PsychoBabble's A-Z of Twin Peaks

Aug. 10th, 2017 08:48 pm
froodle: (Default)
[personal profile] froodle
I is for Influence:

During a decade that has seen high-quality shows like “Deadwood”, “The Sopranos” “The Wire”, “Six Feet Under”, “Mad Men”, and “Breaking Bad” dominate cable, and relatively complex and intelligent shows like “Lost” are allowed several-season runs on network TV, it’s easy to forget what an anomaly “Twin Peaks” was way back in 1990. A series co-created and often written and directed by a filmmaker as daring and artful as David Lynch was a major breakthrough in the medium that gave us “Full House” and “The Facts of Life”. The seismic influence of “Twin Peaks” struck immediately. Its critically and culturally vital first season had barely ended when CBS went to work on its own quirky North-Western fantasy. Joshua Brand and John Falsey’s “Northern Exposure” may have dropped the strong sinister undercurrent of “Twin Peaks”, but the series retained the dreamy atmosphere, supernatural elements, off-kilter humor, and little-town appeal. “Northern Exposure” owed such a deep debt to “Twin Peaks” that its creators were moved to acknowledge this via a weirdly tacked-on parody-sequence during the first-season episode, “Russian Flu".

“Northern Exposure” was just the first of the early-‘90s parade of “Peaks”-inspired series. There were “strange things happening in suburbia” exercises like “Picket Fences” and the kid-oriented “Eerie, Indiana”. There was the creepy, rural “American Gothic”, and there was “Wild Palms”, a self-consciously odd miniseries also created by a well-known cinematic auteur: Oliver Stone. Without question, the most successful of these series was “The X-Files”, which picked up on the “FBI Agents investigating weird phenomena” theme of “Twin Peaks”. The X-Files, themselves, are suspiciously similar to Major Briggs’s “Project Blue Book”. The show even starred “Peaks”-alumnus David Duchovny (minus the lipstick and high heels) and featured guest spots by other former TP residents, including Don Davis, Michael Anderson, Michael Horse, Frances Bay, Kenneth Welsh, and Richard Beymer. Still, “X-Files” creator Chris Carter, claimed he was not particularly influenced by “Twin Peaks”. More recent show-creators have been more forthcoming about the influence of “Twin Peaks” on their work. David Chase has often cited the use of dream sequences in “Twin Peaks” as a major inspiration for “The Sopranos”. The British sci-fi series “Torchwood” paid direct tribute to “Peaks” during the “Combat” episode, which featured a real estate agency called “Lynch/Frost”! Other recent shows that most certainly would not exist if it hadn’t been for “Twin Peaks” include sci-fi mystery “Lost”, soap opera-parody “Desperate Housewives” (costarring Kyle MacLachlan; Sheryl Lee was originally cast to play the dead woman who narrates the series, but was replaced by fellow "Peaks" alumnus Brenda Strong), and the upcoming “Happy Town”.
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Happy Town trailer and introductory blurb

May. 23rd, 2017 08:02 am
froodle: (Default)
[personal profile] froodle
Happy Town has had its premiere on ABC with the pilot episode In This Home On Ice.

The show is something of a cross between the classic and never-to-be-forgotten Twin Peaks and the less-memorable but no less intriguing Eerie, Indiana.

Happy Town is a drama series set in the Minnesota town of Haplin, which is all sweetness and light on the surface. So much so that the residents have labeled it Happy Town.

However, beneath the thin veneer of perfectness is a multitude of secrets and sins, with almost every resident of the town having some sort of hidden intrigue.

As well as the other two shows, this trailer reminds me of The X-Files. Let’s hope this series is given a longer run than previous dramas which these days seem to be canceled before being given a chance to shine.

Sigh. Weirdly prophetic, WebTVHub writer guy...
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Esquire.com: Twin Peaks May Be Returning, but the Teen Noir It Created Never Left

May. 19th, 2017 08:25 pm
froodle: (Default)
[personal profile] froodle
Many, if not most, of the reviews of the new season of Twin Peaks—David Lynch's surreal, small-town soap-slash-fantasy Americana noir that transformed television 25 years ago and that improbably returns this month to Showtime—will reference Riverdale, the CW show where Archie, the red-headed doofus from Archie Comics, is hot.

Yes, critical conversation will compare this auteur-driven, surreal, monumental television series to a teen drama where Cole Sprouse of The Suite Life fame plays Jughead as a brooding art boy whose dad is a gang member played by Skeet Ulrich. This fact might embarrass the more cinephilic people in the Twin Peaks audience: Riverdale is many things, but one thing it is not is an auteur show, and it definitely is not cinematic.
( Read more... )
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

(no subject)

Apr. 12th, 2016 08:06 am
froodle: (Default)
[personal profile] froodle
Back when Gravity Falls started in 2012, the AV Club did a little introductory blurb for it directly comparing it to Eerie.

Also, they mentioned Happy Town and reminded me how bitter I am that it went off the air after only a season.
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Profile

eerieindiana: (Default)
Eerie Indiana

May 2025

M T W T F S S
   1 234
56789 1011
1213141516 1718
19202122232425
262728293031 

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated May. 28th, 2025 03:41 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios