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For a couple of hours in 1990, David Lynch took over the network airwaves and subtly, subversively transformed American television forever. Amazingly, the TV series that followed this rich and strange feature-length pilot became an international phenomenon as people all over the world became obsessed by one question: Who killed Laura Palmer?
Twin Peaks is the apotheosis of all things Lynch, and arguably his single greatest achievement. Set in the dark, damp, woodsy atmosphere of a small mountain town in the Pacific Northwest,
Twin Peaks is a murder mystery, detective saga, soap opera, sitcom--the essence of television distilled into one mind-blowing serial. Lynch subverts TV conventions right and left, not the least by concentrating on the grief of Laura's friends and family, and orchestrating their tears into a symphony of mourning.
Twin Peaks is about the endlessly seductive idea of "mystery," of the ways human beings find to deal with the unknown. It was never about solutions; after all, answers (which are invariably anticlimactic) only kill the Mystery! So, although it took another year or so before Lynch and his partner Mark Frost were eventually forced (by the network and public opinion) to reveal the identity of Laura Palmer's murderer, the tantalizing clues are the real heart of the enterprise, and they're all right here in the debut. And so are some excerpts from Agent Cooper's surrealistic dream sequence (which appeared in the third episode of the series), featuring the dancing, backward-talking little "Man from Another Place," as part of a special European-release finale (you wouldn't want to use the word "conclusion") for this video version.
--Jim Emerson
