Is this series past its peak?
Twin Peaks was too weird the first time; now it’s not weird enough
NEW YORK — In the run-up to the Twin Peaks revival, viewers were told almost nothing about what to expect. At the same time, they knew everything they needed to.
The series debuted Sunday on CraveTV. U.S. network Showtime, the show’s official home, teased fans with splashes of hype. FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper was known to celebrate “a damn fine cup of coffee,” but what viewers have been privy to before his reappearance wouldn’t add up to a demitasse.
On the other hand, the Twin Peaks faithful has a pretty good idea of what’s in store for the new show’s 18 episodes (the first two are now available).
Agent Cooper (played by returning lead Kyle MacLachlan) is back in the weird little hamlet of Twin Peaks, Wash., a quarter-century after the original ABC series aired. He will be investigating one or more fresh crimes that stir eerie echoes of a mystery that, way back when, nettled the nation: Who killed Laura Palmer?
Among 217 listed cast members, MacLachlan’s fellow returnees include Madchen Amick, Richard Beymer, David Duchovny, Sherilyn Fenn, David Patrick Kelly, Sheryl Lee, Peggy Lipton, Harry Dean Stanton, Russ Tamblyn, Ray Wise and Grace Zabriskie. They are joined by such newcomers as Jim Belushi, Michael Cera, Richard Chamberlain, Laura Dern, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Roth, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Vedder and Naomi Watts.
Original architects Mark Frost and David Lynch co-wrote this new series with Lynch directing, surely guaranteeing that Twin Peaks Redux will replicate its predecessor’s Lynchian mix of the macabre, campiness and conspicuous obscurity.
The original series eventually — though not nearly soon enough for its viewers — revealed who had killed homecoming queen Laura Palmer. But that was never the point. The point was to transport the audience to a Twin Peaks-addled state of mind, where those viewers would be constantly challenged, provoked, amused and confounded. Including TV critics. “I’ve watched every episode,” declared the Los Angeles Times’ Howard Rosenberg a month into its run, “and I’m hopelessly behind and confused, but loving it. I think.”
But too many other viewers weren’t so sure. All too soon, legions of them simply gave up.
After its explosive launch in April 1990, the series hemorrhaged viewers. By June 1991, Twin Peaks seemed as lifeless as Laura Palmer. ABC pronounced it dead, leaving only a cult of loyalists to grieve over the corpse.
Twin Peaks erupted in a TV realm confined to four broadcast networks and public television. The closest thing to groundbreaking drama was Vietnam War-set China Beach and sleek-and-sexy L.A. Law. Or you could watch Full House and MacGyver (some things never change).
No wonder Rosenberg was at least as grateful as he was puzzled: “So much of television is so rigidly mainstream as well as simplistic, transparent and without mystique that you almost snap your neck doing a double take when sighting a series as gratuitously bizarre and magnificently opaque as Twin Peaks,” he cheered.
Twin Peaks helped pave the way for the inventive, bizarre and mind-bending pleasures Peak TV is now offering more and more of — shows like American Gods, Sense8 and Mr. Robot.
The question before was who killed Laura Palmer? The big questions facing Twin Peaks this go-round: Can it hold its own against stiff competition?