New Twin Peaks is full-tilt TV
IWAS originally going to pen something along the lines of “the five weirdest things in the Twin Peaks revival”.
But let’s be honest, out of the one hour and 54 minutes run time of the first two episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return, there were probably about eight minutes of non-weirdness. So it would’ve been a rather difficult task to narrow it down to just a handful of “what the actuals?”.
Make no mistake, when Showtime president David Nevins described the new Twin Peaks as “the pure heroin version of David Lynch” he wasn’t joking. Not even a bit.
Even if you thought the original 1990s Twin Peaks was strange, or that you’re familiar enough with Lynch’s wider body of work, you’re still not prepared for this.
This is next-level, full-tilt, mind-f**k TV.
The kind of TV that could only be considered as TV because it’s been delivered to you in a technological format that vaguely resembles episodic television. It would probably be more at home as an installation piece in an oh-so-trendy gallery.
Because this is art – art that’s visceral; art that elicits a lasting physical sensation that lingers hours after viewing. It’s both provocative and evocative. What it isn’t is accessible.
Twenty-seven years after Lynch and Mark Frost co-created the influential original series, he has once again reinvented what we could expect from the medium, upending what we’ve thought was acceptable on TV.
Lynch’s mastery of visual language is like nothing else you’ve seen on TV — from the familiar and distinctive chevron stripe and rouge curtains of the Red Room to the glass box of the studio in New York to how he foregrounds and backgrounds a single frame.
His willingness and confidence in playing with form and disregarding the “rules of TV” are exactly why the first Twin Peaks ushered in a new era of TV. What this new chapter will stir in the creative wells of the next generation of TV writers, well, we’ll see.
Don’t even watch all four episodes available online right now. Break it up, save half for the weekend.
Twin Peaks: The Return should be watched with at least a few days in between instalments. Give yourself, your anxiety levels and your mind time to breathe, to process the abundant stimuli you’ve just seen. To think. To feel.
Twin Peaks: The Return is available to stream on Stan now.