TWIN PEAKS
AS TWIN PEAKS MARKS ITS 30TH ANNIVERSARY, WRITER/PRODUCER HARLEY PEYTON LOOKS BACK AT WHAT MADE DAVID LYNCH AND MARK FROST’S SERIES SUCH AN INDUSTRY CHANGER
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THIRTY YEARS AGO, TELEVISION was not prepared for how director David Lynch and writer Mark Frost would change it forever. On 8 April 1990, their new ABC network series Twin Peaks debuted in the US, and minds were cumulatively blown.
Ostensibly about the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in a tiny rural town in the state of Washington, Lynch and Frost’s drama would quickly prove that it was ahead of its time in every way.
The central murder mystery and the soapy lives of the residents were the accessible and intriguing entry points for most viewers. But hiding beneath those familiar tropes was the decidedly unfamiliar. Lynch’s moody, cinematic visuals looked like they were plucked from the cinema, light years beyond the uniform look of other comedies and dramas.
Then there was the off-kilter way everything was presented. From FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan)’s incessantly peculiar voice memos to a mysterious “Diane”, to all the emotionally heightened performances underscored by Angelo Badalamenti’s jazzy, noir music, Twin Peaks was weird, beguiling and sometimes frightening. There was nothing like it anywhere else on the television dial, which is why audiences initially gravitated to it in droves.
One of the writers helping Lynch and Frost craft the first season of the series was first-time television writer Harley Peyton. Coming off a big-screen hit with his screenplay adaptation of Less Than Zero (1987), Peyton found himself mingling with more and more of his writing peers. In early 1990, Peyton was invited by his friend, Mark Frost, to a screening of the pilot of Twin Peaks.
“After the screening, I walked up to him and said, ‘Look, I’ve never written TV, but if you need anybody to write a script I’d love to,’” Peyton tells SFX, explaining the path that led him to Twin Peaks.
He was invited to write a script which became the first season episode “Zen, Or The Skill To Catch A Killer.” “That was the one with: ‘Every day, give yourself a present,’” Peyton says of the line that would go on to become one of Cooper’s signature sayings. “One of the best moments for me was when [Mark] read my script and called me at midnight to say, ‘Man, this is so good. You gotta write another episode,’” he remembers with pride.
Peyton was then folded into the small circle of writers who all worked with Frost to craft the first season of the series. “The thing about Twin Peaks is there wasn’t a writers’ room,” he explains. “What you would do is go to Mark’s office and sit down, and you would walk through an outline. You had every opportunity to offer up your own ideas, or to put various things in place, particularly because David was shooting Wild At Heart during season one.
“They [Lynch and Frost] were talking all the time about story and where it was going to go, but in a day-to-day way, Mark was really the one who was curating the show for those early episodes. That was how it worked, and it was pretty seamless.”
Peyton would write one more episode for season one, “Realization Time.” Working alongside Frost, he was able to absorb and contribute to the unique tone and structure of
In a day-to-day way, Mark Frost was really the one who was curating the show for those early episodes
what would become Twin Peaks’ signature style. “Cooper had such a distinctive voice, and you would try to match it,” he explains. “I never really had a problem with that. Some characters are harder to write and some aren’t. But for me, Cooper and Agent Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer) were the ones who were the easiest.
“And Mark is a great editor,” he says of his former boss and mentor. “The great thing about Mark was, you always knew that if you wrote a good line, it was gonna stay in there. He was such a good rewriter [too] because he would be adding things for production reasons. But in my case, he really had to cut things down because I got very excited!”
In particular, he cites the scene he scripted where Dr Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) gives a soliloquy at Laura Palmer’s grave. “I had, like, a whole page of a dialogue, and Mark would have to go in and very carefully prune that stuff back,” he laughs.
With the success of Twin Peaks’ first season, Peyton was asked to come back for season two as a full-time writer/ producer. It was only then that he finally got the opportunity to meet Lynch. They met at a diner in Los Angeles the August before Twin Peaks’ second run debuted on 30 September 1990.
For season two, the writers and production all worked together at the show’s converted warehouse studios in Granada Hills. “It was like Twin Peaks-land,” he says. “We had our offices on this little second floor. You would walk down a simple flight of steps, and there was every one
of those sets that are burned into my mind. So, whenever something was shooting, you would frequently go down [to watch].”
As a producer, Peyton got to collaborate in other ways. “In the second season, Mark directed a movie in the middle of it, so when he left I was nominally in charge. My responsibilities extended to rewriting and doing all the stuff that he’d been doing. I then realised just how hard that was,” he laughs.
He also found himself interacting with the guest directors who’d come in to bring the scripts to life. “The directors had a great deal of leeway, like everyone,” he explains. “Diane Keaton was directing and she had a ton of questions and a ton of ideas. As the writer, you were always there to help them make changes.”
Peyton says the second season also involved a lot of character adjustments to please some of the large ensemble cast. Many of the cast rocketed to stardom after the success of the first season, and so there was more input from them about their character arcs.
“The actors certainly wanted things to be changed, probably more than usual given the shows I’ve worked on since,” Peyton says. “In the typical run of a show, the actors get bored by season six, but we did all of it in just two seasons. But there was a real, organic process that involved the writers of the episodes and the people in them.”
Peyton says they always tried to make sure the actors felt challenged and engaged, but that created some inconsistent
I do think it’s one of the most important shows in the history of the medium. It was so strange and so specific
stories, which ultimately marred the critical and audience reception of the second season. He says Donna, played by Lara Flynn Boyle, was a good example of a character going a bit astray. She started out as the classic Lynchian girl-nextdoor, much like Laura Dern’s Sandy in Blue Velvet. “It worked really well,” he assesses, “but in season two, [Boyle] didn’t want to play that character any more. She wanted to smoke cigarettes and wear sunglasses. In other words, sometimes it felt like herding cats a little bit.
“But then there was someone like Dana [Ashbrook] as Bobby Briggs,” he continues. “He was so good, and I loved writing for him. He would come into my office every once in a while, and talk about scenes. He was super smart about the work he was doing and his character was consistent. I came to really love writing for him. That was a really fun character to write.”
By the end of the second season, interest in Twin Peaks cooled. Lynch and Frost had originally intended that Laura Palmer’s murderer would never be revealed – but the network insisted on a resolution, which eventually appeared in episode seven. From then on the ratings fell, and the show wasn’t picked up for a third season.
Peyton continued his writing career in television and has since written and produced for shows like Channel Zero, Project Blue Book and the upcoming Chucky series. He lost touch with Frost for years. It was because of the Twin Peaks: The Return revival on Showtime that they reconnected once more. “He called me up and said,
‘Look, I just want you to know the news is gonna break tomorrow about a season three of Twin Peaks. But I also need you to know that David and I have already written the episodes together.’” Peyton says he was entirely at peace about not being involved, but he was grateful that it allowed him to rekindle his close friendship with Frost.
He happily watched the third season just like any other fan. “They figured out a way to do it,” he says with some awe. “I give them full credit, man. That was a very difficult road, particularly given the ending of season two with Cooper and Bob. Where does that end up? But, you know what, they got it.
“And the interesting thing about it is that I feel like season three had far more to do with the more cinematic style of [Lynch’s prequel film] Fire Walk With Me than the original series,” he continues. “I think of it almost as a separate entity. And, by the way, a separate entity that at times is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.
“Then there’s the penultimate episode, which I really feel was sort of Mark’s ending, when you go back to Laura and Pete Martell on the beach. I found myself extraordinarily moved by that and really loving it. And it becomes a sort of coda for the series.
“I’m glad we have it,” he adds. “I don’t think there’s a chance in hell there’ll be a fourth [season], for a whole host of reasons. But I’m glad it’s there. Just being able to revisit some of those characters was such a pleasure.”
He remains very proud of the impact the series continues to make on other writers who have been inspired by Peaks. “I do think it’s one of the most important shows in the history of the medium. It was so strange and so specific. I think it ages very well.”