‘Twin Peaks’: Specifically Strange

It’s the quintessential cult classic.

Developing a great creative work in any medium requires at least two key ingredients: mastery of the fundamentals, and that special spark that only you can bring in only that way.

The first one alone can result in a competent show or book, something that serves as a pleasant way to pass the time. It may even succeed financially, but people probably won’t revisit it years or decades later. It’s fine, and there’s nothing especially wrong with it. But it’s lacking any distinctive flair to really set it apart.

But add that unique special spark, and that competent show or book becomes an amazing show or book—at least for its core audience. In TV, these are often the cult classics, the shows that give viewers something beyond the routine procedurals and conventional sitcoms. A show like this treats us to something we haven’t quite seen before, because only these specific people could possibly have created it. Many elements will look familiar, but then there’s something extra in the mix.

This sort of show won’t be for everyone. Some may even hate it, but those who enjoy it will love it. Whenever the show faces the danger of cancellation, its fans will campaign to keep it on the air, because it truly is irreplaceable. Others can emulate it or parody it, but no one can replicate it.

It’s the sort of show like Twin Peaks, which I just finished watching for the first time—the original 1990 series, not the 1992 movie or the 2017 revival. And it is a weird show indeed. But a good weird. Mostly.

Coming in with zero nostalgic attachment, I found the short first season and the beginning of the second season to be an off-kilter delight. Unfortunately, the latter portion of the second season turns into a slog. I doubt it’s a coincidence that the slog begins right after the main storyline wraps up.

Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch, Twin Peaks mixes crime drama and soap opera into something truly unique. The murder of local popular girl Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) brings an FBI agent to town. And you’ve never met an FBI agent like this. Kyle MacLachlan plays Special Agent Dale Cooper, a man who likes his coffee like he likes his … actually, he just really likes coffee, really likes it, as well as Tibet, trees, tape recorders, and, as he comes to find, the whole town of Twin Peaks.

Cooper teams up with the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department, headed by the memorably named Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean). Harry quickly comes to respect the newcomer and happily plays the Watson to Cooper’s Sherlock Holmes. This friendship helps set the tone of the whole series. Oddly enough for a show that kicks off with a dead body, Twin Peaks exudes a love of humanity. Through Cooper’s eyes, everyone is interesting and deserving of respect.

The murder mystery provides a framework for exploring this whole unusual town and the unusual people within. As the investigation unfolds, we learn about the troubled secret life of the Homecoming queen, and we learn about all the other drama in town, whether directly related to the murder or not.

People have their secrets, and so does the town itself. There’s something supernatural in the air within Twin Peaks, Washington. Don’t expect too many answers, though.

In lieu of concrete answers, we get impressive cinematography and plenty of memorable moments, such as when the sheriff finds Laura’s body and one of the deputies starts crying unprofessionally, and clearly not for the first time in such a situation … or when we first meet Dale Cooper riding into Twin Peaks, recording a voice memo for his unseen associate Diane and delighting in all the little details … or Cooper commending a waitress for, excuse me, a damn fine cup of coffee … or Cooper explaining a deductive technique by launching into a prepared lesson on Tibet … or middle-aged businessmen spontaneously breaking into a dance … or just a random deer head lying on a table for no discernible reason, because why not? And let’s not forget the lady who carries a log with her everywhere. Small towns have their characters, and Twin Peaks is full of them.

“… I am first going to tell you a little bit about the country called Tibet.”

There’s ample strangeness in Twin Peaks, but it’s all deliberate and specific, in a way that could only come from the specific individuals involved.

However, the show might have been better served as a miniseries, or perhaps an anthology along the lines of the Fargo TV series. The first 17 episodes form a complete story—with plenty of ambiguity, sure, but the ninth episode of season two would have been a fitting series finale.

And then it kept going.

Keeping Cooper in Twin Peaks doesn’t feel too contrived, as he genuinely loves the town, but these episodes take us into “unnecessary sequel” territory. Unnecessary sequels aren’t necessarily bad, but they do have an uphill battle.

The soap opera elements come a bit too much into focus, with too many subplots that don’t earn their keep. One character returns from seeming death—while wearing an elaborate disguise, naturally. Another character suffers amnesia, thinks she’s a teenager again, and develops super-strength. Then there’s a pregnancy with ambiguous paternity. New characters arrive to serve as romantic interests for the established cast. One character snaps and loses himself in a Civil War fantasy. And for the main plot, the show introduces an old nemesis of Cooper’s, the scenery-chewing Windom Earle (Kenneth Welsh), who’s only a costume and nickname short of being a Batman villain.

What started off as delightfully strange ended up becoming kind of silly—because the story concluded, but the season had 13 more episodes to fill.

That’s another way Twin Peaks was ahead of its time. It feels like it was designed for streaming, but networks had no framework for handling such a show yet.

For the first half of the run, though, Frost and Lynch managed to work within that early-’90s network TV system to put together something fresh and distinct, something only they could have created.