IN MY VIEW
W RITING about an obscure TV show with no info is a bit like trying to scrape the sides of the empty mustard jar to barely cover your dry silverside sandwich, whereas writing about the new Twin Peaks series (M-Net, channel 101, Tuesday, 21:30
and 22:30) is like being handed a big tin of Quality Street — you can pick out the best bits and leave the rest.
There’s so much to say about the cult classic crime mystery drama series that it’s hard to know where to start, but my digging around in the tin came up with a flavour that’s as good as any to start. I was 10 years old when Twin Peaks came out, so I wouldn’t have been able to follow the convoluted plot at the time, but almost a decade later it came to my attention in another way.
I’m a gamer first and foremost, it’s my main hobby, and round about 2000 the classic horror videogame Silent Hill was released. The designers of the game made no secret of the fact that Twin Peaks was one of their primary influences, as was the film Jacob’s Ladder (which I’d highly recommend to anyone looking for a deep, psychological horror).
So after hearing about the new Twin Peaks series, which is a continuation of the original and not one of those dreaded reboots, I decided it was time to finally sate my curiosity. And yes, the influences that Twin Peaks had on the Silent Hill games are starkly obvious once you’ve seen both.
The key difference is that Twin Peaks isn’t scary. It’s odd, sure, but not even that odd. After hearing how weird it was from people who had seen it I expected something much more off-the-wall, but as far as whodunnit series go, it’s pretty straightforward actually.
Maybe some people find director David Lynch’s use of depressing music and oddly emphasised sound effects disconcerting — and in terms of stretching out scenes, he’s probably second only to Quentin Tarantino. The odd moments are lightly peppered throughout the fairly realistic story, even if some of the characters do seem a few logs short of a mill.
And speaking of mills, that was one of my less ham-fisted segues to start telling you about the original show. It was set in the eponymous town of Twin Peaks, a fictional American logging-industry podunk in the middle of buttfudge nowhere, right on the border of Canada — the kind of place Stephen King sees every time he closes his eyes. In this sleepy town, the murder of a popular homecoming queen from the local high school sparked an investigation that seemed to involve almost every resident in some way.
The ensemble cast was far too numerous to mention here, so I’ll focus on the core group. There was the local sheriff, Harry Truman (Michael Ontkean), and his crew, which included a native American officer, a simpleton, and a forensic pathologist from the local hospital. Oh, and let’s not forget their efficient but ditzy dispatcher Lucy (Kimmy Robertson).
Before long their investigation was taken over by a sophisticated, big-city FBI agent named Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan, illustration above).
Oooooh! Sounds like the usual “smalltown-shur’ff versus federal government upstart”, right? But no, Special Agent Cooper actually found quite a warm welcome among the local cops (and the town in general), who were fascinated by his methods and his Sherlock Holmes-like ability to wring leads out of the scantiest evidence.
One of the weirder parts of the show was that Cooper occasionally used weird woowoo investigation techniques including — but not limited to — interpreting dreams, throwing rocks and conversing with extraterrestrial giants. And the local cops just rolled with it. OK?
Their investigation of the murder took many twists and turns over the course of the series and led them to uncover many of the town’s dark secrets, including the activities of the powerful Horne family who owned most of the local real estate. The show was glacially paced, however, and it required you to keep track of every character’s name and agenda if you wanted to follow it.
If you were lucky, you may have caught the catch-up marathon screened on M-Net Binge (channel 900) last week — which I totally would have mentioned had I known at the time.
The trailer for the 18-episode 2017 series doesn’t reveal a whole lot — apart from how much of the original cast they managed to get back. They’re looking old, grey and melty — but such are the vampiric effects of time.
Most importantly, MacLachlan returns as Agent Cooper. Sadly, Ontkean won’t return as Sheriff Truman, and is replaced by a new sheriff. Personally, I can’t wait to see what they get up to in the new season.