Well, about a third of the way into season 2 (1990/91) and still enjoying it enormously. Still looking forward to the fractured cliff-hanger ending that finished the season, and the whole series as far as anybody knew until they rustled up the cash for a third season a quarter of a century later.
Well goddam it. We have season 2 (1990-91) on disk, and I've seen FWWM (which is a 'prequel' to the tv series: it explains the whodunnit, wheredunnit and whydunnit, the 'it' being the murder of LP and much else).
I'm with Milko on this one. The first series was the first 8 episodes and was an artistic whole with a beginning, a middle and an end. If left to its own devices would have stood higher than the franchise as a whole now does.
I'm not blaming anyone involved for taking the money & milking the franchise, though - I'd have done the same.
Hmmmm.
I'm all for the well-established practice of leaving a story open: allowing unanswered questions to remain with the audience so that the world of the story lives on. But. In my opinion, breaking off at the end of episode 8 would have been a serious breach of trust between the programme makers and the viewers. It's fine that some stories leave a mystery in the air that can be speculated about forever, but by episode 8 no plot lines had been resolved at all.
I think that making 8 episodes of what would essentially be a piece of performance art, seeming to follow the pattern of a TV series but never intending to complete a story arc, would be a piece of self-indulgence.
In fact, something like Twin Peaks is bound to leave unresolved issues anyway. It relies on a kind of mysticism and magic (several) and the point of magic is that it isn't magic if it can be explained.
Damn, Now I really want to see the first season. I remember at the time it a) had very high ratings and b) was described as a nightime soap. Seasons two and three (1990-91) was where things got really weird, Lynchian you might say, and ratings plummeted. Pretty much all original story lines were resolved in FWWM, though it opened new ones (mainly: what would Evil Coop do?).
No no no, 1990-91 is just season two. It had trouble with the network (and ratings) though which made for some weird inconsistency.
As for Evil Coop, get ye to Season 3! Where there's not been any real limits on what Lynch wants to do with weirdness.
Ooh: I just checked the library catalog online and, while there are no Twin Peaks seasons, and an over-abundance of stupid (ghost-written?) fan books credited to Mark Frost, FWWM DVD is on order, with 12 holds already placed on it. Meaning my (13th) hold will probably come up in 3 or 4 months. (dance)
crikey, have you heard of a thing called bittorrent? It's usually quicker than that!
Not on our network. It's not like I desperately need to see in next couple of hours either.
OK, having now watched all of season 1 and 2 again, I think I see what you're getting at. I disagree that they should have ended after the first 8 episodes (7 plus pilot) as leaving all of the plot lines open would have been very unfair on the viewers and, I think, unsatisfactory. However, now that I've had a read around some of the contemporary accounts, it does seem that they (Lynch and Frost) gave in to pressure from ABC, the main customer, and threw in a resolution to the main Laura Palmer story-line far sooner than they originally intended. The effect was that many of the mystical, magical elements were also banged out in a far faster and unsubtle manner than they should have been. This gave a rushed feel to the whole Laura Palmer arc of 10 episodes. Worse still, it closed the main story-line and left them 'flapping about' without a story to tell.
So, they quickly improvised a truly awful sub-story involving James Hurley and his encounter with an older femme fatale in a framed-for-murdering-the-husband trap. Not only was this boring and unoriginal cluttering the programme up with unnecessary characters, it also involved James Hurley whose whole reason for being in the series was to provide some Rebel Without a Cause background colour to the Laura Palmer story. Hence, James Hurley was probably the only character so wholly made of cardboard that he shouldn't have been picked for his own adventure. His mother's pointless bout of amnesia (with hilarious consequences) was similarly pointless and ought never to have happened.
Things get back on track with Windom Earle and the Black Lodge. The central group of characters are strong enough to carry this through, but at this point it's far too late. Having meddled in the direction early on, ABC took a look at the ratings and declined to purchase future episodes - effectively killing the show. It's a shame really. Without the tight Laura Palmer murder story, the directing of the middle-episodes in particular looks slack, with some of it having all the gravitas of an extended Batman adventure.
Starting Season 3 tonight.