Commenting on the Critics with Simon Columb….
Robert Kojder wrote for Flickering Myth yesterday about the tease of Twin Peaks and it’s timing:
“For those that haven’t seen the show, there is a critical plot point alluding to the narrative continuing 25 years after its initial ending. Twin Peaks left the air 23 years ago, so the timing is beginning to come together. It remains to be seen if these tweets mean anything, but it is exciting to see more teasing of the series possibly making a return.”
It’s funny how stories intertwine and interlock over the course of time. While Richard Linklater creates Boyhood over the course of twelve years, programmes that allude to a moment 25 years in the future, get their comeback at the perfect time.
In fact, with the release of the DVD’s, and the recent BluRay ‘Entire Mystery’ of Twin Peaks, more viewers have investigated the murder of Laura Palmer than ever before. I know that prior to watching the series myself, I knew of the series and its importance within television history. The surrealist edge that ran parallel to a who-done-it mystery became the talking point of 1990. Entertainment Weekly had a front cover yelling “The Year’s Best Show!” – and Sherilyn Fenn was splashed across Radio Times, New York magazine and Rolling Stone. Who knew she would become Pacey Whitter’s ‘mature’ lover in Dawson’s Creek over a decade later.
Creators Mark Frost and David Lynch tweeted the same “cryptic” message on Twitter to start the rumour-mill turning late last week. It has been a huge influence since it was released over two decades ago. Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files, clearly took the quirky FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle Maclachlan) from Twin Peaks and tweaked him to become FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) in the supernatural series. The connection between the two series feels like Father and Son. As a child of Twin Peaks, The X-Files maintained a nine-year run by combining weekly investigations with a paranormal ‘truth’. Instead of dreams, the search for truth became the core of the show itself. “The Truth Is Out There” opposed to being locked inside your head.
But it didn’t end there. Bryan Fuller also owes a debt to Frost and Lynch for the success of Hannibal. Rather than searching for the victim Laura Palmer for over a series, FBI Special Agent Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) is searching for a serial-killer who hides in plain sight. The surrealist undercurrent of Hannibal explicitly links to Graham’s state of mind as he pieces together the puzzle. Rather than small-men with reversing voices, Hannibal toys with antlers and deceased characters that haunt his sleep. M. Night Shyamalan, in 2015, is behind new TV show, Wayward Pines, that clearly references Twin Peaks pine-trees locale and it’s agent-visits-small-town set-up. This is an era whereby Twin Peaks is ‘Good-television-making 101’, and every television studio is on the course.
What a time, and climate, to release the follow-up to Twin Peaks within! Binge-watching is all the rage and with nearly twenty-five years of criticism and fan-theory all over the internet, this is a series that we’ll all be supporting before it even hits the streaming-service. I, for one, cannot wait. Now serve me up some cherry pie!
Simon Columb
Originally published October 6, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
