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Discovering Twin Peaks

Discovering Twin Peaks

Dedicated television viewers know that there will always be shows that everyone wants you to watch, either it’s a cult show, a show that ended way before it’s time, or seems to grab everyone’s attention but yours. However many viewers find themselves stumbling upon these shows either years later or late into a shows run. I’ve compiled a list of ten shows, published once a week, that have become classics or are on their way to doing so and have recently been discovered by this writer.

Twin Peaks one

Twin Peaks

Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch

Original run 1990- 1991

ABC

My love affair with all things David Lynch has been well documented, even on this very website. So my rather late arrival to Twin Peaks is a rather shameful secret, thankfully though it is easily explained. I was only four when it began its two season run on ABC in 1990. About a year ago I finally decided to watch the series after finding it online. What I found was one of the most compulsively watchable, terrifying, funny and inventive shows to ever air on television.

Disguised as a murder mystery Twin Peaks is a serial drama that begins when the body of murdered homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) is discovered, dead and wrapped in plastic on the idyllic beaches of the logging town Twin Peaks. FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) comes to town and promptly finds an odd mix of barking teenagers, log ladies (that’s a woman who talks to logs), and a surreal approach to a crumbling American dream.

Twin Peaks two

As a fan of Lynch I already had my expectations going into Twin Peaks. After reading about it and hearing about the still obsessive fans I knew it sounded brilliant but I was cautious. By the end of the pilot it was safe to say I understood why fan were still rapid more than twenty years after it ended.

Everything about Twin Peaks was just so rich, so perfectly constructed from the very beginning, a feat that’s very rarely reached, especially so early in the series run. As I immersed myself in the two seasons of the show I was stunned by its complex character driven stories. Twin Peaks has had the unique ability to be both brazenly bizarre and oh so watchable. For one thing it has some of the most daring and haunting images found in any TV show.

The show’s second season had the difficult task of living up to the stunning first season, and admittedly it did falter but you still have to be in awe of what David Lynch, Mark Frost and the stars were able to create.

Twin Peaks might have had a painfully short run but that doesn’t change the fact that it was easily one of the most influential shows in television history.

Tressa Eckermann