Had to do some flying (*gasp*) to take care of some family business so I haven’t been around as much as I wanted. Luckily, I’ve already had my two Pfizer shots and, while the entire two weeks’ time since the second injection hadn’t quite elapsed (they did the day after I returned home), I felt far more comfortable doing this trip than I have the previous one I was also forced to do earlier on.
Whew.
Anyway: Get vaccinated, people! If I could do it, you can as well and most states nowadays seem to be offering vaccines to almost everyone.
Ahem.
Anyway, Twin Peaks 2017.
I recall the show being released -to Showtime- and it was for a little while the talk of critics, but it didn’t seem to be the world-stopping event that some other writer/director David Lynch works, up to and including the original season of Twin Peaks released waaaaaay back in 1989. The show lasted two seasons before being cancelled, with many saying that once Lynch left the show in the second season it went downhill.
A year or so after the TV series was done, David Lynch would release Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which was originally met with considerable critical hatred though, over the years, people re-assessed it far more positively.
Anyway, that movie came out in 1992 and a whopping twenty nine years later and via Showtime what is effectively the third season of Twin Peaks was released and, thanks to the free time both on my flight and afterwards, I was able to blow through eight of the 18 episodes made.
As I said above, this new “season” of Twin Peaks didn’t seem to have the lasting power some of Lynch’s works have. It’s been four years since its release and I have to admit it surprised me to remember I picked it up -digitally- a while back and had yet to see it.
I wondered why it was that it didn’t seem to peak like some other Lynch works and, further, if maybe this series might wind up being something of a disappointment.
Based on the 8 episodes I’ve seen, culminating in an episode which I recall some critics were particularly blown away (pun intended, I guess!) over, the show is a fascinating, though perhaps over stuffed, work that falls neatly in line with your typical Lynchian work.
But its also a lot of material being thrown at you and at times its bewildering, amusing, creepy, and drawn out… and I’m not sure if it might have benefitted from being a little more streamlined.
For example, what many consider David Lynch’s best work, the 2001 film Mulholland Dr., was originally intended to be a TV series not unlike Twin Peaks but ultimately wound up being compressed into a fantastic two and a half hour movie. There was weirdness, there was comedy, there was rot under the gleaming surface, but there was also a story that was told in toto without any real bloat.
I worry that with this Twin Peaks work, as fantastic as it is at times, we’re given more extraneous stuff than is necessary.
Worries aside, the eight episodes I’ve seen so far have been enjoyable. There are bits that are absolutely hilarious mixed with bits that are creepy and suspenseful as hell. Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost (who worked with him on the original Twin Peaks show) have given us a veritable avalanche of characters moving about doing their thing, natural or supernatural, and in the middle of it all are two Dale Coopers (Longtime Lynch collaborator/actor Kyle MacLachlan), one who is possessed by evil and the other -dazed for the episodes I’ve seen- is the “good” Agent Dale Cooper, recently released from the mystical Black Lodge where he’s been imprisoned for over twenty five years while his evil version runs rampant on the roads of the U.S.
It’s difficult to give a full on review of the series, not having seen it all yet, but at least for these eight episodes I’ve been entertained, certainly, and have to give considerable credit to Mr. Lynch and company for creating something as visually sumptuous and meaty as this series and not lose track and go off the rails into complete bizarreness.
Anyway, a thumbs up for me -at least for now!- and let’s see how the rest plays out…