Twin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by
David LynchDavid Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
and
Mark FrostMark Frost is an American novelist, television/film writer, director, who is best known as a writer for the TV show Hill Street Blues and co-creator of the show Twin Peaks.-Personal life:...
. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent
Dale CooperFBI Special agent Dale Bartholomew Cooper is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, portrayed by Kyle MacLachlan. He is the lead protagonist of the series, and briefly appears in the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me....
(
Kyle MacLachlanKyle Merritt MacLachlan is an American actor. MacLachlan is best known for his roles in cult films Blue Velvet as Jeffrey Beaumont, Showgirls as Zack Carey, as Paul Atreides in Dune, and Ray Manzarek in the Oliver Stone film The Doors...
), of the murder of a popular teenager and
homecoming queenHomecoming is the tradition of welcoming back alumni of a school. It most commonly refers to a tradition in many universities, colleges and high schools in North America...
,
Laura PalmerLaura Palmer is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. Her death was the catalyst for the events of the series...
(
Sheryl LeeSheryl Lee is an American actress. She came to international attention for her performances as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me...
). Twin Peaks pilot episode was first broadcast on April 8, 1990 on
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, which led to another seven episodes being produced and a second season, which aired until June 10, 1991. The show's name came from its setting, a small fictional Washington town. Exteriors were primarily filmed in
SnoqualmieSnoqualmie is a city next to Snoqualmie Falls in King County, Washington. The city is home to the Northwest Railway Museum. The population was of 10,670 at the 2010 census...
and
North BendNorth Bend is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The town was made famous by David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks Since the Weyerhaeuser sawmill closed, North Bend has become an upscale bedroom community for the Eastside of Seattle, Washington, with property values more than...
, with additional exteriors shot in southern California. Most of the interior scenes were shot on standing sets in a
San Fernando ValleyThe San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
warehouse.
Twin Peaks became one of 1990's
top-ratedNielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
shows, a critical success both nationally and internationally. Reflecting its devoted
cultA cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
fan base, the series became a part of popular culture, referenced in other television shows, commercials, comic books, video games, 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. In 1992, the series spawned a prequel, the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, a commercial failure in America, but
a success in JapanBig in Japan was originally a scornful phrase applied to Western rock bands that failed to sell many records in the United States and/or the United Kingdom. During the 1960s and 1970s, Japanese pop culture was not yet considered very cool in the English-speaking world...
. In 1997, the pilot episode was ranked #25 on TV Guides 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. In 2002, the series was ranked #45 on
TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All TimeTV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time is TV Guides list of the 50 most entertaining and influential television series in American pop culture...
and in 2007, it was listed as one of
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's "Best TV Shows of All-TIME."
Overview
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 lifeDouble Life is a 2-CD compilation album of songs by Värttinä. It includes the entire 6.12 live album, and songs from studio albums Seleniko, Aitara and Ilmatar...
that is slowly uncovered as the series progresses, as 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
campyCamp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
, 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 humorSurreal humour is a form of humour based on violations of causal reasoning with events and behaviours that are logically incongruent. Constructions of surreal humour involve bizarre juxtapositions, non-sequiturs, irrational situations, and/or expressions of nonsense.The humour arises from a...
and a deep vein of
surrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
.
Plot
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, logger
Pete MartellPeter Martell is a character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost.Pete , born on June 28, 1943, is a lumberjack who married his boss' sister Catherine. What started as a "summer's indiscretion", developed into a marriage on the rocks, a marriage that from...
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 PalmerLaura Palmer is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. Her death was the catalyst for the events of the series...
. The news of her death spreads rapidly among the town's residents, particularly Laura's family and friends. Meanwhile, just across the state line, a badly injured second girl, Ronette Pulaski, is found walking along the railroad tracks in a
fugue stateA fugue state, formally dissociative fugue or psychogenic fugue , is a rare psychiatric disorder characterized by reversible amnesia for personal identity, including the memories, personality and other identifying characteristics of individuality...
. Because Ronette was discovered across the state line, FBI Special Agent
Dale CooperFBI Special agent Dale Bartholomew Cooper is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, portrayed by Kyle MacLachlan. He is the lead protagonist of the series, and briefly appears in the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me....
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 that night, Cooper informs the community that Laura's death matches the
M.O.Modus operandi is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode of operation". The term is used to describe someone's habits or manner of working, their method of operating or functioning...
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 lifeDouble Life is a 2-CD compilation album of songs by Värttinä. It includes the entire 6.12 live album, and songs from studio albums Seleniko, Aitara and Ilmatar...
. 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 PalmerLeland Palmer is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. He also appears in the prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me....
, a prominent attorney, suffers a
nervous breakdownMental breakdown is a non-medical term used to describe an acute, time-limited phase of a specific disorder that presents primarily with features of depression or anxiety.-Definition:...
. Her best friend,
Donna HaywardDonna Hayward is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost.Donna is the best friend of Laura Palmer, and after her death she is obsessed with finding out who killed her and why, with the help of James Hurley,...
, begins a relationship with James Hurley and, with the help of Laura's cousin, Maddy Ferguson, sets about investigating Laura's psychiatrist, Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, who they discover was obsessed with Laura. He is revealed 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.
Ben HorneBenjamin Joseph Horne is a character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, portrayed by Richard Beymer. His last name is based on real life department store owner Joseph Horne founder of Horne's in Pittsburgh where Mark Frost is from, while his and his...
, 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
Josie PackardJocelyn "Josie" Packard is a character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. Played by Joan Chen, she is a classic "femme fatale" character.-Background:She is from Hong Kong, and is ethnic Chinese...
(and his lover Catherine Martell, Josie's sister-in-law) so that he can purchase the land at a reduced price and complete a long-planned development project. His sultry, troubled daughter,
Audrey HorneAudrey Horne is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. She was played by Sherilyn Fenn.Audrey is 18 years old during the action of the series...
, falls in love with Cooper, and 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, sitting stationary in a room surrounded by red curtains that 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 is revealed 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, he tracks Renault down to a brothel owned by Ben Horne across the border in Canada. Cooper confronts him there, and tricks Renault into meeting him on U.S. soil at the water treatment plant. Shot during his arrest at the plant, 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; afterward, Ben has Leo gunned down by a hitman to ensure he will not talk. Returning to his room following Jacques' arrest, Cooper is shot by a masked gunman, ending the season on a cliffhanger.
Season two
After Cooper is shot, he is left lying in the room. In his injured and semi-lucid state, Cooper experiences a vision in which a
giantThe Giant is a character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. He is played by Carel Struycken.The Giant appears to FBI agent Dale Cooper in visions, first right after Cooper has been shot in his hotel room...
appears to him. The giant reveals three things to Agent Cooper: "there is a man in a smiling bag", "the owls are not what they seem", 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 by Cooper, his ring will be returned.
Meanwhile, Leo Johnson undergoes surgery, having survived his shooting but rendered severely incapacitated. Catherine Martell 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 overnight, returns to work after Renault's death, 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. Meanwhile, Donna takes on Laura's old route from her Meals on Wheels program in the hopes of finding more clues to Laura's murder, befriending a young man named Harold Smith who has severe agoraphobia and a love of orchids. She discovers he is in possession of another diary that Laura kept and attempts to steal it from him with the help of Maddy. Harold catches them in the act and loses all faith in humanity. He hangs himself in his orchid greenhouse shortly thereafter. The discovery of his body leads to the officers taking possession of Laura's secret diary where it is revealed 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 would not kill her because he was in love with her. Shortly thereafter, Maddy Ferguson is brutally murdered by Leland, revealing that he is Bob. She is found dead and wrapped in plastic with fur from a stuffed 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 herringA red herring is a deliberate attempt to divert attention.Red herring may refer to:* Red herring , the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question....
s, convinced that he will receive a sign to help him identify the killer. When offering Leland Palmer a piece of gum, a spirit that appeared to Cooper just after the shooting but before the appearance of the Giant 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 so, that it means Bob might still be stalking the community of Twin Peaks, looking for a new host.
With the murder investigation concluded, Cooper is set to leave Twin Peaks when he is framed for drug trafficking by the criminal Jean Renault and temporarily suspended from the FBI. Renault holds Cooper responsible for the death of his brother Jacques, who was murdered by Leland Palmer/Bob while Jacques was in police custody at the hospital recuperating from being shot. After Jean Renault is killed in a shootout with police and Cooper is cleared of all charges, his former FBI partner and mentor
Windom EarleWindom Earle is a fictional character in the American TV series Twin Peaks, played by Kenneth Welsh.He is a former FBI agent, and the former partner and best friend of Agent Dale Cooper. He features in the second half of the second season. He is an evil genius and a master of disguise, well-versed...
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, cut 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 LodgeThe Black Lodge is a fictional setting featured in the television series Twin Peaks. It is an extradimensional place which seems to include, primarily, the "Red Room" first seen by Agent Cooper in a dream early in the series...
, 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. Meanwhile, Bob moves from Leland to Jocelyn Packard, where it is revealed that she is Cooper's shooter. Bob then leaves her body as Truman and Cooper attempt to apprehend her, and she is killed in the process.
Cooper also falls in love with a new girl in town, Annie Blackburn. 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
doppelgängerIn fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...
s of various dead people, including Maddy and Leland Palmer, who taunt him with strange, false statements. The doppelgängers 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 tells Earle that he cannot take human souls and then 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 doppelgänger 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. When Cooper enters the bathroom and looks into the mirror, his reflection reveals that he is the evil version of Dale Cooper, as his reflection shows Bob. He then rams his face into the mirror and while laughing manically, rhetorically asks repeatedly about Annie's condition, ending the series with an unresolved cliffhanger.
Cast and characters
Twin Peaks features members of a loose ensemble of Lynch's favorite character actors, including
Jack NanceMarvin John Nance , known professionally as Jack Nance and occasionally credited as John Nance, was an American actor of stage and screen, primarily starring in offbeat or avant-garde productions...
,
Kyle MacLachlanKyle Merritt MacLachlan is an American actor. MacLachlan is best known for his roles in cult films Blue Velvet as Jeffrey Beaumont, Showgirls as Zack Carey, as Paul Atreides in Dune, and Ray Manzarek in the Oliver Stone film The Doors...
,
Grace ZabriskieGrace Zabriskie is an American actress. She has appeared in many popular American films but, she is best known for her work in television. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks, Seinfeld, and Big Love.-Early life:Zabriskie was born in New Orleans, Louisiana...
, and
Everett McGillEverett McGill is an American actor, best known for mostly playing villains in films like Licence to Kill, Silver Bullet, Dune, Yanks and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.-Life and career:...
.
Isabella RosselliniIsabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...
, 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 PackardJocelyn "Josie" Packard is a character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. Played by Joan Chen, she is a classic "femme fatale" character.-Background:She is from Hong Kong, and is ethnic Chinese...
, of
ChineseHan Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
ethnicity, and the role given to actress
Joan ChenJoan Chong Chen is a Chinese American actress, film director, screenwriter and film producer. She became famous in China for her performance in the 1979 film Little Flower and came to international attention for her performance in the 1987 Academy Award-winning film The Last Emperor...
. It is also notable for the casting of several veteran actors who had risen to fame in the 1950s and 1960s, including 1950s movie stars
Richard BeymerGeorge Richard Beymer, Jr. is an American actor known for playing Tony in the 1961 film version of West Side Story and Ben Horne on the 1990 television series Twin Peaks.-Life and career:...
,
Piper LauriePiper Laurie is an American actress of stage and screen known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks and the films The Hustler, Carrie, and Children of a Lesser God, all of which brought her Academy Award nominations...
,
Russ TamblynRussell Irving "Russ" Tamblyn is an American film and television actor, who is arguably best known for his performance in the 1961 movie musical West Side Story as Riff, the leader of the Jets gang....
, British actor James Booth (
ZuluZulu is a 1964 historical war film depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift between the British Army and the Zulus in January 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War....
) and former
The Mod SquadThe Mod Squad is a television series that ran on ABC from September 24, 1968, until August 23, 1973. This series starred Michael Cole, Peggy Lipton, Clarence Williams III, and Tige Andrews...
star
Peggy LiptonPeggy Lipton is an American television actress. She played "Julie Barnes" in The Mod Squad, and Norma Jennings in Twin Peaks.- Personal life and background :...
. The main character of the series, Agent Dale Cooper, played by
Kyle MacLachlanKyle Merritt MacLachlan is an American actor. MacLachlan is best known for his roles in cult films Blue Velvet as Jeffrey Beaumont, Showgirls as Zack Carey, as Paul Atreides in Dune, and Ray Manzarek in the Oliver Stone film The Doors...
, appeared in all thirty episodes of Twin Peaks, including the pilot.
Due to budget constraints, Lynch intended to cast a local girl from Seattle, reportedly "just to play a dead girl". The local girl ended up being
Sheryl LeeSheryl Lee is an American actress. She came to international attention for her performances as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me...
; 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 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 Ferguson, Laura's similar-looking cousin. The character of Philip Gerard's appearance in the pilot episode was only originally intended to be a "kind of homage to
The FugitiveThe Fugitive is an American drama series produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death...
. 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 appeared in the European version of the pilot episode, and surfaced 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 FugitiveThe Fugitive is an American drama series produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death...
. Lynch met
Michael J. AndersonMichael J. Anderson is an American actor known for his roles as the Man from Another Place in David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks, the epilogue and prologue film of the series, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and Samson Leonhart on the HBO series Carnivàle...
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 HorneBenjamin Joseph Horne is a character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, portrayed by Richard Beymer. His last name is based on real life department store owner Joseph Horne founder of Horne's in Pittsburgh where Mark Frost is from, while his and his...
because he had known Johanna Ray, Lynch's casting director. Lynch was familiar with Beymer's work in the 1961 film
West Side StoryWest Side Story is a 1961 musical film directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. The film is an adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was adapted from William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. It stars Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno,...
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 Maddy 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.
Production
David LynchDavid Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
, who had experienced previous success with the acclaimed
The Elephant ManThe Elephant Man is a 1980 American drama film based on the true story of Joseph Merrick , a severely deformed man in 19th century London...
(1980) and Blue Velvet (1986), was hired by a
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
executive to direct a film about the life of
Marilyn MonroeMarilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, 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 FrostMark Frost is an American novelist, television/film writer, director, who is best known as a writer for the TV show Hill Street Blues and co-creator of the show Twin Peaks.-Personal life:...
. 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 MartinStephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....
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 storyCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
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 PlacePeyton Place is a 1957 American drama film directed by Mark Robson. The screenplay by John Michael Hayes is based on the bestselling 1956 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious.-Plot:...
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
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
during the
1988 Writers Guild of America strikeThe 1988 Writers Guild of America strike was a strike action taken by members of both the Writers Guild of America, East and the Writers Guild of America, West against major United States television and film studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers...
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 the 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. They had been talking about the project for three months and then wrote the screenplay in 10 days. 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 titled Northwest Passage and set in
North DakotaNorth Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
, but the fact that a town called Twin Peaks really exists prompted a revision in the script. ABC Entertainment President Brandon Stoddard ordered the two-hour pilot for a possible fall 1989 series. He left the position in March 1989 as Lynch went into production. They filmed the pilot for $4 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 filmIn the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
if the TV show was not picked up. ABC's
Robert IgerRobert A. "Bob" Iger is the president and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company. He was named president of Disney in 2000, and later succeeded Michael Eisner as chief executive in 2005, after a successful effort by Roy E. Disney to shake-up the management of the company...
and his creative team took over, saw the dailies and met with Frost and Lynch to get the "arc" of the stories and characters. However, even though 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 or that it might run as a seven-hour mini-series. 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.
Each episode took a week to shoot and after directing the second episode, Lynch went off to complete
Wild at HeartWild at Heart is a 1990 American film written and directed by David Lynch, and based on Barry Gifford's 1989 novel Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula. Both the book and the film revolve around Sailor Ripley and Lula Pace Fortune , a young couple from Cape Fear, North Carolina who go on...
while Frost wrote the remaining segments. Standards and Practices only had a problem with one scene from the first season: an extreme close-up in the pilot of Cooper's hand as he slid tweezers under Laura's fingernail and removed a tiny "R". They wanted the scene to be shorter because it made them uncomfortable but Frost and Lynch refused and the scene remained.
Themes
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 ThrushThe Varied Thrush is a member of the thrush family Turdidae.It breeds in western North America from Alaska to northern California. It is migratory, with northern breeders moving south within or somewhat beyond the breeding range...
, 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".
A popular feature of the series was Frost and Lynch's trademark use of repeating the sometimes mysterious motifs—trees (especially fir and palms), coffee, cherry pie, donuts, owls, logs, ducks, water, fire—and numerous embedded references to other films and TV shows.
Music
In fall 1989, composer
Angelo BadalamentiAngelo Badalamenti is an American composer, known for his movie soundtrack work for director David Lynch, notably Blue Velvet, the Twin Peaks saga and Mulholland Drive...
and Lynch created the score for the show. In 20 minutes they produced the signature theme for the series. Badalamenti called it the "Love Theme From Twin Peaks". Lynch told him, "you just wrote 75% of the score. It's the mood of the whole piece. It is Twin Peaks". While creating the score, Lynch often described the moods or emotions he wanted the music to evoke and Badalamenti began to play the piano. In the scenes dominated by young men, they are accompanied by music that Badalamenti called Cool Jazz. The characters' masculinity was enhanced by finger-snapping, "cocktail-lounge electric piano, pulsing bass, and lightly brushed percussion". A handful of the motifs were borrowed from the
Julee CruiseJulee Cruise is an American singer, and actress.With a distinctive, airy voice, Cruise has recorded three albums, but is probably best known for the lead vocal on "Falling," the theme song for the cult U.S. television series Twin Peaks...
album
Floating into the NightFloating into the Night is the debut album by dream pop artist Julee Cruise, released in 1989. The album was produced and all songs were written by film director, David Lynch, and composer, Angelo Badalamenti. Lynch wrote the lyrics to Badalamenti's music...
, 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. 1Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted is a short, avant-garde musical play directed by David Lynch, with music by Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise.-Overview:...
, a live Cruise performance also featuring
Michael J. AndersonMichael J. Anderson is an American actor known for his roles as the Man from Another Place in David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks, the epilogue and prologue film of the series, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and Samson Leonhart on the HBO series Carnivàle...
("The Man from Another Place").
The song "Falling" (sans vocals) became the theme to the show, and the songs "
Rockin' Back Inside My Heart"Rockin' Back Inside My Heart" is the second single released from Julee Cruise's 1989 debut album Floating into the Night. David Lynch wrote the lyrics for the song and Angelo Badalamenti composed the music....
", "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. The lyrics for all five songs were written by Lynch. A second volume of the soundtrack was released on October 30, 2007 to coincide with the Definitive Gold Box DVD set. In March 2011,
David LynchDavid Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
began releasing previously unavailable tracks from the series and the film via his website.
Filming locations
Lynch and Frost went on a location scout to Washington and a friend of Frost's recommended
Snoqualmie FallsSnoqualmie Falls is a 268 ft waterfall on the Snoqualmie River between Snoqualmie and Fall City, Washington, USA. It is one of Washington's most popular scenic attractions, but is perhaps best known internationally for its appearance in the cult television series Twin Peaks...
, just east of Seattle. They drove there and found all of the locations that they had written into the pilot episode. The towns of
SnoqualmieSnoqualmie is a city next to Snoqualmie Falls in King County, Washington. The city is home to the Northwest Railway Museum. The population was of 10,670 at the 2010 census...
and
North Bend, WashingtonNorth Bend is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The town was made famous by David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks Since the Weyerhaeuser sawmill closed, North Bend has become an upscale bedroom community for the Eastside of Seattle, Washington, with property values more than...
—which were the primary filming locations for stock Twin Peaks exterior footage—are only about an hour's drive from the town of
Roslyn, WashingtonRoslyn is a city in Kittitas County, Washington, United States. The population was 893 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Roslyn is located at...
, the town used for the series
Northern ExposureNorthern Exposure is an American television series that ran on CBS from 1990 to 1995, with a total of 110 episodes.-Overview:The series was given a pair of consecutive Peabody Awards: in 1991–92 for the show's "depict[ion] in a comedic and often poetic way, [of] the cultural clash between a...
. Many exterior scenes were filmed in wooded areas of Malibu, California.
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 HouseThe Ennis House is a residential dwelling in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA, south of Griffith Park. The home was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Charles and Mabel Ennis in 1923, and built in 1924....
, an architectural landmark of
Frank Lloyd WrightFrank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles.
Improvised elements
At several points during the filming of Twin Peaks, Lynch improvised by incorporating on-set accidents into the story.
The most notable improvisation involved the casting of
set dresser-In Film:Set dressers arrange objects on a film set before shooting. They work under the direction of a leadman, a set decorator and a production designer. Set dressers place furniture, hang pictures, and put out decorative items. They are also responsible for some light construction and assembly...
Frank SilvaFrank Silva was a Native American set dresser and sometime actor best known for his disturbing performance as the evil spirit Killer BOB in the TV series Twin Peaks....
as the mysterious "BOB", and his appearance in Laura Palmer's bedroom. Various versions of the story exist. Lynch himself recalls that the idea originated when he overheard Silva moving furniture around in the bedroom set, and then heard a woman warning Silva not to block himself in by moving furniture in front of the door. Lynch was struck with an image of Silva in the room. When he learned that Silva was an actor, he filmed two panning shots, one with Silva at the base of the bed, and one without; he did not yet know how he would use this material. Later that day, during the filming of Sarah Palmer having a vision, the camera operator told Lynch that the shot was ruined because "Frank [Silva] was reflected in the mirror". Lynch comments, "things like this happen and make you start dreaming. And one thing leads to another, and if you let it, a whole other thing opens up". Lynch used the panning shot of Silva in the bedroom, and the shot featuring Silva's reflection, in the closing scenes of the European version of the pilot episode. Silva's reflection in the mirror can also be glimpsed during the scene of Sarah's vision at the end of the original pilot, but it is less clear. A close-up of Silva in the bedroom later became a significant image in episodes of the TV series.
During the filming of the scene in which Cooper first examines Laura's body, a malfunctioning
fluorescent lampA fluorescent lamp or fluorescent tube is a gas-discharge lamp that uses electricity to excite mercury vapor. The excited mercury atoms produce short-wave ultraviolet light that then causes a phosphor to fluoresce, producing visible light. A fluorescent lamp converts electrical power into useful...
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, 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.
Another example is during the rock throwing in season one. When Kyle MacLachlan was directed to break the bottle, and then did so on the first take,
Kimmy RobertsonKimmy Robertson is an American actress best known for her role as Lucy Moran in the TV series Twin Peaks. She was married to John Christian Walker from January 18, 2003 to September 27, 2004....
was unable to hide her glee and then cheered in joy.
Cooper's dream at the end of the third 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.
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 HouseThe Ennis House is a residential dwelling in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA, south of Griffith Park. The home was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Charles and Mabel Ennis in 1923, and built in 1924....
. The show sometimes acts as a commentary on events unfolding in Twin Peaks itself, 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 PalmerLaura Palmer is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. Her death was the catalyst for the events of the series...
, 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 LeeSheryl Lee is an American actress. She came to international attention for her performances as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me...
. 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. Series co-creator
Mark FrostMark Frost is an American novelist, television/film writer, director, who is best known as a writer for the TV show Hill Street Blues and co-creator of the show Twin Peaks.-Personal life:...
directed all scenes for Invitation to Love.
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 EmpireInland Empire, sometimes styled as INLAND EMPIRE, is a 2006 mystery film written and directed by David Lynch. It was his first feature-length film since 2001's Mulholland Drive, and shares many similarities with that film. It premiered in Italy at the Venice Film Festival on September 6, 2006...
(2006), which incorporated a secondary series,
RabbitsRabbits is a 2002 series of short video films written and directed by David Lynch. It depicts three humanoid rabbits in a room, played by Scott Coffey, Laura Elena Harring and Naomi Watts. Their disjointed conversations are interrupted by a random laugh track. Rabbits is presented with the tagline...
.
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
DynastyDynasty is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 12, 1981 to May 11, 1989. It was created by Richard & Esther Shapiro and produced by Aaron Spelling, and revolved around the Carringtons, a wealthy oil family living in Denver, Colorado...
and its short-lived spin-off
The ColbysThe Colbys is an American prime time soap opera, which originally aired on ABC from November 20, 1985 to March 26, 1987. The Aaron Spelling-produced series was a spin-off of Dynasty, which had been the highest rated series for the 1984-1985 U.S. television season...
did poorly. Twin Peaks was also up against the hugely successful sitcom,
CheersCheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC, and was created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...
.
Initially, the show received a positive response from TV critics.
Tom ShalesThomas William "Tom" Shales is an American critic of television programming and operations. He is best known as TV critic for The Washington Post; in 1988, Shales received the Pulitzer Prize...
, in
The Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, 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 send-up 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."
Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the show an "A+" rating and Ken Tucker wrote, "Plot is irrelevant; moments are everything. Lynch and Frost have mastered a way to make a weekly series endlessly interesting". Time magazine said that it, "may be the most hauntingly original work ever done for American TV".
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 9:00 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.
However, the third episode of the show that aired on the Thursday night time period lost 14% of the audience that had tuned in a week before. That audience had dropped 30% from the show's first appearance on Thursday night. This was as a result of competing against Cheers which appealed to the same demographic that watched Twin Peaks. A production executive from the show spoke of being frustrated with the network's scheduling of the show. "The show is being banged around on Thursday night. If ABC had put it on Wednesday night it could have built on its initial success. ABC has put the show at risk".
In response, the network aired the first season finale on a Wednesday night at 10:00 pm instead of its usual 9:00 pm Thursday slot. The show achieved its best ratings since its third week on the air with a 12.6 and a 22 share of the audience. (Each rating point in the A. C. Nielsen television survey represents 921,000 homes.) On May 22, 1990, it was announced that Twin Peaks would be renewed for a second season.
During the first and second season, the search for Laura Palmer's killer served as the engine for the plot, and caught the public's imagination, although the creators admitted this was largely a
MacGuffinA MacGuffin is "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction". The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is...
; 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
cinematographyCinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
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 InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
(e.g.,
Caleb DeschanelJoseph Caleb Deschanel, A.S.C. is an American film cinematographer and film/television director.-Early life:Deschanel was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a French father and an American mother, who raised him in her Quaker religion. He went to Severn School for high school...
and
Tim HunterTim Hunter is an American television and film director. Since the late 1980s he has mostly worked on television, directing episodes for dozens of televisions series includingBreaking Bad,Carnivàle,...
) 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.
The above-mentioned 'water cooler effect' put pressure on the show's creators to solve the mystery. Although they claimed to have known from the series' inception the identity of Laura's murderer, 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. However, viewers felt dissatisfied at the dénouement, feeling the solution was contrived.
Its ambitious style, paranormal undertones, and engaging murder mystery made Twin Peaks an unexpected hit. Its characters, particularly MacLachlan's Dale Cooper, were unorthodox for a supposed crime drama, as was Cooper's method of interpreting his dreams to solve the crime. During the run of its first season, the show's popularity reached its zenith, and "Peaksmania" seeped into mainstream popular culture and prompting parodies, including one in
the 16th season premiere of Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live aired its sixteenth season during the 1990-1991 television season on NBC. 20 episodes were produced. The sixteenth season began on September 29, 1990, and ended on May 18, 1991....
, hosted by MacLachlan.
Critical acclaim
For its first season, Twin Peaks received fourteen nominations at the
42nd Primetime Emmy AwardsThe 42nd Primetime Emmy Awards were held on September 16, 1990. The ceremony was broadcast on Fox, from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, Pasadena, California.-Outstanding Comedy Series:*Murphy Brown**Cheers**Designing Women...
, for Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (
Kyle MacLachlanKyle Merritt MacLachlan is an American actor. MacLachlan is best known for his roles in cult films Blue Velvet as Jeffrey Beaumont, Showgirls as Zack Carey, as Paul Atreides in Dune, and Ray Manzarek in the Oliver Stone film The Doors...
), Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (
Piper LauriePiper Laurie is an American actress of stage and screen known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks and the films The Hustler, Carrie, and Children of a Lesser God, all of which brought her Academy Award nominations...
), Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (
Sherilyn FennSherilyn Fenn is an American actress and filmmaker. She came to international attention for her performance as Audrey Horne on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks...
), Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series (
David LynchDavid Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
), Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series (David Lynch and
Mark FrostMark Frost is an American novelist, television/film writer, director, who is best known as a writer for the TV show Hill Street Blues and co-creator of the show Twin Peaks.-Personal life:...
), Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series (
Harley PeytonHarley Peyton is an American television producer and writer. He worked in both capacities on Twin Peaks and was nominated for an Emmy Award for his writing on the series. He went to Harvard and Stanford.-Awards and nominations:-References:...
), Outstanding Art Direction for a Series, Outstanding Achievement in Main Title Theme Music, Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore), Outstanding Achievement in Music and Lyrics, and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series. Out of its fourteen nominations, it won for Outstanding Costume Design for a Series and Outstanding Editing for a Series – Single Camera Production.
For its second season, it received four nominations at the
43rd Primetime Emmy AwardsThe 43rd Primetime Emmy Awards were held on August 25, 1991. The ceremony was broadcast on Fox, from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, Pasadena, California.-Outstanding Comedy Series:*Cheers**Designing Women**The Golden Girls...
, for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Kyle MacLachlan), Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Piper Laurie), Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series, and Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series.
At the
48th Golden Globe AwardsThe 48th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and television for 1990, were held on January 19, 1991.-Best Actor - Drama: Jeremy Irons - Reversal of Fortune*Kevin Costner - Dances with Wolves*Richard Harris - The Field...
, it won for Best TV Series – Drama, Kyle MacLachlan won for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series – Drama, Piper Laurie won for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV; while Sherilyn Fenn was nominated in the same category as Laurie.
In 2004 and 2007, Twin Peaks was ranked #20 and #24 on TV Guides Top Cult Shows Ever, and in 2002, it was ranked as one of the "
Top 50 Television Programs of All TimeTV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time is TV Guides list of the 50 most entertaining and influential television series in American pop culture...
" by the same guide at #45. In 2007, UK broadcaster
Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
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".
EmpireEmpire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
listed Twin Peaks as the 24th best TV show in their list of "The 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time".
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 story lines becoming more obscure and drawn out, public interest finally began to wane, and "Peaksmania" seemed over. This discontent, coupled with
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
changing its timeslot on a number of occasions, led to a huge drop in
ratingsNielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
after being one of the most-watched television programs in the United States in 1990. A week after the season's 15th episode placed 85th in the ratings out of 89 shows, ABC put Twin Peaks on indefinite
hiatusIn television scheduling, a hiatus refers to a break of at least several weeks in the normal schedule of a broadcast programming. It can occur during a season of a television program, or can be between television seasons .- Planned hiatus :Many times television stations will implement a hiatus...
, a move which usually leads to cancellation.
An organized letter-writing campaign, dubbed COOP (Citizens Opposed to the Offing of Peaks), started in an attempt to save the show from cancellation. The campaign was successful, and ABC agreed to air the remaining six episodes to finish the season. In the final episodes, Agent Cooper was given a love interest, Annie Blackburn (
Heather GrahamHeather Joan Graham is an American actress. She has appeared in such films as Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Lost in Space, Bowfinger, From Hell, Anger Management, and The Hangover...
), to replace the intended story arc with
Audrey HorneAudrey Horne is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. She was played by Sherilyn Fenn.Audrey is 18 years old during the action of the series...
. The series finale did not sufficiently boost interest, despite being written to end on a deliberate audience-baiting cliffhanger, and the show was not renewed for a third season, leaving the new cliffhanger unresolved.
David LynchDavid Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
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 eggsKilling The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs is among the best known of Aesop's Fables and use of the phrase has become idiomatic of an unprofitable action motivated by greed.-The story and its moral:...
". Lynch blames network pressure for the decision to resolve the Palmer storyline prematurely. In 1993, cable channel Bravo acquired the license to rerun the entire series, which began airing in June 1993. These reruns included Lynch's addition of introductions to each episode by the Log Lady and her cryptic musings.
Looking back, Frost has admitted that he wished he and Lynch had "worked out a smoother transition" between storylines and that the Laura Palmer story was a "tough act to follow". Regarding the second season, Frost felt that "perhaps the storytelling wasn't quite as taut or as fraught with emotion".
2010 Psych reunion
In 2010, the television series
PsychPsych is an American detective comedy-drama television series created by Steve Franks and broadcast on USA Network. It stars James Roday as Shawn Spencer, a young crime consultant for the Santa Barbara Police Department whose "heightened observational skills" and impressive detective instincts...
paid tribute to the series by reuniting some of the cast in the fifth season episode, "
Dual Spires"Dual Spires" is the 12th episode of the fifth season of the American comedy-drama television series Psych, and the 75th episode overall. The episode was directed by Matt Shakman and written by Bill Callahan and series star James Roday...
". The episode's plot is an homage to the Twin Peaks pilot, where the characters of Psych investigate the death of a young girl in a small town called "Dual Spires". The episode also contains several references to the original show, including a special version of the theme song and similar music. Twin Peaks actors that guest star in the episode are
Sherilyn FennSherilyn Fenn is an American actress and filmmaker. She came to international attention for her performance as Audrey Horne on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks...
,
Sheryl LeeSheryl Lee is an American actress. She came to international attention for her performances as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me...
,
Dana AshbrookDana V. Ashbrook is an American actor, perhaps best known for playing Bobby Briggs on the cult TV series Twin Peaks and its 1992 prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.-Personal life:...
,
Robyn LivelyRobyn Elaine Lively is an American actress. Lively is best known for her role in the film Teen Witch, as well as for her roles in the TV shows Doogie Howser, M.D., Twin Peaks, and Saving Grace.-Early life:...
,
Lenny Von DohlenLenny Von Dohlen is an American film and stage actor, best known for his performance as the agoraphobic Harold Smith in Twin Peaks and the architect Miles Harding in the film Electric Dreams. Von Dohlen currently resides in New York and Los Angeles.-Early years:Lenny Von Dohlen was born in...
,
Catherine E. CoulsonCatherine E. Coulson is an American stage and screen actress who also works behind the scenes on various independent films. She is best known for her role as the Log Lady in the David Lynch TV series Twin Peaks....
and
Ray WiseRaymond Nicolas "Ray" Wise is an American actor, known for his roles as Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks, as Leon C. Nash, right-hand henchman to villain Clarence Boddicker in the science fiction classic RoboCop, and recently as the Devil in the CW television series Reaper.-Life and career:Wise was...
. Prior to the airing of the episode, a special event at the Paley Center for Media was held where the actors from both shows discussed the episode.
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 U.S., 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.
Additionally, a
VHSThe Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
box set of the entire series was released in April 1995 by World Vision home entertainment. All 29 episodes were contained on a six tape set.
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 U.S. (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 labeled 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 (Region 4) by Paramount Pictures, in February 2003; like the Region 2 edition, this set includes the televised pilot episode. In 2006, Season Two 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 Pictures|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 EmpireInland Empire, sometimes styled as INLAND EMPIRE, is a 2006 mystery film written and directed by David Lynch. It was his first feature-length film since 2001's Mulholland Drive, and shares many similarities with that film. It premiered in Italy at the Venice Film Festival on September 6, 2006...
.
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 Two 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.
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. The Gold Box set also includes all episodes from both seasons, deleted scenes for both seasons, and a feature-length retrospective documentary. Entertainment Weekly gave the box set a "B+" rating and wrote, "There are numerous fascinatingly frank mini-docs here, including interviews with many Peaks participants; together, they offer one of the best available portraits of how a TV hit can go off the rails". The set was also released in most of Europe Region 2 (not including UK). The Definitive Gold Box Set was released in Australia on December 4, 2007. On March 22, 2010, both the second season DVD and the Definitive Gold Box Edition DVD were released in the UK. This is the only Spelling TV series to still be distributed on UK DVD by Playback/Universal after other series began to be released by Paramount in 2006.
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 PalmerThe Secret Diary of Laura Palmer is a 1990 spin-off novel from the television series Twin Peaks by Jennifer Lynch. Lynch, then aged 22, is the daughter of series co-creator David Lynch...
written by
Jennifer LynchJennifer Chambers Lynch is an American film director and screenwriter, best known for writing the book The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer and for being Hollywood's youngest female writer and director with her 1993 feature film Boxing Helena. -Early life:Lynch was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,...
, David Lynch's daughter, is the diary as seen in the series and written by Laura chronicling her thoughts from her twelfth birthday to the days leading up to her death, 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. Twin Peaks: An Access Guide to the Town offers information about local history, flora, fauna, and culture of the fictitious town.
Theatrical film
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me can be viewed as both
prologueA prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...
and
epilogueAn epilogue, epilog or afterword is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature or drama, usually used to bring closure to the work...
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. Most of the television cast returned for the film, with the notable exceptions of
Lara Flynn BoyleLara Flynn Boyle is an American film and television actress best known for her performances as Laura Palmer's best friend Donna Hayward in Twin Peaks and Assistant District Attorney Helen Gamble in The Practice...
, who declined to return as Laura's best friend
Donna HaywardDonna Hayward is a fictional character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost.Donna is the best friend of Laura Palmer, and after her death she is obsessed with finding out who killed her and why, with the help of James Hurley,...
and was replaced by
Moira KellyMoira Kelly is an American actress. She is best known for playing single mother Karen Roe on the teen drama One Tree Hill. She also directed two episodes of the series: "Resolve" and "I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me"...
, and
Sherilyn FennSherilyn Fenn is an American actress and filmmaker. She came to international attention for her performance as Audrey Horne on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks...
due to scheduling conflicts. Also, Kyle MacLachlan returned reluctantly as he wanted to avoid typecasting, so his presence in the film is smaller than originally planned. David Lynch originally shot about five hours of footage that was subsequently cut down to two hours and fourteen minutes. Most of the deleted scenes feature additional characters from the television series who ultimately did not appear in the finished film; to date, these scenes have not been included on any DVD release of the film.
Fire Walk With Me was received poorly, especially in comparison to the series. It was greeted at the
1992 Cannes Film Festival- Jury :*Gérard Depardieu *John Boorman *Carlo Di Palma *Jamie Lee Curtis *Joële Van Effenterre *Lester James Peries *Nana Djordjadze *Pedro Almodóvar *René Cleitman...
with booing from the audience and has received mixed reviews by American critics. 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.
External links