Unpopular Opinion

The tv show aired while I was in college. If you knew who Lynch was before going into it, you kinda expected it to be weird just for the sake of being weird, because that's David Lynch in a nutshell. And it did live up to those expectations, I must admit. The backwards taking dream sequence, the log lady, agent Cooper's obsession with coffee, all fit. In fact when MacLachlan's character in Fallout was making coffee I fully expected to hear his famous line from Twin Peaks

It blew me away because there was nothing on television like it at the time. Twenty years later I bought the gold Twin Peaks DVD collection and didn't get more than halfway through the first season. Not because it was bad the second time around, but because it was so good the first time around I remembered everything about it.

No part of the story is ever finished. 'Ah but that's where the depth resides!'. Rubbish. Anybody can write a story that doesn't properly finish.

Lol, I like your style

I think David Lynch is like cryptic crossword clues.

If you get it, it's genius. If you don't, it's nonsense.

I don't get it, but others do and that's fine.

They didn’t use Lynch for some of season 2. It was clear they just did weird shots for the sake of being weird when Lynch wasn’t around. Those are terrible. Lynch is very intentional.

to me it's good in historical context the same way the cave paintings are good in the historical context. Do we paint better paintings now? Sure! Are there better shows now? Sure!

But at the time it was a fantastic blend of genres and surrealism that just came out of nowhere like a freight train in the night.

It's like watching 4 different shows all blended together. I really like it for that boldness. Sure sometimes it doesn't quite land but that's ok.

I also find his style annoying. How on earth were you able to finish the series?

It was patchy, especially in the middle of season 2, and somewhat compromised. The studio forced Lynch to name a killer (he wanted to keep the mystery open, as he would have in a film), and sometime after that it sagged into soap-opera tropes. On its own merits, it is a mixed bag, and if judged as “high-quality TV drama”, it’s middling.

Though its main impact was the shows that followed. Before it, TV drama was mediocre soaps and sitcoms with formulaic plots, of the sort that didn’t aspire to be more than chewing gum for the eyes. Twin Peaks and its success showed that TV could aspire to be more than that. If it hadn’t had its cultural impact, there’d have been no X Files, Sopranos, West Wing, Breaking Bad or similar series, just more variations on General Hospital, Hill Street Blues, The Young And The Restless and so on.

May I ask how old you are? I'm not prying, but I'm curious if you watched it when it was new or if you are younger and only know it from DVD/streaming.

I am old enough that I watched it as it was broadcast, and it was unlike anything that had been done on TV before. I don't even know how Lynch got it made. It landed like a bombshell in the midst of sanitized pap. It was gritty and played with sex, drugs, and evil in a way that made shows like Miami Vice look vapid. It may seem like half finished, trope laden junk now, but it cut the path that every edgy show since had followed. Issues like the duality of people - the homogenized surface facade of presenting how we want to be vs the inner desire and how we are just hadn't been addressed in that way before.

There is some deliberate hokiness to it. The parallel of the soap opera to the town is deliberate and a wink to the fact that every story is largely the same but dressed up in a new way. Think of "a stranger comes to town, or someone goes on a journey" level analysis. The humor is pure Lynch.

It may seem different in retrospect because it's done better now. Audiences are comfortable with this kind of thing. It was brand new then, and somehow approved by the same network that approved Thirtysomething and cut 40 minutes of sex and drugs from Scarface.

You're wrong and Twin Peaks is peak television. Take my upvote.

Have you seen all 3 seasons? An honest fan will tell you season 2 is kinda bad because they were forcing Lynch to pivot on core plot points because ratings needed a boost.

Also, you are supposed to be somewhat confused on some of best twin peaks lore if you don't watch the movie: Twin peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

I love this post tho. I can relate with your frustration, as it was my initial reaction too. You have to somewhat admit that if the shows is as bad as you claim, how did it stir such a reaction in you unlike other more enjoyable/simple tv shows?

I'm not the biggest fan of twin peaks, but I slowly found it's other-worldliness almost comforting beyond belief. Initially I felt there was no substance to it all. It's just pointless mystery for the sake of creepy and darker depths and plot twists with no resolution. But after awhile I found myself longing for that open-ended weirdness that only a madman like Lynch would allow. I was looking for the douglas furs, the red rooms, and most importantly, I was looking for a way to get back home. Then you start to really connect with some parts of the show that I'll refrain from ruining. I've prolly said too much. Explore your curiosities of the twin peaks world, unless you aren't a curious soul, but if that's the case how did you stumble across such a work? I'm gonna have to rewatch season 3 after all this. Thanks op

Eh.

For me Twin Peaks was about individual scenes that really nailed it. As a whole it can be a little flimsy and David Lynch is a love him or hate him director.

I think there's a separation between the original 2 seasons and the followup over 2 decades later. The "who done it" of the original 2 seasons was genuinely good as far as I'm concerned. And those seasons had a cozy factor to them as well. Very soap opera.

The new season was much darker, and I do like that, but the direction was a lot sloppier. Holding the main character back for almost the entire season was also a real rough decision that pissed basically everyone off. I do think the origin story (nuclear bomb) episode was one of the cooler episodes of TV I've seen in recent memory.

And, as always with Lynch, you never get real answers.

I live out by where it was filmed - and by an old timber company town. There is a bit of truth to how weird and fucked up they were. Obviously the show dramatized the situation, but it captured the vibe.

Great post!

I don't know that I would go as far as rubbish though. It is mostly artsy fartsy though. I think the thing that makes it interesting is the fact that a show like that was made for a network and ran for more than a few episodes. Very much unheard of for TV to do experimental stuff like that.

I wasn't a fan at the time, and subsequent exposure to the occasional episode since then haven't changed that. But I can see the value in it having been. It did break a lot of ground in terms of non traditional shows being made.

I think the music is sublime and love the show but I respect your opinion, I recently rewatched it and it wasn't as good as I originally thought, it was about my 4th rewatch of the series in whole I think, I did see some of it on live television though and we watched a lot of Northern Exposure after it.

I'm not sure about the acting, I thought it was quite well acted, but it really depends on what style of acting you like. Compare the acting from any decade and you will see some differences, granted he took it to the extreme with his characters, as is normal for these kinds of psychological thrillers. I think it gives the show a bit of comic relief that all the characters are so larger than life.

Twin Peaks was the gateway to David Lynch's Number of the Day. Every day goes by without a number now and every day without a number is a day wasted.

I think David Lynch is massively overrated in general. He makes stuff that SHOULD be up my alley (I love weird art) but it just feels so.....conceited? He seems like the type of guy who thinks his farts don't stink

When a video store near me was shutting down. I picked up the entire boxed set for $5 or $10. I don't think I even made it through the first episode. I still look at it and think, "maybe I should rewatch this classic show".

I like weird. I don't like stupid weird.

I share this opinion! I really don't like Lynch's work. All the best to everybody who enjoys it, but it isn't for me.

My main reason (please feel free to relentlessly mock me) is that his films feel like they are hovering in this hybrid point between being "mainstream" and art house. As a result, they just fall flat on both fronts.

I also feel that he pretends that there's more depth behind some of his arbitrary decisions than there really are. Its fine to be instinctual in filmmaking, to do stuff that's random, and play with ambiguity, but often it seems like he will play coy and imply a lot of thought went into incidental elements. These points are often contradicted by BTS footage.

Fellini feels Lynchlike to me, but I think Fellini's weirdness feels so much deeper and more nuanced because he isn't afraid to really openly discuss his thoughts and reasoning.

Still, I will admit that Lynch had great style. I'm glad he pushed many people towards stranger cinema. On that front, he's world class.

For what it’s worth, twin peaks is about television. We are the rapacious antagonist.

I used to really like Lynch until I watched a documentary about him and realized what a privileged poseur voyeur he is. Understanding the man ruined the work for me. His perspective is so shallow. It turns out the allusion of depth is as deep as he gets

Yeah, I feel like a philistine for not being the biggest fan of Lynch's more surreal stuff. I quit Twin Peaks after episode 1 of season 2.

Eraserhead was okay I guess. Dune is Dune. It has its pros and cons.

However, I watched The Elephant Man after seeing someone recommend it as a good entry point for Lynch, and it was fantastic.

Highly recommend giving The Elephant Man a shot. It's much more grounded in reality than most of his other stuff. And based on a real person.

Edit: forgot about Blue Velvet. Didn't hate that one, but mostly due to the performances moreso than anything else.