Twin Peaks is a series I’ve been meaning to watch for a long time now. I’ve had the score from it for a long time, and I still listen to it to this day. I bought the Prequel/Epilogue Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and watched it several years ago, but not knowing much about the series, it made almost no sense to me, though it was still a very interesting; a typically “David Lynchian” movie experience.
Meghan bought me the then just-released Gold Box complete series for my birthday this past year, and we just recently got around to watching it. That series is, in short, completely amazing; we were both completely hooked right from the start, and now that we’re done, I find myself wishing there was more. It’s just too bad that ABC killed it before they could do a third season, because so much was left unresolved. That, in and of itself is fairly typical David Lynch, but still. It’s disappointing. And there’s virtually no chance in hell that it will ever be resolved. Some of the actors are now dead, others are not interested in returning, and they’re all too old now anyway. It was 17 years ago, after all.
The only hope that the world will ever see any “new” material resides with Mr. Lynch himself; there remains a lot of unused Fire Walk With Me footage (whole story arcs were cut out) that he has supposedly been re-editing to put in a special edition release of FWWM on DVD. The last word (in 2006) was that is was supposed to release sometime in 2007. We’re well into Q2 2008 and there’s been no word, so I’m not holding my breath. On the plus side, FWWM is becoming hard to find on DVD, which may mean that existing stock is being sold out or recalled in anticipation of a new version about to release.
So I’m stuck turning it over in my mind, how things turn out. Left with the surreal and haunting imagery of the series every time I close my eyes. In particular, the sequences in the Red Room with the Man From Another Place, are etched into my mind. At this point, my only hope for any kind of closure, is that Lynch and his co-conspirator Mark Frost will put their heads together and write a novelization of what the third season should have been. That also seems unlikely.
It’s amazing to see though, just how profoundly the show impacted and influenced pretty much everything that came after it. The X-files and the Silent Hill games are the most obvious examples, but I see many many elements of the show in other things, too. I had no idea just how influential it was. Ironic that they were shunned by their peers in the industry at the awards shows, despite 14 nominations. Unsurprising that the industry doesn’t bother to reward innovation and creativity. I guess that’s why I don’t have cable, and why I think 90% of the stuff on TV is garbage.
Posted by Ron as Media, TV & Movies at 9:22 AM EDT