Twin Peaks Series 3

[Karla]

Who's getting excited about this? 

All we know is ...

[red marley]

My abiding memory of the earlier series was falling asleep in front of the late-night showings (no catch-up TV in those days) and waking up with live CNN footage of the actions of a bellicose US President in the first Gulf War. Let's hope things have moved on for this series.

[PaulF]

Me!

[Kim]

I watched the earlier series a couple of years ago to find out what all the fuss was about.

It was this: Shit.  (Though I can understand how it became a cult phenomenon at the time.)

I fully expect the new one to be more of the same.  Because the alternative option of making everything make sense would be too unpopular.

[Karla]

I watched the earlier series a couple of years ago to find out what all the fuss was about.

It was this: Shit.  (Though I can understand how it became a cult phenomenon at the time.)

I fully expect the new one to be more of the same.  Because the alternative option of making everything make sense would be too unpopular.

I guess you won't be watching it then! 

Most of series 2 was indeed rubbish.  I'm re-watching up to the point where the killer gets revealed, then skipping to the last episode.  Series 1 was excellent though.

[ian]

I watched it the first time and it seemed OK, if painfully contrived, but everyone was watching it at the time as an alternative to shocking and aweing. I tried to rewatch when it appeared on the magic box under the tv the other year and gave up half way through series 1. Slow and ponderous didn't do it justice. Obviously modern life has gifted me the attention span of a nematode, but it was quite dull and even worse than I remembered.

On the basis of that, I'll vote 'shit' and avoid.

[citoyen]

I missed Twin Peaks when it was first on - was on holiday for the first three episodes and we didn't have catch-up TV in those days. By the time I started watching it, I'd missed too much.

A few years later, I went to see Fire Walk With Me in the cinema when it came out and then borrowed the two series on VHS from Leeds Uni English dept and binge-watched them over the course of four days.

Absolutely loved it. I do wonder if watching Fire Walk With Me first helped make more sense of the series, even though it didn't make an awful lot of sense by itself.

Thing is, I have to confess to being the kind of David Lynch fan who will forgive him most of his indiscretions. I even confess to liking Dune.

Did start watching Twin Peaks again last year and was enjoying it but got sidetracked by other new stuff to watch instead. I'm intending to binge watch the two series again before the new one starts, though I have mixed feelings about its return - comebacks are never a good idea. But I'll watch it anyway.

Tbh, I'm more excited about the re-release of Mulholland Drive, although it hasn't yet made it to any local cinemas. That is a truly great film and I'd love to see it in the cinema because I missed it first time round (it came out when my son was a tiny baby so we weren't doing much cinema-going at the time).

[Karla]

I'm intending to binge watch the two series again before the new one starts, though I have mixed feelings about its return - comebacks are never a good idea. But I'll watch it anyway.

There is that.  Looking at the cast list, it seems a bit like everyone who has told David Lynch they like him has got a cameo, so I hope it doesn't get too stilted trying to wheel them all in and out of shot. 

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Has anything happened yet?

[Hot Flatus]

I watched the earlier series a couple of years ago to find out what all the fuss was about.

It was this: Shit.  (Though I can understand how it became a cult phenomenon at the time.)

I fully expect the new one to be more of the same.  Because the alternative option of making everything make sense would be too unpopular.

Remember, though, that it was made 28 years ago.

To put this into context, less than half that amount of time before Twin Peaks, entertainment on TV on a Saturday night was The Black and White Minstrels show.

Compared to Fargo, Breaking Bad etc etc, yes it looks a bit crude, but there is a very good reason for that.

[citoyen]

Last time I watched it I found it as gripping as the first time. Its slow pace and myriad subplots are its strengths, in my book, as is the fact that it doesn't feel restricted by the boringly conventional idea that everything has to 'make sense'. It's also very funny.

[Kim]

I watched the earlier series a couple of years ago to find out what all the fuss was about.

It was this: Shit.  (Though I can understand how it became a cult phenomenon at the time.)

I fully expect the new one to be more of the same.  Because the alternative option of making everything make sense would be too unpopular.

Remember, though, that it was made 28 years ago.

To put this into context, less than half that amount of time before Twin Peaks, entertainment on TV on a Saturday night was The Black and White Minstrels show.

To put it into context:  It came out at around the time I was first allowed to watch 'adult' television.  Twin Peaks is normal and ordinary and just a part of the way the world works.  It may have been innovative (Yay, drama doesn't have to make sense any more!), but it's still shit.  They aren't mutually exclusive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_in_British_television has the zeitgeist.  Interesting that most of the good stuff seems to be factual or comedy.

(You know, I've never actually seen the Black and White Minstrels Show.  In my universe it's something embarrassing grandmothers shout at mixed-race couples in the street, so other than the obvious, I've no idea what it actually involved as a form of entertainment.  I always assumed it was like Morecambe and Wise - a bizarre, archaic form of entertainment enjoyed by Old People, but sufficiently problematic to avoid being endlessly repeated at Christmas.)

Compared to Fargo, Breaking Bad etc etc, yes it looks a bit crude, but there is a very good reason for that.

Stands to reason.  Those were invented between the times I was 15 and 35, which means they're new and exciting and revolutionary.   

Lost came out in 2004, with production values that would pass for contemporary.  The flashback format was reasonably compelling for a series or two, because it told interesting stories that went somewhere.  Then it turned into a sort of Twin Peaks on crack, and we all got bored of endless cliffhangers where we knew nothing would ever get resolved.  Did anyone manage to watch it all the way to the end?  Did the writers just give up?  Who knows...  The endless nonsense trick only works once.

Anyway, I don't think 'crude' is a bad thing.  I have a thing for 1970s cinema, probably because it's from a world that isn't quite laughably prehistoric, but is free from modern ideas about pace.  To be fair to Twin Peaks, that's the one thing it did really well.

[Hot Flatus]

You know what your problem is?

You don't know what shit is.

Bloody youngsters. Don't know they're born.




(    )

[Kim]

Spock's Brain.

[citoyen]

It may have been innovative (Yay, drama doesn't have to make sense any more!), but it's still shit.

You know what's most disappointing about this? It's the definitive debunking of the yacf meme that Kim is always right.

[Kim]

It may have been innovative (Yay, drama doesn't have to make sense any more!), but it's still shit.

You know what's most disappointing about this? It's the definitive debunking of the yacf meme that Kim is always right.

That's not so much a meme as a derivative work.

[ian]

Lost came out in 2004, with production values that would pass for contemporary.  The flashback format was reasonably compelling for a series or two, because it told interesting stories that went somewhere.  Then it turned into a sort of Twin Peaks on crack, and we all got bored of endless cliffhangers where we knew nothing would ever get resolved.  Did anyone manage to watch it all the way to the end?  Did the writers just give up?  Who knows...  The endless nonsense trick only works once.

Anyway, I don't think 'crude' is a bad thing.  I have a thing for 1970s cinema, probably because it's from a world that isn't quite laughably prehistoric, but is free from modern ideas about pace.  To be fair to Twin Peaks, that's the one thing it did really well.

I watched Lost through to the end. It wasn't that bad, just preternaturally stretched (ok, probably not preternatural for a US tv show, we got nine seasons of the X-Files after all, the truth might have been out there but they were doing an awful job of finding it). And yes, clearly they were making it up as they went along which was fun for a while and might have held up for a season or two but in the end collapsed into a pile of mutual contradictions that couldn't fail to be anything other than disappointing. And no, I can't remember even how they tried to order the big mess of plot spaghetti.

I find a lot of shows too slow even today (I gave up on the Walking Dead, the clue to its pedestrian pace is in the title, I suppose) – it's just over-stretching the material. I struggled with the enforced quirkiness of Twin Peaks. It all felt a bit like one of the student theatre productions you attended because you fancied the girl (or boy) that invited you, and you figured it might be worth it for the sex. In cruel retrospect, it wasn't.

[citoyen]

I find most telly too fast these days. I was watching Great British Bake Off Crème de la Crème the other day, which apart from being the worst title for a cookery show ever, is a thoroughly nauseating experience - I had a stopwatch going and can confirm that they were cutting to a different shot every three seconds, almost metronomically.

I like shows where nothing much happens except for an old woman with a log being gnomic.

[Kim]

The X-files was strongly influenced by Twin Peaks, but other than some of the later season rubbish (I'm not sure where the shark was actually jumped - I lost interest well before the eponymous episode, anyway), could usually be enjoyed as stand-alone episodes.

[redshift]

I find most telly too fast these days. I was watching Great British Bake Off Crème de la Crème the other day, which apart from being the worst title for a cookery show ever, is a thoroughly nauseating experience - I had a stopwatch going and can confirm that they were cutting to a different shot every three seconds, almost metronomically.

I like shows where nothing much happens except for an old woman with a log being gnomic.

You should watch the "Handmade..." stuff on BBC4.

[ian]

The X-Files struggle when they started the unresolvable story arc about aliens. Basically, somewhere around season IV, Mulder and Scully should have done the horizontal mambo and then, à la pointe de la petite mort, been hoovered up by aliens. I'd have ended it there and then, 23 minutes and a wobbling pair of buttocks into episode whatever*.

It's not the pacing really. I can handle slow if there's something worthwhile happening. Gnomic logs don't do it for me. It's too much student art project. Laboured TV just turns soap-orific. I don't know how anyone watches The Walking Dead for instance, as it's the same fucking episode every time. Everyone is miserable and then someone dies. Messily. Every now and again I'll watch an episode to see if anything has changed and it hasn't.

And please, please, let's not have the 'damn fine cherry pie' meme back.

*Dear Screenwriters Guild of America, I await my welcome pack.

[citoyen]

You should watch the "Handmade..." stuff on BBC4.

Thanks for the tip, I like the look of that!

[citoyen]

It's not the pacing really. I can handle slow if there's something worthwhile happening.

We're currently re-watching the originals as a primer before starting on the new series. Still on the first series but what we've seen so far is a heck of a lot pacier than I remember it. Although there are a lot of lingering shots of traffic lights going through their sequence and other ponderous stuff like that, the plot actually unfolds very rapidly. Ignore the gnomic logs and other frippery and at its core is some masterfully economical storytelling, with a great deal of information imparted in few, well-chosen words.

I suspect the problem with how we remember Twin Peaks is down to the way it went off the rails in the latter half of the second series. I read a thing the other day that reminded me of the Josie Packard doorknob incident. I seem to have blocked it out of my memory for some reason, but it sounds like the kind of thing that would try the patience of even the most ardent Lynch fan (ie me).

[ian]

I inadvertantly caught several minutes of Twin Peaks 3 last week on US tv while skipping channels. Took me that long to figure out what it was, some bloke sitting on a sofa watching a big glass box and occasionally changing a memory card in one of the several video cameras filming the box. And a woman brings him coffee.

I've no idea but it didn't exactly make me want to watch more.

[LEE]

Twin Peaks probably suffered the same fate as any decent US TV show...popularity.

Once a US TV show becomes popular any thoughts of a concise and satisfactory ending are immediately shelved whilst a production-line is set up to churn out more episodes.
One person's vision is handed over to a writing department and the saying, "A Camel is a Horse designed by a committee" applies.

Eventually the watered-down subsequent series become unpopular and the show is canned without a satisfactory ending.