Twin Peaks (ABC 1990-91) – FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper arrives in the quiet town of Twin Peaks to investigate a murder. Following those clues will take into dark places of strangeness beyond imagination. He’ll also discover some damn fine coffee.
Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch Starring Kyle MacLachlan, Piper Laurie, Michael Ontkean, Peggy Lipton, Lara Flynn Boyle
I’m taking a bit of an excursion here from the usual Monday movie reviews. “Twin Peaks” is worth breaking the rules for, I think.
There is so much about this series that is wonderful and groundbreaking. Unfortunately, that is overwhelmed by most of the second season, which is dreadful. ABC took an enormous gamble, turning a full hour of primetime viewing to David Lynch and Mark Frost. Frost had worked as a writer and story editor on “Hill Street Blues”. But Lynch was the wild card. A film director with a decidedly surreal style, his work was going to be like nothing network television had ever seen before.
And Season One was all of that in spades.
Dale Cooper (MacLachlan) is a federal agent trying to rehab a damaged career. He is bright, cheerful and open to a wide variety of “alternative” thinking. He is in every way godfather to both Fox Mulder and “The X-Files”. He is a charming, if slightly off-center, bundle of personality quirks. MacLachlan and Lynch had worked together on the odious “Dune” movie just a couple years before. I learned to forgive the actor for the movie through his work here.
What goes on in the sleepy little town of Twin Peaks is far too complicated to try and give you here. A pretty local high school girl has been murdered. There are some strange and disturbing aspects of the case that will draw everyone deeper into the dark mysteries that surround them. There’s also some damn fine cups of coffee and outstanding pie. If you know David Lynch none of this surprises you. If it all sounds very strange, you are absolutely correct. But don’t let that stop you.
Oh, but that second season.
I forced myself to watch the entire original series. Season One has all the twists and turns, all the wonderful surreal touches that you expect from David Lynch. Shortly after Season Two began filming the network began to ease Lynch out. And the show craters almost immediately. There is a long tedious section of the second season where “Twin Peaks” is nothing more than a Grade B soap opera. It’s dull and labored. The show does perk up late in the season but then stumbles at the end. By then it was far too late. The ratings had plummeted and the show was canceled.
I remember watching the show the first time around in 1990. It was amazing. Unlike anything that had come before, it was spellbinding even if I had no idea what was going on most of the time. There were beautiful young women at the center of the story. In true Lynchian style, each of them was just a little off-center from traditional ideas of beauty or character. The cast ranged from the down to earth sheriff, Harry Truman (Ontkean), to the over the top businessman Benjamin Horne (Richard Beymer). For added wonder and delight, there was Lynch himself, appearing as F.B.I. Deputy Director Gordon Cole. Who is deaf as a post except to the voice of one certain young woman. I could write a book on the cast of characters alone, but they are more fun to discover on your own.
All of which makes the second season that much more dreadful. The network insisted on revealing the murderer, which Lynch didn’t want to do, and it’s a luge run downhill from there. There’s some interesting stuff early on, and once the story returns to the bizarre, Lynchian storyline late. One of the worst episodes is those directed by Diane Keaton for some inexplicable reason.
All of which makes rating this show hard. Season One is a five star, must season experience. Season Two ranges from one to three stars.
Why You Will Like It – The cast of characters and the twisted mystery that engulfs them.
Rating – *** Worth A Look (Overall average)
Stories Are My Life 
Leave a comment