TV MEMORIES # 15 - TWIN PEAKS SEASON 1

 As I hurtle towards my 50th birthday at a rate of knots I'm finding that I'm becoming increasingly cynical about the concept of "must see" television. There are so many shows on streaming services these days that the media hype up, telling us that this show is "the next big thing" or that show is "the one to watch" that it all just becomes so much background noise. It's for this reason that I've yet to even consider watching Game Of Thrones for instance (even though I'd probably really enjoy it) - I just got sick of hearing about the bloody show. Wherever I went - be it to work or down the pub - I'd get countless friends and acquaintances saying to me "you've GOT TO watch this show". This actually had the opposite result and made me NOT want to watch it - NOBODY tells me what to watch in my own free time. I'LL be the one who decides what I've GOT TO WATCH thanks very much (and I know this sounds slightly hypocritical coming from a guy who writes a blog that's main purpose is to recommend films to people but there you go, it is what it is).

However - I didn't always feel like this. Back in 1990 I was (a LOT) younger and was much more open to hype regarding "must see" TV shows and movies. One such TV show was David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks.

This surreal murder mystery/soap opera/multi-dimensional horror story was originally broadcast in America in the April of 1990 and was a massive hit. It was no surprise that such a big success would eventually find it's way to British TV. So it did a few months later in October 1990, finding it's natural home on the channel that was at that time the go-to place for all things of a weird and cultish nature - good old BBC2.

I must admit that I missed the pilot episode (broadcast on 23rd October), the first time I recall hearing about the show was somebody talking about it on Radio 1 where it was described as being a "weird soap opera from David Lynch". By this point I'd already seen Eraserhead and liked it a lot, so the idea of watching a TV show by Lynch intrigued me a great deal. 

For reasons I can't remember I still didn't get to watch Twin Peaks until it's third episode (broadcast Tues 13th November). By the time I got round to doing this Twin Peaks had already permeated pop culture and dominated everyday conversation in the UK in much the same way it had in the U.S. This show was literally EVERYWHERE. At that time I was doing a media studies course at my local college in Mansfield. Needless to say most of my fellow students had been watching Twin Peaks since the pilot episode, so I felt like I was a bit late coming to the party when I started watching with the 3rd episode (actually 4th if you count the movie length pilot episode). I was soon glad I did though as this show was one of those all too rare occasions where something was every bit as good as the hype made it out to be.

For all two people on the planet who have no clue as to what the show was about I'll briefly explain. Twin Peaks dealt with the murder of high school girl Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in the small logging town of Twin Peaks near the U.S/Canadian border. The popular young girl's murder shatters the small community and an FBI agent - Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is sent to help the Twin Peaks police department headed by Sherrif Harry Truman (Michael Ontkean) to solve the mystery and catch the killer. In the pilot episode the show pretty much follows the standard format of a typical police procedural serial. Cooper rounds up the prime suspects and questions them. The suspects are the boy she was dating - Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook) who hides behind his status of high school football champion to sell drugs to the other kids, and another boy she was seeing on the side - the gentle and sensitive motorbike riding James Hurley (James Marshall). It doesn't take Cooper long to eliminate the two lads from his enquiries and soon Cooper starts to cast his net wider. As his investigations continue Cooper finds out that Laura was at the heart of a drugs and prostitution ring and starts to uncover the seedy underbelly that lurks beneath this seemingly idyllic little town's surface. It turns out that in the town of Twin Peaks pretty much everyone has a secret of some kind and most of those secrets involve poor dead Laura in some way...

As intriguing and convoluted as this sounds (and it IS) this is merely the set up. As the series continues things just keep getting stranger and stranger. Agent Cooper employs unconventional methods to crack his case, he starts getting visions and dreams. He encounters strange entities who give him clues and portents regarding Laura's life and death and it becomes increasingly obvious that somewhere in the hundreds of miles of woods that surround the isolated town, something is lurking...an "evil in these old woods" as Sherrif Truman puts it.

The episode I started watching at involved the funeral of Laura Palmer and seeing as most of the cast of characters turn up for said funeral it was quite a good episode to jump on board, even if I had missed the earlier installments.

I was instantly drawn into this cosy little town with it's cast of oddball eccentric characters. The character who leapt out the most to me in this episode was that of Leland Palmer (Ray Wise) Laura's grief stricken father. At the funeral he's so consumed with grief that he hurls himself onto her coffin as its being lowered into the ground. This breaks the winching mechanism and causes the coffin to rise and fall sporadically. This causes Leland to howl in anguish even more whilst Laura's mother Sarah (Grace Zabriski) screams at him "Don't you DARE ruin this !!!!" The scene is grim, faintly ridiculous, utterly chaotic and darkly funny. It was probably this moment that made me fall in love with the show. Leland also went on to become one of my favourite characters as he becomes increasingly unhinged as the show progresses...

Later on in the first series Leland takes to listening to old show tunes and howling in sheer primal grief as he dances with a photo of his dead daughter. Wise gives an amazing performance. As with everything in this show Leland's grief stricken state hides something a lot darker and more sinister which only becomes apparent in the show's second season...

All the characters and actors in Twin Peaks are excellent, theres literally not a single bad performance in this show, its probably one of the strongest cast of characters ever assembled. I'd literally be typing this article up for months if I was to go into full depth detailing every single character/actor and trust me NOBODY wants that. So instead, I'll just talk about a few of my favourites.

Obviously we have to begin with FBI agent Dale Cooper himself. Cooper became a massively iconic character (he's often cited as being one of the main inspirations for Agent Fox Mulder in the X-Files). It's easy to see why he became so highly regarded - Cooper is a great character and MacLachlan plays him superbly. Cooper is seen to be the perfect lawman, he's something of a polymath with his Sherlock Holmes style level of deduction but hes also a complete maverick too, especially when he starts employing more mystical means to solve Laura's murder. He also develops several close bonds with other characters too. Cooper and Harry Truman form a close friendship - the more simple small town Sherrif becomes Watson to Cooper's Holmes, often completely baffled but nevertheless in total awe of his newfound mentor and best friend's abilities.

Cooper also develops a "will they or won't they" relationship with Audrey Horne (Sherilynn Fenn) - the beautiful but deeply odd daughter of local businessman/crime lord Ben Horne (Richard Beymer). Ben himself is a slippery customer and Audrey has inherited her father's cunning and guile. However whereas Ben is an outright villian (in the first season at least) Audrey's heart inhabits a much purer place. She eventually risks her life to help Cooper, in no small part because she's fallen head over heels in love with him. At one point Audrey turns up in Cooper's bed, literally offering herself to him. Cooper turns her down, recognising that it wouldn't be right for an FBI agent to start a relationship with a high school girl but also because he feels that Audrey really needs a friend more than a lover. Cooper is a thoroughly decent man, few others would have been able to exercise similar restraint in that situation I'm sure...

Perhaps most iconic of all is the Log Lady (Catherine Coulson). Margaret is one of Twin Peaks most eccentric occupants. She turns up - sometimes literally out of the blue - in many scenes clutching her trusty log (which she claims can "see things") offering various clues and prophecies. Its implied the log houses the spirit of her dead husband and through this he "talks" to her. The log lady is sometimes funny, sometimes creepy and sometimes deeply moving. This character embodies more than anything the spirit of this bizzare show. The Log lady is the face of Twin Peaks as much as - if not moreso - than Laura Palmer herself.

We get to see many different spirits and supernatural creatures as the show progresses but this is more in seasons 2 and 3. At this point we mainly see the creatures that Cooper encounters in his dreams - including a little man who dances and talks backwards and the ghost of Laura Palmer herself. Both of these offer Cooper further cryptic clues usually in the setting of a red room which becomes much more significant as the story progresses.

Meanwhile out in the real world there are other weird encounters taking place including some with a one armed man Philip Gerrard (played by real-life amputee Al Strobel) who appears to be possessed by a spirit called MIKE. This entity warns of another possession taking place in the town. That somewhere out there a murderous spirit called BOB is lurking. BOB is apparently responsible for Laura's murder but Philip/MIKE doesn't yet know who the host body is. Over the course of the first series several characters see visions of BOB (Frank Silva) and it becomes obvious that its less a case of "who killed Laura Palmer ?" but "who is BOB possessing to spread his evil ?"

BOB is a great villain - every one of his brief appearances is memorable and disturbing (he's usually either growling or laughing like an utter maniac). Silva is great and it was a happy accident that he was even in the show in the first place. Silva was just a set dresser and was accidentally caught on camera whilst filming the pilot episode, Lynch thought he looked suitably creepy and promptly changed the entire storyline and mythology of the series to accommodate him appearing. Its safe to say that without this happening Twin Peaks would have been a completely different (and maybe not as good) television show.

The first season ran for only 8 episodes. Along the way we met many other quirky and odd characters  - Dr Jacoby the town's local hippy psychiatrist who always wears 3D glasses for some reason (played by B-Movie legend Russ Tamblyn), accident prone cop Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz) and his ditzy girlfriend Lucy (Kimmy Robertson), Native American cop Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse), Strict but morally upstanding USAF airbase commander Major Garland Briggs (Don Davies), Psychotic wife beating drug smuggling trucker Leo Johnson (Eric DaRe) and his wife Shelly (Madchen Amick), big hearted gas station owner Ed Hurley (Everett McGill) and his one-eyed insane wife Nadine (Wendy Robie) not to mention his star-crossed lover/extra marital affair Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton) who is also owner of the Double R diner - the town's main social hub. David Lynch himself even got to play a character in the form of Cooper's boss Gordon Cole - a profoundly deaf G-man who's attempts at subtlety are scuppered at every opportunity by the fact that HE SHOUTS ALL THE TIME BECAUSE HE'S DEAF. It's a great comedy turn by Lynch. It's never a dull time when Gordon Cole is on screen especially when he's accompanied by his sarcastic assistant Albert Rosenfeld (Miguel Ferrer) who is one of the most acerbic but genuinely funny characters ever put to film.

Season one ended on a cliffhanger with Agent Cooper being shot at point blank range by a mysterious assailant. American audiences had to wait several months to see what happened next, but those of us in the UK where luckier. Good old BBC2 bought the entire series and aired both seasons back to back, so we only had to wait a week or so (Christmas got in the way). With the advent of the second season things in Twin Peaks where about to get even stranger... but more on that next time...