Twin Peaks Again
As Twin Peaks gets a new DVD release the media has been looking back at how it was received at the time. This was the first, the only time a blend of murder/mystery, surrealism and esoteric occultism had been served up to the prime-time population as a soap opera. It certainly had a remarkable impression on one Yorkshire-based fourteen year old (that’s me by the way – do you see?) I was absolutely entranced by everything about it - the feel, the performance, the music, the cinematography, the ideas, the transcendent emotional punch of it all. At the time I considered it the best television programme ever made, and no show I have seen since has ever had the same impact. How much of that is down to being an impressionable young thing I can never be quite sure, and now, over twice the age I was, I can’t be sure I would adore it quite so savagely if I saw it for the first time now. I do know though that there is real genius here, and that if you haven’t seen it you must.
The current media re-interest has a certain nostalgic rush for me, but what annoys is the many regurgitations of the “lost its way toward the end / pointless after you knew who killed Laura Palmer” received-wisdom-wank being spouted about it. This is to spectacularly miss the point. That the ‘whodunit’ aspect was so abused is crucial to what makes the series the masterpiece it was. Something that was supposed to ‘the whole point’ being revealed as essentially meaningless is vital to the eerie dreamscape being sculpted. Lynch is a master and still produces brilliance, Inland Empire was magnificent. But to have that ambience produced in a mainstream TV series rather than a film was what made this particular triumph so unique.
