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Twin Peaks was a television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation, headed by Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), of the brutal murder of a popular and respected teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). Twin Peaks's pilot episode was first broadcast on April 8, 1990 on the ABC Network, which led to another seven episodes being produced, and a second season, which aired until June 10, 1991.
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Quotations
Ben… as your attorney, your friend, and your brother… I strongly suggest that you get yourself a better lawyer.
Diane, I'm holding in my hands a small box of chocolate bunnies.
reciting evidence into his ubiquitous tape recorder
Fellas, don't drink that coffee! You'd never guess… there was a fish in the percolator.
Harry Goaz — Deputy Andy Brennan
Harry, my dream is a code waiting to be broken. Break the code, solve the crime.
to Sheriff Truman the morning after his bizarre dream
I feel like I know her but sometimes my arms bend back….
Laura Palmer, in Dale Cooper's dream
Encyclopedia
Twin Peaks was a television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation, headed by Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), of the brutal murder of a popular and respected teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). Twin Peaks's pilot episode was first broadcast on April 8, 1990 on the ABC Network, which led to another seven episodes being produced, and a second season, which aired until June 10, 1991. The show was set in a small fictional Washington town of the same name, and exteriors were primarily filmed in Snoqualmie and North Bend; most of the interior scenes were shot on standing sets in a San Fernando Valley (near Hollywood) warehouse.
Twin Peaks became one of 1990's top-rated shows, a critical success both nationally and internationally. Reflecting its devoted cult fan base, the series became a part of popular culture, referenced in other television shows, commercials, comic books, a video game, films and song lyrics. Declining viewer ratings led to ABC's insistence that the identity of Laura's murderer be revealed midway through the second season, a ratings ploy which interfered with several other long-running storylines and resulted in an even sharper ratings decline and the show's cancellation. In 1992, the series spawned a prequel; the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, a critical and commercial failure.
Twin Peaks currently airs sporadically, in weekday marathons, on NBC Universal's horror/suspense-themed cable channel Chiller.
Plot synopsis
Note: The series is set in 1989, with each episode — barring occasional exceptions — representing a single day in the chronology.
Season One
On the morning of February 24, in the town of Twin Peaks, Washington state, lumberjack Pete Martell discovers a naked corpse tightly wrapped in a sheet of clear plastic on the bank of a river. Following the arrival of Sheriff Harry S. Truman, his deputies, and Dr. Will Hayward on the scene, the body is discovered to be that of homecoming queen Laura Palmer, a figurehead of youthful innocence and purity in the Twin Peaks community. The news spreads among the town's residents, particularly Laura's family and friends. Meanwhile, just across the state line, a second girl, Ronette Pulaski, is found walking along the railroad tracks in a fugue state. Because Ronette was discovered across the state line, FBI Agent Dale Cooper is called in to investigate. Cooper's initial examination of Laura's body reveals a tiny typed letter 'R' inserted under her fingernail. At a town hall meeting the night of Laura's death, Cooper informs the community that Laura's death matches the M.O. of a killer who murdered another girl in Southwestern Washington the previous year, and that evidence indicates the killer lives in Twin Peaks.
Cooper's investigation quickly reveals that Laura was living a double life. She was cheating on her boyfriend, football captain Bobby Briggs, with biker James Hurley and prostituting herself out with the help of Leo Johnson, a local truck driver, and Jacques Renault, a pimp and drug dealer. Further, Laura was addicted to cocaine, which she obtained by emotionally blackmailing Bobby into doing business with Jacques.
Laura's death sets off a chain reaction of events around town. Laura's father, Leland Palmer, a prominent attorney, suffers a nervous breakdown. Her best friend, Donna Hayward, begins an affair with James, and with the help of Laura's cousin, Maddy Ferguson, set about investigating Laura's psychiatrist, Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, whom they discover was obsessed with Laura. He turns out to be innocent, and a plan to break into his apartment ends with Jacoby being attacked in a park and hospitalized with no memory of the event except the smell of burning oil. Ben Horne, the richest man in Twin Peaks, sets about the final phase of his plan to destroy the town's lumber mill and murder its owner, Catherine Martell, so that he can purchase the land at a reduced price and cement his position as the town's undisputed economic power. His increased neglect of his sultry, troubled daughter, Audrey Horne, leads to her becoming enamored with Cooper, for whom she begins spying around town in an effort to gain his affections by helping him solve Laura's murder.
His second night in town, Cooper has a surreal dream in which he is approached in the basement of the Twin Peaks hospital by a one-armed man who calls himself Mike. Mike identifies himself as an otherworldly being, and then tells Cooper that Laura's murderer is Killer BOB, another entity like himself. Cooper then sees Bob, a feral, gray-haired man in denim who vows to keep killing. Cooper then sees himself twenty-five years older and sitting stationary in a room surrounded by red curtains which emit an otherworldly light. Across from him are a dwarf in a red business suit, "The Man from Another Place," and Laura Palmer, whom The Man identifies as his cousin. After engaging in an apparently coded dialogue with Cooper, the Man rises from his chair and dances around the room while Laura whispers something in Cooper's ear. The next morning, Cooper convenes with Truman and recalls the dream, telling him that it was symbolic, and that if he can decipher the symbols, he will know who killed Laura.
Cooper and the Twin Peaks Sheriff's department track down the one-armed man from Cooper's dream, who turns out to be a traveling salesman named Philip Gerard. Cooper questions Gerard about his associates, and discovers that he does indeed know a Bob, who turns out to be the vet that treats Jacques Renault's pet bird. Cooper takes this series of events to mean that Renault is the murderer, and with Truman's help tracks Renault down to a brothel owned by Ben Horne. Cooper confronts him there, which prompts Renault to attempt to flee the state. Shot during his arrest, Renault is hospitalized. Leland Palmer, after learning that Renault has been arrested, sneaks into the hospital and murders him. The same night, Ben Horne orders Leo to burn down the town mill with Catherine trapped inside; afterwards, Ben has Leo gunned down by a hitman to ensure he won't talk. Returning to his room following Jacques arrest, Cooper is repeatedly shot by a masked gunman, ending the season on a cliffhanger.
Season Two, Part One
After Cooper is shot, he is left lying in the room. In his injured and only partially lucid state, Cooper experiences a vision in which a Giant appears to him. The giant reveals three things to Agent Cooper: "the owls are not what they seem", "there is a man in a smiling bag", and "without chemicals, he points", finally telling him "you will require medical attention". The giant then takes Cooper's gold ring, explaining that when the three premonitions are understood to Cooper, his ring will be returned.
Meanwhile, Leo Johnson undergoes surgery, surviving his shooting but being rendered brain dead. Catherine Martel likewise survives the fire, but uses the opportunity to fake her own death in order to plot revenge on Ben Horne. Leland Palmer-- whose hair has turned white literally overnight-- returns to work after Renault's death, apparently rejuvenated by Renault's murder.
Cooper learns that Phillip Gerard is the host to Mike, who turns out to be a demonic "inhabiting spirit" who used to retain the services of Bob, a lesser demonic entity, to help him kill humans. Mike reveals that Bob has been possessing someone in town for decades, although he neglects to tell Cooper who. The discovery of another diary that Laura kept reveals that Bob, a "friend of her father's," began sexually molesting and raping her as a child, and that she delved into drugs as a means to cope with the abuse. Cooper begins looking at Leland's friends and associates before telling Harry that he believes the killer is Ben Horne. Confronted, Horne confesses to Cooper and Audrey that he was having an affair with Laura, but that he wouldn't kill her because he was in love with her. Shortly thereafter, Maddy Ferguson is found dead and wrapped in plastic with fur from a taxidermied animal in Ben's office stuck to her body. Arrested for Laura's murder, Ben is visited in jail by Catherine, who mocks him with the knowledge that she and Ben were together the night of Laura's murder, and that if she chooses she can exonerate him.
Worried by holes in the case, Cooper gathers together all of his suspects-- including several red herrings-- convinced that he will receive a sign to help him identify the killer. After being offered a piece of gum, Leland Palmer utters a phrase Cooper heard the Man From Another Place say in his dream; the Giant appears to Cooper, confirming that Leland is Bob's host and the killer of Laura and Maddy. Cooper and Truman apprehend him, after which Bob assumes total control over Leland's body and confesses to a series of murders before forcing Leland to commit suicide. Dying in Cooper's arms, Leland, free of Bob's influence, tells Cooper that Bob has possessed him ever since molesting him as a child. He begs for forgiveness before seeing a vision of Laura welcoming him into the afterlife.
The next morning, Cooper, Truman, and other law enforcement personnel question whether Leland was truly possessed or mentally ill. The men all express worry that the former may be true, and if it is, it means Bob could still be stalking the community of Twin Peaks, looking for his new host.
Season Two, Part Two
With the murder investigation concluded, Cooper is then all set to leave Twin Peaks when he is framed for drug trafficking by the criminal Jean Renault, and is temporarily suspended from the FBI. Renault holds Cooper responsible for the death of his brother Jacques, who was murdered by Leland Palmer/Bob while Renault was in police custody at the hospital. After Renault is killed in a shoot-out with police, and Cooper is cleared of the charges, his former FBI partner and mentor Windom Earle comes to Twin Peaks to play a deadly game of chess with Cooper, in which each piece of Cooper's that he takes means someone dies. As Cooper explains to Truman, during his early years with the FBI alongside Earle, Cooper had begun an affair with Earle's wife, Caroline, while she had been under his protection as a witness to a federal crime. Earle went mad and killed Caroline, tried to gut Cooper with a knife, and was subsequently committed to a mental institution. Now having escaped and come to Twin Peaks, Earle hides out in the woods so that he may go about plotting his revenge scheme.
As this is going on, Cooper continues to try to track down the origins and whereabouts of Bob, and learns more about the mysteries of the dark woods surrounding Twin Peaks. It is here he learns of the existence of the White Lodge and the Black Lodge, two mystical, extra-dimensional realms analogous to Heaven and Hell whose gateways reside somewhere in the woods. Cooper learns that Bob, The Giant, and the Man From Another Place all come from one of the two lodges.
Cooper also falls in love with a new girl in town, Annie Blackburn (Heather Graham). When Annie wins the Miss Twin Peaks contest, Windom Earle kidnaps her and takes her to the Black Lodge entrance in Glastonbury Grove. Cooper realizes that Earle's real reason for being in Twin Peaks is to gain entrance into the Black Lodge and harness its power for himself, and that his "chess game" has been an elaborate decoy. With the help of the Log Lady, Cooper follows Annie and Earle into the Lodge, which turns out to be the red-curtained room from his dream. He is greeted by the Man From Another Place, the Giant, and the spirit of Laura Palmer, who each give Cooper encoded prophecies about his future and demonstrate the properties of the Black Lodge, which defy the laws of time and space. Searching for Annie and Earle, Cooper encounters doppelgangers of various dead people, including Maddy and Leland Palmer, who taunt him with strange, false statements. The doppelgangers eventually lead Cooper to Earle, who demands that Cooper give up his soul in exchange for Annie's life. Cooper agrees and Earle kills him. Seconds later, Killer Bob appears and reverses time in the Lodge, bringing Cooper back to life. Bob angrily tells Earle that only Lodge inhabitants have the right to take human souls, and in retribution, kills Earle and takes his soul. Bob then turns on Cooper, who for the first time in the Lodge experiences fear. Cooper flees, pursued by Bob and a doppelganger of himself.
Days after entering the Lodge, Cooper and Annie are discovered in the woods by Sheriff Truman. Annie is hospitalized, but Cooper's injuries are minor enough that Doctor Hayward is able to treat them in Cooper's room at the Great Northern Hotel. Upon waking, Cooper asks about Annie's condition, and then states he needs to brush his teeth. Upon Cooper's entering the bathroom, the viewer sees that he is in fact Cooper's doppelganger, inhabited by Killer Bob. Bob cackles and rams his/Cooper's face into the mirror and asks Truman and Hayward about Annie's condition, ending the series on a cliffhanger.
Production
Conception
David Lynch, who had experienced previous success with the acclaimed The Elephant Man (1980) and Blue Velvet (1986), was hired by a Warner Bros. executive to direct a film about the life of Marilyn Monroe, based on the best-selling book The Goddess. Lynch recalls being "sort of interested. I loved the idea of this woman in trouble, but I didn't know if I liked it being a real story". Lynch's agent, Tony Krantz suggested the director work with his friend and writer Mark Frost. He worked on The Goddess screenplay with Lynch. Even though this project was dropped by Warner Brothers, Lynch and Frost became good friends, and wrote a screenplay titled One Saliva Bubble, with Steve Martin attached to star in it. However, this film was not made either. Krantz had been trying to get the filmmaker to work on TV since Blue Velvet but he was never really that interested in the idea. Krantz took Lynch to Nibblers restaurant in Los Angeles and said to him, "You should do a show about real life in America - your vision of America the same way you demonstrated it in Blue Velvet". Lynch got an "idea of a small-town thing", and though he and Frost were not keen on it they decided to humor Krantz. Frost wanted to tell "a sort of Dickensian story about multiple lives in a contained area that could sort of go perpetually". Frost, Krantz and Lynch rented a screening room in Beverly Hills and screened Peyton Place and from that developed the town before its inhabitants. They drew a map and knew that there would be a lumber mill located in the town. Then, they came up with an image of a body washing up on the shore of a lake. Lynch remembers, "We knew where everything was located and that helped us determine the prevailing atmosphere and what might happen there". Frost remembers that he and Lynch came up with the notion of the girl next door leading a "desperate double life" that would end in murder.
Lynch and Frost pitched the idea to ABC during the time of Writers Guild of America, East strike in 1988 in a ten-minute meeting with the network's drama head, Chad Hoffman, with nothing more than this image and a concept. According to the director, the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer was initially going to be in the foreground, but would recede gradually as viewers got to know the other townsfolk and their problems they were having. Lynch and Frost wanted to mix a police investigation with a soap opera.
ABC liked the idea, and asked Lynch and Frost to write a screenplay for the pilot episode. Frost wrote more verbal characters, like Benjamin Horne, while Lynch was responsible for Agent Cooper. According to the director, "He says a lot of the things I say". Originally, the show was entitled Northwest Passage and set in North Dakota, but the fact that a town called Northwest Passage really exists prompted a revision in the script. They filmed the pilot for $1.8 million with an agreement with ABC that they would shoot an additional "ending" to it so that it could be sold directly to video in Europe as a feature if the TV show was not picked up. However, even though ABC's Bob Iger liked the pilot, he had a tough time persuading the rest of the network brass. Iger suggested showing it to a more diverse, younger group, who liked it, and the executive subsequently convinced ABC to buy seven episodes at $1.1 million apiece. Some executives figured that the show would never get on the air. However, Iger planned to schedule it for the spring. The final showdown occurred during a bi-coastal conference call between Iger and a room full of New York executives — Iger won, and Twin Peaks was on the air.
Overview
The episodes of Twin Peaks have a distinct structure: following a recap of events relevant to the upcoming narrative, the series begins with the music piece "Falling". This is accompanied by a shot of a varied thrush, and then of the Twin Peaks saw mill. The opening credits generally appear alphabetically. The majority of episodes end with a suspenseful twist or cliffhanger, revealed just seconds before the ending. With rare exception, the credits always rolled over a photograph of Laura Palmer, accompanied by the piano piece "Laura's Theme."
Music
Composer Angelo Badalamenti, a frequent contributor to Lynch projects, scored the series and provides the leitmotif "Laura's Theme", the famous title theme, and other evocative pieces to the soundtrack. A handful of the motifs were borrowed from the Julee Cruise album Floating Into the Night, which was written in large part by Badalamenti and Lynch, and was released in 1989. This album also serves as the soundtrack to another Lynch project, Industrial Symphony No. 1, a live Cruise performance also featuring Michael J. Anderson (the "Man from Another Place").
The song "Falling" (sans vocals) became the theme to the show, and the songs "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart", "The Nightingale", "The World Spins", and "Into the Night" (found in their full versions on the album) were all, except the latter, used as Cruise's roadhouse performances during the show's run. A second volume of the soundtrack was released on October 23, 2007 to coincide with the Definitive Gold Box DVD set.
Filming locations
The towns of Snoqualmie and North Bend, Washington, which were the primary filming locations for stock Twin Peaks exterior footage (many exterior scenes were actually filmed in wooded areas of Malibu, California), are only about an hour's drive from the town of Roslyn. Lynch and Frost went on a location scout to Washington state and a friend of Frost's recommended Snoqualmie Falls. They drove there and found all of the locations that they had written into the pilot episode. This town was the setting of the series Northern Exposure, which debuted the same year, and also focused on the eccentric populace of a small northwestern town. A scene in the Northern Exposure first-season episode "The Russian Flu" was shot at Snoqualmie Falls, which was also featured in the opening titles sequence of Twin Peaks. The background behind the actors of Invitation to Love is not a studio set, but the interior of the Ennis House, an architectural landmark of Frank Lloyd Wright in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles.
Improvisation elements
At several points during the filming of Twin Peaks, Lynch improvised by incorporating on-set accidents into the story. The most notable of these occurred when set decorator Frank Silva was accidentally filmed in a mirror during Sarah Palmer's vision at the end of the pilot. When David Lynch saw Silva's face, he liked it so much he kept it in the show, and cast Silva as "BOB", the mysterious tormentor of Laura Palmer.
During the filming of the scene in which Cooper first examines Laura's body, a malfunctioning fluorescent light above the table flickered constantly, but Lynch decided not to replace it, since he liked the disconcerting effect that it created. Also, during the take, one of the minor actors misheard a line and, thinking he was being asked his name, he told Cooper his real name instead of saying his line, briefly throwing everyone off balance. Lynch was reportedly pleased with the lifelike, unscripted moment in dialogue, and kept the mistake in the final cut:
- ATTENDANT: I have to apologize again for the fluorescent lights. I think it's a bad transformer.
- COOPER (Kyle MacLachlan): That's quite all right.
- TRUMAN (Michael Ontkean): Agent Cooper, we did scrape those nails when we brought her in.
- COOPER: Here it is. There it is. Oh my God, here it is!
- COOPER (to attendant): Would you leave us, please?
- ATTENDANT: Jim.
- COOPER: Uh.... would you leave us alone, please?
- ATTENDANT: Oh. Certainly.
Cooper's dream at the end of the second episode, which became a driving plot point in the series first season and ultimately held the key to the identity of Laura's murderer, was never scripted; the idea came to Lynch one afternoon after touching the side of a hot car left out in the sun: "I was leaning against a car — the front of me was leaning against this very warm car. My hands were on the roof and the metal was very hot. The Red Room scene leapt into my mind. 'Little Mike' was there, and he was speaking backwards . . . For the rest of the night I thought only about The Red Room". The footage was originally shot along with the pilot, to be used as the conclusion were it to be released as a feature film. When the series was picked up, Lynch decided to incorporate some of the footage; in the third episode, Cooper, narrating the dream, outlines the shot footage which Lynch did not incorporate, such as Mike shooting Bob and the fact that he is twenty-five years older when he meets Laura Palmer's spirit.
Cast and characters
Twin Peaks features members of a loose ensemble of Lynch's favorite character actors, including Jack Nance, Kyle MacLachlan, Grace Zabriskie, and Everett McGill. Isabella Rossellini, who had worked with Lynch on Blue Velvet, was originally cast as Giovanna Packard, but she dropped out of the production before shooting began on the pilot episode. The character was then reconceived as Josie Packard, of Chinese ethnicity, and the role given to actress Joan Chen. It is also notable for the casting of several veteran actors who had long been absent from the screen, including 1950s movie stars Piper Laurie and Russ Tamblyn, and former The Mod Squad star Peggy Lipton. The main character of the series, Agent Dale Cooper, played by Kyle MacLachlan, would appear in all thirty episodes of Twin Peaks, including the pilot.
Due to budget restraints, Lynch intended to cast a local girl from Seattle, reportedly to "just to play a dead girl". The local girl ended up being Sheryl Lee — Lynch stated "But no one — not Mark, me, anyone — had any idea that she could act, or that she was going to be so powerful just being dead." Indeed, the image of Lee wrapped in plastic became one of the show's most enduring and memorable images. And then, while Lynch shot the home movie that James takes of Donna and Laura, he realized that Lee had something special. "She did do another scene — the video with Donna on the picnic — and it was that scene that did it." As a result, Sheryl Lee became a semi-regular addition to the cast, appearing in flashbacks as Laura, and becoming a recurring character — Maddy, Laura's cousin. The character of Laura would not be seen in any episodes, only through videos and photographs. Lee, however, had a dual role in portraying Laura's similar-looking cousin Maddy Ferguson, appearing in the late stages of season one. The character of Philip Gerard's appearance in the pilot episode was only originally intended to be a "kind of homage to The Fugitive. The only thing he was gonna do was be in this elevator and walk out", according to David Lynch. However, when Lynch wrote the "Fire walk with me" speech, he imagined Al Strobel, who played Gerard, reciting it in the basement of the Twin Peaks hospital – a scene that would appear in the European version of the pilot episode, and surface later in Agent Cooper's dream sequence. Gerard's full name, Phillip Michael Gerard, is also a reference to Lieutenant Philip Gerard, a character in The Fugitive. Lynch met Michael J. Anderson in 1987. After seeing him in a short film, Lynch wanted to cast the actor in the title role in Ronnie Rocket, but that project failed to get made.
Richard Beymer was cast as Ben Horne because he had known Johanna Ray, Lynch's casting director. Lynch was familiar with Beymer's work in West Side Story and was surprised that Beymer was available for the role. As the series progressed, Lynch relied on the character to act as a red herring, leading fans to believe that Horne was Laura's real killer; he ultimately filmed a scene depicting Ben Horne transforming into Killer Bob and murdering Maddie Ferguson. The filming of the scene was loosely guarded, so that rumors of Ben being revealed as the real killer would spread and fans would be surprised when Leland was revealed as the real killer. Lynch was particularly impressed with Beymer's willingness to go along with the ruse, commenting that he filmed his scenes as though Horne were the real killer, despite knowing that he was not.
Response
Before the two-hour pilot premiered on TV, a screening was held at the Museum of Broadcasting in Hollywood. Media analyst and advertising executive Paul Schulman said, "I don't think it has a chance of succeeding. It is not commercial, it is radically different from what we as viewers are accustomed to seeing, there's no one in the show to root for." Initially, the show's Thursday night time slot was not a good one for soap operas as both Dynasty and its short-lived spin-off The Colbys did poorly. Twin Peaks was also up against the hugely successful sitcom, Cheers. Initially, the show received a positive response from TV critics. Tom Shales, in the Washington Post, wrote, "Twin Peaks disorients you in ways that small-screen productions seldom attempt. It's a pleasurable sensation, the floor dropping out and leaving one dangling." In the New York Times, John J. O'Connor wrote, "Twin Peaks is not a sendup of the form. Mr. Lynch clearly savors the standard ingredients...but then the director adds his own peculiar touches, small passing details that suddenly, and often hilariously, thrust the commonplace out of kilter." The two-hour pilot was the highest-rated movie for the 1989-1990 season with a 22 rating and was viewed by 33% of the audience. In its first broadcast as a regular one-hour drama series, Twin Peaks scored ABC's highest ratings in four years in its 9 pm Thursday time period. The show also reduced NBC's Cheerss ratings. Twin Peaks had a 16.2 rating with each point equaling 921,000 homes with TVs. The episode also added new viewers because of what ABC's senior vice-president of research, Alan Wurtzel, called, "the water cooler syndrome," in which people talk about the series the next day at work.
During the first and second season, it was the search for Laura Palmer's killer that served as the engine for the plot, and caught the public's imagination, although the creators admitted this was largely a macguffin — each episode was really about the interactions between the townsfolk. The unique (and often bizarre) personalities of each citizen formed a web of minutiae which ran contrary to the quaint appearance of the town. Adding to the surreal atmosphere was the recurrence of Dale Cooper's dreams, in which the FBI agent is given clues to Laura's murder in a supernatural realm that may or may not be of his imagination. The first season contained only eight episodes (including the two-hour pilot episode), and was considered technically and artistically revolutionary for television at the time, and geared toward reaching the standards of film. It has been said that Twin Peaks began the trend of accomplished cinematography now commonplace in today's television dramas. Lynch and Frost maintained tight control over the first season, handpicking all of the directors, with some that Lynch had known from his days at the American Film Institute (e.g., Caleb Deschanel and Tim Hunter) or referrals from those he knew personally. Lynch and Frost's control lessened in the second season, corresponding with what is generally regarded as a lessening of quality once the identity of Laura Palmer's murderer was revealed. Although both men had known from the series' inception that Laura had been raped and murdered by her own father, Lynch never wanted to solve the murder, while Frost felt that they had an obligation to the audience to solve it and this created tension between the two men.
Its ambitious style, paranormal undertones, and engaging murder mystery made Twin Peaks a surprising sleeper hit. Its eccentric characters, particularly Kyle MacLachlan's Dale Cooper, were unorthodox for a supposed crime drama previously known to American audiences, as was Cooper's method of interpreting his dreams to solve the crime. Following the cliffhanger finale of the first season, the show's popularity reached its zenith, and "Peaksmania" seeped into mainstream popular culture (such as Saturday Night Live, in which Kyle MacLachlan hosted and performed a sketch that parodied the show). For the 1990 Emmy Awards, Twin Peaks led all series with eight nominations, although it only won two awards: Outstanding Costume Design for a Series and Outstanding Editing for a Single-Camera series.
Declining ratings
With the resolution of Twin Peaks main drawing point (Laura Palmer's murder) in the middle of the second season, and with subsequent storylines becoming more obscure and drawn out, public interest finally began to wane, and "Peaksmania" seemed over. This discontent, coupled with ABC changing its timeslot over a number of occasions, led to a huge drop in ratings after being the most-watched television programming in the USA in 1990. On February 15, 1991, ABC announced that the show had been put on "indefinite hiatus", a move which usually leads to cancellation.
This wasn't quite the end, though, as there was still a large enough fanbase for viewers to begin an organized letter-writing campaign, dubbed COOP (Citizens Opposed to the Offing of Peaks). The campaign was successful, and ABC agreed to another six episodes to finish the season. In the final episodes, Agent Cooper was given a love interest, Annie Blackburn (Heather Graham), to replace the intended story arc with Audrey Horne. The series finale did not sufficiently boost interest, and the show was not renewed for a third season, leaving an unresolved cliffhanger ending that continues to be debated.
David Lynch himself returned to direct the finale of the series, annoying a few of the actors and writers, as they had previously felt "abandoned" by him. The writers, for their part, didn't appreciate his changes to their scripts. In the featurette "A Slice of David Lynch", included with the 2007 "Gold Box Edition" DVD release of the complete series, Lynch expressed his regret at having resolved the Laura Palmer murder, stating he and Frost had never intended for the series to answer the question and that doing so "killed the goose that laid the golden eggs". Lynch directly blames network pressure for the decision to resolve the Palmer storyline prematurely. Later, David Lynch, having been long unhappy with ABC's "meddling" during the show's production, sold the whole show to Bravo for a small, undisclosed sum. Bravo began airing the show from scratch again, along with Lynch's addition of introductions to each episode by the Log Lady and her cryptic musings.
Rankings
Twin Peaks was ranked on TV Guide magazine's 2002 "Top 25 cult shows" at No. 20, and one of the "Top 50 Television Programs of All Time" by the same guide at No. 45. In 2007, Channel 4 (UK) ranked Twin Peaks #9 on their list of the "50 Greatest TV Dramas".
Also that year, Time included the show on their list of the "100 Best TV Shows of All-Time".
Themes and style
As with much of Lynch's other work (notably Blue Velvet), Twin Peaks explores the gulf between the veneer of small-town respectability and the seedier layers of life lurking beneath it. Each character from the town leads a double life that is slowly uncovered as the series progresses. It attempts to expose the dark side of seemingly innocent lives. The show further resembles Lynch's previous and subsequent work, in that it is difficult to place in a defined genre: stylistically, the program borrows the unsettling tone and supernatural premises of horror films, and simultaneously offers a bizarrely comical parody of American soap operas with a campy, melodramatic presentation of the morally-dubious activities of its quirky characters. Finally, like the rest of Lynch's oeuvre, the show represents an earnest moral inquiry distinguished by both weird humor and a deep vein of surrealism.
A popular feature of the series was Frost and Lynch's trademark use of repeating and sometimes mysterious motifs — trees (especially fern and palms), water, coffee, donuts, owls, logs, ducks, fire — and numerous embedded references to other films and TV shows, such as The Twilight Zone (mysteriously malfunctioning electrical equipment), and The Patty Duke Show (the phenomenon of identical cousins).
Invitation to Love
Invitation to Love is a fictional soap opera in Twin Peaks. It is seen briefly on TV screens in all seven episodes of the first season and was shot in the Ennis House. The show acts as a commentary on events unfolding in Twin Peaks itself, often highlighting some of the more outlandish or melodramatic elements of the show. The most obvious example of this "show-within-a-show" commentary can be found when Maddy Ferguson, the near-identical cousin of Laura Palmer, first arrives in Twin Peaks. Just before Maddy first appears on the show, an episode of Invitation to Love is shown in which it is revealed that there are identical twin characters in Invitation to Love who are played by the same actress, much as Maddy and Laura Palmer are almost identical, and are both played by Sheryl Lee. It is also implied in the brief snippet of the show that is shown that Jade and Emerald, the two characters in Invitation to Love, are characters with very different personalities, much as sweet and innocent Maddy is diametrically opposed to the dark and secretive Laura in Twin Peaks.
Another example can be found in the final episode of the first season, when Leo Johnson is shot in a dramatic fashion, and a similar event is shown happening to the character of Montana in Invitation to Love. Lynch later reused the motif of a show-within-a-show in his film Inland Empire (2006), which incorporated a secondary series, Rabbits.
Merchandise
The popularity of Twin Peaks led to a merchandising industry; ranging from books and audio tapes of the series. In addition, there have been DVD and VHS releases of the series.
DVD and VHS releases
The pilot episode, first shown on TV in the US, was released on home video in Europe in 1989. The European version is 20 minutes longer than the TV pilot, with a different ending added to bring closure to the story. The Red Room dream sequence that ends episode two, where Cooper encounters the Man from Another Place and Laura Palmer, was originally shot for this film. Lynch was so happy with the material that he incorporated part of it into the second episode of the regular series (that is, the third episode shown in the U.S., including the pilot) as a dream Cooper has about the case (at the start of episode three, Cooper gives a scene-by-scene account of the European ending, including references to events seen only in the international pilot and not the dream-sequence version, such as MIKE shooting BOB). This version of the pilot was also offered by Warner Home Video in the United States, resulting in a rights-entanglement which prevented the broadcast version of the pilot being released for a number of years. On October 30, 2007, the broadcast version of the pilot finally received a legitimate U.S. release as part of the Twin Peaks "Definitive Gold Box Edition". This set includes both versions of the pilot.
On December 18, 2001, the first season (episodes 1-7, minus the pilot) of Twin Peaks was released on DVD in Region 1 by Republic Pictures, which had an output deal through Artisan Entertainment, now part of Lions Gate Entertainment. The box set was noted for being the first TV show to have its audio track redone in DTS. The region 1 release was heavily criticized for not including the key pilot episode, which could not be included due to the fact Lynch sold the rights to it to Warner Home Video in order to facilitate its video release in Europe. When the series was released on video in the US (twice by Spelling Entertainment's Worldvision Home Video), the pilot episode was excluded both times. In turn, Warner Home Video released the pilot on video — however, it was actually the European version, and was labelled as having "bonus footage". The televised pilot episode is included in the UK (region 2) DVD release from Universal Home Entertainment. A DVD collection of Season One was released in Australia by Paramount Pictures, in 2001. In 2006, Season 2 was released by the same distributor in two parts (Collections 1 and 2). In addition, the entire series was released in Australia in a box set collector's edition.
The first season DVD box set is known to have production errors, which cause many DVD players to freeze. One known track glitch occurs during the opening credits of episode 2. Another glitch occurs fifteen minutes into episode 4, during Donna and Audrey's scene in the girls' high school restroom. The European DVD box set of season two has an audio flaw where in episode 12, the center and right channels have been flip-flopped. The release of Season Two was complicated by the sale of Spelling Entertainment (which included both Republic Pictures, and the predecessor company, Worldvision Enterprises, the series' former distributor) - and later the transition of video rights - to Paramount/Viacom in 1998; and the 2006 split of Viacom into two separate companies — this saw the rights go to CBS Corporation/CBS Studios. Also, Lynch oversaw the transfer from video to DVD personally, but was delayed by the production of his new film, Inland Empire.
The first season was released on DVD by Artisan Entertainment, the video licensee for Republic, but Artisan/Lions Gate's rights expired in September 2005, and thus were transferred to Paramount. As a result of the 2006 corporate split of CBS and Viacom, CBS Studios (which ended up with Republic Pictures' and Spelling Entertainment's TV holdings) now owns the rights to the Twin Peaks series, with CBS Television Distribution handling syndication, and CBS Home Entertainment owning the DVD rights (although CBSHE releases are distributed by Paramount). The second season release was postponed several times, from September 2004, to early 2005, and then to September 2005, to early 2006. Season Two was finally released in the United States and Canada on April 3, 2007 via Paramount Home Entertainment/CBS DVD, which now acts as home video distributor. In Germany, Season 2 was released in two parts on separate dates in April 2007. Part 1 went on general release on January 4, 2007, including the "broadcast" version of the pilot episode. North American rights to the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me film are owned by New Line Cinema, a division of Time Warner (which also owns Warner Bros.), and is available on video and DVD through New Line. In Canada, the DVD was distributed through Alliance Atlantis, which holds all Canadian rights to the New Line library.
At the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con, a Twin Peaks box set was confirmed for U.S. release. It includes both seasons, the two versions of the Pilot episode, deleted scenes for both seasons, and a feature-length retrospective documentary. It was released on October 30, 2007. No date as yet has been announced for a U.K. release. The set was also released in most of Europe Region 2 (not including UK).
Books and audio
Many books have been written from or about the television show Twin Peaks. During the show's second season, Pocket Books released three official tie-in books, each authored by the show's creators (or their family), which offer a wealth of backstory.
One of these books: The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer written by Jennifer Lynch, David Lynch's daughter, is just that, the diary as seen in the series and written by Laura chronicling her thoughts from age 13 to the day she died, including the missing pages which an unknown vandal tore out. Kyle MacLachlan also recorded Diane: The Secret Tapes of Agent Dale Cooper, which combined audio tracks from various episodes of the series with newly recorded monologues.
Film adaptation
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me can be viewed as both prologue and epilogue to the series. It tells of the investigation into the murder of Teresa Banks and the last seven days in the life of Laura Palmer. These two connected murders were the central mysteries of the television series. Thus, the film is often considered as a prequel, but it is not intended to be viewed before the series and also has sequel qualities; this includes an explanation of Cooper's fate at the end of the series. Most of the television cast returned for the film, with the notable exceptions of Lara Flynn Boyle who declined to return as Laura’s best friend Donna Hayward, who was replaced with Moira Kelly, and Sherilyn Fenn due to scheduling conflicts. Also, Kyle MacLachlan was reluctant to return so his presence in the film is smaller than originally planned.
Fire Walk With Me was received poorly, especially in comparison to the series. It was greeted at the Cannes Film Festival with booing from the audience and met with almost unanimously negative reviews by American critics. The film fared poorly in the United States, partially because it was released almost a year after the television series was canceled (due to a sharp ratings decline in the second season) and partially due to its complicated nature that may have baffled those who had not previously seen the series. It grossed a total of USD $1.8 million in 691 theaters in its opening weekend and went on to gross a total of $4.1 million in North America.
Further reading
External links
Twin Peaks Festival at the Encyclopedia of Television An interactive guide to 'Twin Peaks', includes reviews of each episode and the prequel film Twin Peaks filming locations, then and now (with commercials) at Fancast.com Website/blog about Twin Peaks and David Lynch
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