like the idea of a week to process as when we first watched the series.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Regarding three and four - I don't think this is really spoilery in any way but will put it in tags anyway:

Spoiler

I totally loved them, but I think they may try the patience of people who think Twin Peaks is meant to be solely a show about a high school beauty queen and quirky townsfolk.

 

[Charles Smith]

This is bliss.

And ... actually, that's really all I have to say at this point.

Except, also: Great story, Matychuk!

I'm envious of that experience. (Not to mention, Tower Records/Books/Video! Ah, the memories. Kill me now.)

 

[joshEH]

Just got through with the four hours.

This is truly Lynch-untethered. Simultaneously beautiful, horrifying, maddening, delightful. Like said before, it is truly its own beast. Bears only slight resemblance to what has come before. A sublime, narcotic experience that met and subverted my expectations, everything and yet nothing what I expected.

Seeing Lynch submerge himself into this universe again is akin to George Miller going back to Mad Max after decades away: wilder and livelier than ever.

Some other notes:

- I think the Bang Bang is a hipster-bar now.

- Another Renault-brother tending bar?

- Matthew Lillard has not aged well.

- I love that Hawk had a massive role.

- Whatever the hell that naked woman/alien/blade-monster was...JESUS.

- In the room with glass box, there was a bonsai tree on the end table. Is the "mysterious billionaire" Windom Earle?

- The Black Lodge-stuff is better and cooler than any of the excursions about it in the original series (except maybe for the ABC finale).

- Lurid as hell. A lot of callbacks to Lost Highway and Blue Velvet.

- The "nostalgia" bits don't have a trace of pandering.

- All the sad faces for the Log Lady, but seeing Catherine E. Coulson in the role one last time is graceful as hell.

- Not sure what was funnier:

Spoiler: Episodes 3-4 Spoilers

"Mr. Jackpots," Cera's oddball Brando-impression, Lucy not understanding cell phones, or Gordon having giant posters of Kafka and a mushroom cloud in his office.

On paper, having Coop's doppelganger as this homicidal criminal mastermind trying to keep his mirror image imprisoned is so preposterous and silly, but MacLachlan's sleazy charm is a testament as much as it is Lynch/Frost's way of grounding the concept and character. He's like Anton Chigurh meets Frank Booth with the texture of 180 pounds of beef jerky. They don't say "Starring Kyle MacLachlan" for fucking nothing.

Spoiler: Episodes 3-4 Spoilers

I like that the process of Cooper's return is shown to not at all be simple, where his experience in the Black Lodge has left him practically catatonic, and he has to slowly realign himself back to reality, and at the expense of a man named Dougie Jones (who I wish we'll see more of, because MacLachlan is so damn fun in it: "...Oh, that's weird."). How Lynch belabors all that reminds me of the old, slow banker in the S2 finale.

One thing of note: while Badalamenti's score is often absent...is the sound design in this show striking, or what? My god. (Lynch is the only one credited with the sound-design.)

MacLachlan is killing it. I'm so glad he's having a ball.

 

[joshEH]

Now we know why Showtime low-balled Michael J. Anderson. It turns out that when you character had said "when you see me again, it won't be me" in his last appearance, you don't have a lot of leverage when negotiating.

I kinda love that, since Anderson and Lynch had a massive falling-out, Lynch basically said, "Okay, I'll replace him with a small tree with a deflated volleyball for a head."

 

[TravisR]

I just watched Episode 3 and the first half makes the first two episodes look perfectly normal.

I guess when the (episode 3 spoiler)

Spoiler

eyeless girl fell into space, she'll fall faster and faster until she bursts into fire.

I kinda love that, since Anderson and Lynch had a massive falling-out, Lynch basically said, "Okay, I'll replace him with a small tree with a deflated volleyball for a head."

The head of the tree looks like the baby in Eraserhead.

 

[Tino]

I love how when it seems like it's becoming too surreal a normal scene brings it back down.

No one bit Lynch could have pulled this off. It FEELS like Twin Peaks. After 26 years? That's an amazing accomplishment.

I'll discuss episodes 3&4 next week. But one word. WOW

Can't wait to see where this show brings me next.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I love how when it seems like it's becoming too surreal a normal scene brings it back down.

Agreed. I knew the Lynch making this was a different guy than the one who did the original show all those years ago, but I was hoping that the presence of Mark Frost would help temper some of those Inland Empire-instincts, and they have. These episodes are beautifully surreal, but to me, nothing seems random or weird just for weirdness sake. I may not fully grasp what all of these things mean yet, but there seems to be a narrative clarity that I wasn't expecting.

 

[TravisR]

I love how when it seems like it's becoming too surreal a normal scene brings it back down.

I may not fully grasp what all of these things mean yet, but there seems to be a narrative clarity that I wasn't expecting.

Yeah, early into Episode 1, I was afraid that things were going to get too crazy and random or there was going to be too many characters in multiple cities but that went away pretty quickly. As of now, there's a plot that I'm following and I feel like the elements that are separate are eventually going to be pulled in and make sense with everything else.

 

[joshEH]

Forgot to say earlier: I love the addition Forster. He's deadpan to the silliness of small town of Twin Peaks, but he also comes off like he loves or accepts it for what it is, and just rolls with it. His interaction with Wally kind of sums up his relationship with the whole town.

So they implied

Spoiler: Episodes 3-4 Spoilers

Dougie was a creation of Bad Cooper™, right? That he used the gold ball to do it? Also, very glad the ring from FWWM is back.

I still want to know about Judy.

I just watched Episode 3 and the first half makes the first two episodes look perfectly normal.

I guess when the (episode 3 spoiler)

Spoiler

eyeless girl fell into space, she'll fall faster and faster until she bursts into fire.

Yeah, and having watched all four episodes, the heavy Lynch-stuff is pretty much just in the initial episodes. Once Lynch lets that out of his system, by the third episode, it slowly aligns into more familiar territory, as if we're along for Cooper's return-journey.

I was really missing the old town when the initial episodes were largely away from that, but I think that's Lynch's intention; to have us wanting it, and then slowly getting pulled back in.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I got a mancrush on Michael Ontkean as Harry S Truman, so it sucks that he didn't return. But if you have to replace somebody, how could you ever go wrong with Robert Forster? He ought to just randomly replace actors on different shows every week. Mike Ehrmantraut looks different? Forster. Raymond Reddington has hair? Forster. Alf is a lot taller in the revival? Damn right it's Forster.