I just want to start this blog post by saying this isn’t going to be a review, in the slightest! It will also, possibly, contain SPOILERS and so read on at your own peril…
My experiences of the original series is pretty recent. I only watched it, for the first time, about 6 or 7 years ago because I was too young when it was originally broadcasted. The only thing we were allowed to watch at that age which was ‘spooky’ was The X Files and that’s only because my dad loved it and we probably wouldn’t go to bed. That’s how I ended up watching a lot of scary films that I probably shouldn’t have been allowed to watch and possibly why I’m such an odd-ball-scary-movie-lover now!
Watching it as an adult was amazing. I got to appreciate the humour, the acting and the themes more than I would have done as a kid and rather than have it cast away in my memory it’s so fresh and still one of the best TV shows I’ve ever watched. It paved the way for so many other shows it’s just crazy.
Last night I stayed up late to watch the first two episodes of the new series and it was SO good. I would love to know people’s reactions if you hadn’t seen the original because, for me, it was a perfect jump back into a world I had hoped carried on in the absence of viewers. I feel like that’s what David Lynch has managed to do with the first two episodes; there’s no ‘previously on Twin Peaks’ moment. It’s just like we took a 25 year break and now everyone is older, tired, still going through the same old crap they were before Agent Cooper went into The Lodge.
The room with the box [this is where the spoilers will kick in] actually freaked me out a little bit. I really liked that aspect of the story as an aside. You got to see what was happening in Twin Peaks; Hawk just being the most bad ass deputy sheriff in town, as per usual, the Log Lady being as brilliant and ominous as before, Andy and Lucy being the kookiest couple [I mean… “he’s not even seen Wally”. Made me laugh more than it should have…] and The Lodge being as terrible a place as it ever was with no one even caring that speaking backwards is AWFUL and SCARY!!
In those first two episodes the glimpses of ‘business as usual’ are there to off set the ‘business isn’t as usual as you think’ moments – such as the room with the box.
I could go into the way David Lynch is a master of the uncanny and macabre but there are literally dozens of books about it so I’d advise you pick one up if you want to delve deeper in the mind who came up with BOB.
Now that the re-introduction is out of the way I’m really looking forward to learning more about the ‘demons’*, what happened to Audrey, who is the rich dude** running the experiments and where the heck is Truman and the rest of the Bookhouse Boys?
I think I actually have more questions than that but I’m more excited to just start watching it rather than pulling it apart so early on.
Let me know if you watched it and what your initial thoughts are – did you enjoy the lingering moments and extended periods of time where there was no dialogue? I’m a big fan of those things but I know others find them boring…
Sam
*If you could call them demons. It’s never really been spoken aloud but just assumed. I think, once you start accepting them as part of the world of Twin Peaks the whole ‘uncanny’ themes take off. It’s such a normal world but there’s so much of it that makes you think of it as an alternate reality. If you’ve watched Fringe – thoughts please!
** assuming it’s a man…?
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