The bizarre, beloved (and also loathed) world of Twin Peaks will be returning to TV in 2016 with a limited run on the Showtime Channel in the U.S., to be directed by co-creator David Lynch. The revival will be set exactly 25 years later, which coincides neatly with the actual end of the series.
I don't know if I should dust off my copy of The Diary of Laura Palmer and make a cherry pie to celebrate, or if I should give a "harumph" and refer you to this: there are no new stories!
If you weren't a fan of the original series that aired in the early 1990s or missed out, it is a spectacularly weird trip that only looks like a basic murder mystery on top. Beneath the question, "Who killed Laura Palmer?" is a strange tour of a town that has an awful lot of secrets, strange occurrences in the woods, and more than its fair share of characters. The fact it was made and aired at all on network TV says a lot about the power of David Lynch as a filmmaker and the landscape of entertainment in the '90s compared to now. Also, that was some pretty freaky stuff for my parents to allow their teen and pre-teen daughters to watch, so thanks to my folks—accessible David Lynch in your teens is kind of a special thing. The show had some strange yet highly quotable dialogue that my sister and I have folded into our coded language for a lifetime, so that's a testament to its staying power.
It's also on a lot of "Greatest Cult TV shows" lists and it's cult for a reason—it's weird to the point of being inaccessible, especially if you were to sit down and consume its entire two seasons in a marathon (which Showtime has planned prior to the new mini series, of course). It's like a branch of the Lost or The Prisoner family tree that no one talks about, that tree having the label Things We Couldn't Resolve or perhaps We Wrote Ourselves Into a Hole and Can't Get Out. With two seasons and a theatrical movie to follow the series finale, there was a lot of unresolved stuff on Peaks. Loose ends! Weird mystical things! Visions! Crazy characters! Side plots that led nowhere! (And don't go looking for answers in Laura's diary, either.)
But what beautiful weirdness David Lynch and Mark Frost created. It's the same kind of immersive world as a good book, you just want to keep visiting and live there forever, and you are pretty forgiving when not all of the pieces make sense, because taken together, the style and the statement of it are just pure and beautiful art. Whether you can forgive a little—or a lot—of the nonsense depends on whether you appreciate their art.
I think I've just convinced myself to sign up for another stay in Twin Peaks. Will you join me and Agent Cooper? I make a damn good cup of coffee.
Exhausted from a day of looking after the kids and feeling like you're Six Feet Under? Turn on the t.v. and get Lost in one of these 10 shows to binge-watch.
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