Spoilers regarding Twin Peaks below!


Holy shit! You've never seen Twin Peaks at all? I am honestly very surprised by that. I have always assumed you had seen it, being a fellow David Lynch fan. I'm even more surprised by the fact that this has never come up in all the many, many, fucking countless conversations I've had with you. How did we never get around to discussing Twin Peaks, and my learning that you had never seen it?

Though actually, we very well might have discussed it several times, when I was slobbering drunk late at night in your basement, and I simply don't remember.

Regarding Twin Peaks, it was most certainly the best television series of all time, with only the total ludicrousness of its second (final) season bringing it down a few notches so that it ultimately comes in below Twilight Zone and The Prisoner and a debatable couple of others.

Speaking strictly of the first season of Twin Peaks, it was easily the best thing ever to be created for television. Even the opening credits, with the haunting theme music, just sent chills down my spine. Easily the best theme music of any television series, by a long shot.

And then just consider the very first episode. It begins with a corpse wrapped in plastic washed up on a beach. Shortly after, we are introduced to FBI Agent Cooper, who is certainly the most eccentric nutcase ever to be portrayed as a sympathetic character in the history of fiction. This guy strongly believes that all of his dreams bear some relevance to his real life--he thinks that he is subconsciously connected to the supernatural world, so that all of his dreams are a riddle whose solution will lead him to a vital clue relating to his investigations.

This is established right off the bat, in the first episode. And yet he is not portrayed in a negative way--he is a very kind and gentle man, possessing great intelligence. He goes to this small town and he loves it there, and gets along well with all the people. It was such a contrast to pretty much every other depiction of an FBI agent up to that time--they'd always been depicted as hard-nosed, closed minded fuck-wads. Agent Cooper was certainly the inspiration for the X-Files, except that they dumbed it down and eliminated the eccentricities.

I remember in one early episode, Cooper split an apple in half with an arrow, then studied the designs in the core of the apple in order to determine his next move. That's just fucked up, brilliant stuff.

Of course, even right from the first episode, they established that some crazy-ass supernatural stuff was going on. It eventually became clear that the serial killer was a demon named Bob, who could possess people and make them act upon their most perverse subconscious notions. When this became clear later in the first season, I thought it was just brilliant. Not just because of the demon Bob, but for the supernatural world containing the backwards-talking midget in the crazy striped room who appeared in Cooper's dreams and served as a kind of Yoda to Bob's Darth Vader.

There was also the concept of Garbonzolia (sp?), which was a puke-like material that Bob fed upon, and was composed of people's negative emotions.

The second season kind of went off in many various directions, though--Lynch had given up writing duties to various other people. It went off-track--became ludicrously bizarre. I'm sort of glad it was cancelled.

But then they came out with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which was meant as a prequel to the series. It was a total bomb--audiences and critics alike all despised it. As I said, after multiple viewings, I`ve come to appreciate it very much. Lots of stylish, surreal, what-the fuck moments in there, and yet it doesn`t seem like nonsense. It`s like Mulholland Drive. Fucked up and superficially nonsensical, but after a couple of viewings, you detect some order amidst the chaos.

I had meant to say something about the series finale as well. This will contain spoilers.

Done.

Why do I suddenly have the world's largest craving for coffee and cherry pie?

Twin Peaks was brilliant. If Graham would take a couple hours off from wanking about Polanski's mediocrity perhaps he could viddy a few episodes.

I never knew there was a second season.

I'm surprised to learn that you're a fan. You never struck me as a Twin Peaks sorta guy.

Actually there was supposed to be a season 3 according to Lynch. It's too bad, they just needed to get their writers back on task. Sure we should have NEVER known who killed Laura Palmer, as Lynch and Frost put it "It was our golden goose". However the Windom Earl storyline worked great. They really should have stuck to the already existing character's for the most part. It got a little out of hand near the end, I can't argue with that.

I grabbed the Gold Box Edition a while back. Has both seasons plus a disc of bonus goodies and the European version of the pilot. In fact... I could go for a cup of joe and an episode right now!