Twin Peaks

[savoloysam]

Yeah, like the sinister undercurrents lurking underneath the perfect facades- be it suburbia/actual towns/places or successful people/faces... Nothing is really what it appears to be... There's always something else, something eerie and less controlled. Primal instincts vs. the veneer of civilisation, maybe. Lol, I sound like a pretentious twat now... time for coffee.

Lynch did grow up in one of those archetypal small towns, though- and he was a boy scout! The mind boggles...

I think he spent some of his youth in Philedelphia and quotes the violence he saw there as being very influencial. The scene in Blue Velvet where the woman walks down the road naked and beaten. It is quoted that he saw that as a child.

 

[Fez909]

one of the agents writing down his statement is using a stoneage laptop, the first and probably only introduction of 'modern' technology in the series! It's an Apple, very primitive looking (grey and with a b/w screen), and when he folds down the lid to close it the thing looks over five inches thick!?! It's pretty hilariously clunky.

One of these?

Another thing: They keep talking about 'testing the blood they found to determine the bloodtype (to find out whether it matches the killer(s)/criminals)'- this means they haven't got DNA technology yet, was this the case in 1990? When did DNA testing/technology get more commonly available, does anyone know?

1986 was the first time it was used, in England. I imagine its use spread quite quickly to other places but somewhere like Twin Peaks would be likely to be a late adopter due to lack of facilities/money/resources (if it was a real place).

 

[Fez909]

I see

well, what about something like one or two episodes a week, and you can watch ahead but you can't talk about episodes ahead of the one the group is on?

I'd be up for anything like that. I think doing these things as a group is definitely better than everyone binging at their own pace.

 

[Silva]

I see

well, what about something like one or two episodes a week, and you can watch ahead but you can't talk about episodes ahead of the one the group is on?

I'm not going to rewatch it now, but will gladly join in the discussion at any rate everyone agrees

One of these?

.

I think it was this one:

At the time, it was brand new technology

 

[ViolentPanda]

Has anyone watched Carnivale? I've never seen it but I've heard it being compared to TP in terms of quality and weirdness.

It was cancelled after only one season, I think, so there's no closure. That's one of the reasons I haven't watched it yet. But I will someday.

Any good?

2 seasons. Excellent cast (except, perhaps, for Nick Stahl, who's almost as wooden in this as in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) and some great storylines, but you could tell that the pressure was on for a hit, so the writers were cramming in ideas that they'd originally planned to use a lot further along the story arc. Clancy Brown is his usual appealing self, though.

 

[Awesome Wells]

One of these?

1986 was the first time it was used, in England. I imagine its use spread quite quickly to other places but somewhere like Twin Peaks would be likely to be a late adopter due to lack of facilities/money/resources (if it was a real place).

A Nintendo DS?

 

[billy_bob]

(sorry for sinking yet another thread... was going to post something funny to lighten up the mood a bit, like the intro to the Psych tribute episode, but c0pyright bastards have removed it from Y0utube! Grr...)

OK, here's something less sinister: Remembering the OTT parody soap opera, "An Invitation To Love", which everyone kept watching at the beginning of season one? The events/intrigues going on there seemed to mirror things that were going on in Twin Peaks at the time each episode was aired (one male character getting shot at the exact same moment Leo is shot, for instance). But then it's gone and nobody watches it again and nothing more is heard of it... Perhaps keeping it up would've been too obvious.

And in the federal investigation re: Cooper's unsuitable behaviour in season 2, one of the agents writing down his statement is using a stoneage laptop, the first and probably only introduction of 'modern' technology in the series! It's an Apple, very primitive looking (grey and with a b/w screen), and when he folds down the lid to close it the thing looks over five inches thick!?! It's pretty hilariously clunky.

Another thing: They keep talking about 'testing the blood they found to determine the bloodtype (to find out whether it matches the killer(s)/criminals)'- this means they haven't got DNA technology yet, was this the case in 1990? When did DNA testing/technology get more commonly available, does anyone know?

Also- life before mobile phones... You had to locate a phone to make a call. Sooo long ago!

While we're at it, what's going on with Gordon Cole's gigantic Walkman-style hearing aid?

My nan had a hearing aid from the mid-80s onwards and I'm sure it was much more discreet than that thing.

(good hair day for Lynch there, btw )

 

[fishfinger]

While we're at it, what's going on with Gordon Cole's gigantic Walkman-style hearing aid?

My nan had a hearing aid from the mid-80s onwards and I'm sure it was much more discreet than that thing.

(good hair day for Lynch there, btw )

That's an Acousticon model A-120 hearing aid from 1948

http://beckerimages.wustl.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15793coll3/id/3897/rec/5

 

[maya]

That's an Acousticon model A-120 hearing aid from 1948

http://beckerimages.wustl.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15793coll3/id/3897/rec/5

Apparently Lynch insisted on that exact model, understandable as it looks great and if you zoom in on it it's got a great raised design of an atomic gold star (the 'button' like dot in the middle of the front panel), just for decoration I suppose but predicting the atomic craze of the 1950s... I wonder if agent Cole really was deaf, or if he just pretended to be to be so he could get away with a bit more cultivating an 'eccentric' and lovable persona? Who knows...

 

[maya]

I think it was this one:

At the time, it was brand new technology

I'm pretty sure this is the one! The model used looks exactly like this (rounded corners instead of the sharp corners in the model Fez found), and it's got the extremely thick back panel... The one in TP was light grey and not white though, but apart from that it looks exactly like it... The screen colour+text is similar to a Gameboy, massively low tech... Just incredible really how fast the development have been since these early efforts...

 

[Silva]

I'm pretty sure this is the one! The model used looks exactly like this (rounded corners instead of the sharp corners in the model Fez found), and it's got the extremely thick back panel... The one in TP was light grey and not white though, but apart from that it looks exactly like it... The screen colour+text is similar to a Gameboy, massively low tech... Just incredible really how fast the development have been since these early efforts...

I've seen one in "person", and it was slightly grayish - I think that photo was poorly edited in terms of colour balance.

 

[Miss Caphat]

Rewatch thread for anyone who's interested...it's feeling lonely

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/twin-peaks-rewatch-thread.326865/

 

[maya]

I'm already near the middle of of season 2, sorry Miss Caphat- hope there are lots of others who can play with you

I've seen one in "person", and it was slightly grayish - I think that photo was poorly edited in terms of colour balance.

I'm pretty sure even pocket calculators have more powers nowadays ((( archaic technology )))

 

[maya]

Speaking of retro tech, here's the intro reimagined, 8-bit style:



vs. future tech: The iconic waterfalls (proper name: Snoqualmie Falls) filmed by drone! Whoosh:

 

[maya]

Just watched the last episode (never seen it before), and.... Noooooo! Coop! No no no.... Was this meant to be the definitive ending? Or is it a cliffhanger which accidentally became the ending as no more episodes were produced because the show got cancelled against the director's wish (and did they write a manuscript for those future episodes? Or do we know nothing about which direction they planned for it to take?) I'm disturbed, upset, sad and also a bit 'I can see how this artistically still makes sense as an ending', it just wasn't the ending I wanted/hoped for... Hm. Unfulfilled. Feels unfinished. Spooked. Sad.

 

[billy_bob]

Or is it a cliffhanger which accidentally became the ending as no more episodes were produced because the show got cancelled against the director's wish.

Pretty much. Lynch and Frost had got disillusioned with the producers' meddling and by their own admission taken their eye of the ball a bit, and ratings had fluctuated quite widely across the long second season. But it certainly was written with a view to leaving room to continue (the central cliffhanger is only one of about three dozen unresolved storylines, after all!)

 

[maya]

But it certainly was written with a view to leaving room to continue (the central cliffhanger is only one of about three dozen unresolved storylines, after all!)

Yeah, there's a lot left to be told- ooh I just noticed the last scene with Cooper can be interpreted another way too, not just the way I first thought

Spoiler

I thought Cooper seeing Bob's reflection for his own in the bathroom mirror would suggest that all that stuff about him 'giving his soul' to save Annie's life would mean that he somehow got trapped by evil forces/let evil forces 'in'(side) himself, becoming a lost/damned soul/or even a 'bad'/evil human being, marked by the darkness- BUT it can also be interpreted another way: When Cooper flees the Black lodge after Bob takes Earle's soul, an evil? doppelganger of himself appears beside Bob and follows him- the Cooper which made it out from the Black Lodge into the real world and appears on the ground beside Annie at the sycamore grove/lodge entrance site in the woods and who to everyone else looks like Dale Cooper, could be the doppelganger and not the real Cooper- the mocking laugh as he stand in front of the bathroom mirror repeating what he just asked the others ('how's Annie?'), plus the reflection of Bob instead of his own face when he looks into the mirror would reveal that he isn't really Cooper, but the doppelganger (and that the real Cooper is either dead, trapped in limbo somewhere- for instance in the Black Lodge/battling the evil, or was released back into our own dimension somewhere else- perhaps they find him wandering in the woods somewhere, confused... having to confront his evil impostor in some sort of showdown? i guess we'll never know now what might've happened next... snif. )

 

[billy_bob]

Yeah, there's a lot left to be told- ooh I just noticed the last scene with Cooper can be interpreted another way too, not just the way I first thought

Spoiler

I thought Cooper seeing Bob's reflection for his own in the bathroom mirror would suggest that all that stuff about him 'giving his soul' to save Annie's life would mean that he somehow got trapped by evil forces/let evil forces 'in'(side) himself, becoming a lost/damned soul/or even a 'bad'/evil human being, marked by the darkness- BUT it can also be interpreted another way: When Cooper flees the Black lodge after Bob takes Earle's soul, an evil? doppelganger of himself appears beside Bob and follows him- the Cooper which made it out from the Black Lodge into the real world and appears on the ground beside Annie at the sycamore grove/lodge entrance site in the woods and who to everyone else looks like Dale Cooper, could be the doppelganger and not the real Cooper- the mocking laugh as he stand in front of the bathroom mirror repeating what he just asked the others ('how's Annie?'), plus the reflection of Bob instead of his own face when he looks into the mirror would reveal that he isn't really Cooper, but the doppelganger (and that the real Cooper is either dead, trapped in limbo somewhere- for instance in the Black Lodge/battling the evil, or was released back into our own dimension somewhere else- perhaps they find him wandering in the woods somewhere, confused... having to confront his evil impostor in some sort of showdown? i guess we'll never know now what might've happened next... snif. )

I think that's the more likely interpretation -

Spoiler

Given what happened to Leland when it was discovered that Bob was 'inhabiting' him, if it was the real Coop he would probably have had to die for the plotline to be resolved consistently (not that consistency's exactly the hallmark of the show....). It would have flowed well to start the second series on the real Coop, trapped somewhere, while the doppelganger wreaks havoc outside, and to focus on how he gets/is got out. Annie's 'goodness' (fresh out of the convent) would have been a key aspect of defeating the evil double I guess. Or perhaps Andy would have finally done something useful.

 

[maya]

I think that's the more likely interpretation -

Spoiler

Given what happened to Leland when it was discovered that Bob was 'inhabiting' him, if it was the real Coop he would probably have had to die for the plotline to be resolved consistently (not that consistency's exactly the hallmark of the show....). It would have flowed well to start the second series on the real Coop, trapped somewhere, while the doppelganger wreaks havoc outside, and to focus on how he gets/is got out. Annie's 'goodness' (fresh out of the convent) would have been a key aspect of defeating the evil double I guess. Or perhaps Andy would have finally done something useful.

Spoiler

Yeah. I guess the latter alternative would be less of a letdown to fans who would hate to see Cooper die, but I guess they could've stretched it as long as they wanted with 'evil Cooper' being the new baddie over many episodes though, although it probably would've killed the show as he was/is such of a hero and sort of the main character of the show, so it'd made no sense to get rid of him (Also: for the sake of consistency, as it's told earlier in the show that 'only the pure' would be able to pass through the Black Lodge unscathed, it makes little sense that Cooper would've failed that test and left it evil- precisely because he's so pure and focused in everything he does, he of all people would've been strong enough to survive the stay in the Black Lodge intact and without any damage...) The second option with the real Cooper unspoiled and intact, trapped somewhere while his evil doppelganger impersonates him and wrecks havoc while he tries to come back and defeat it/save things IMO makes more sense as a plotline as it could be dragged on for a long time and also twisted around in so many ways- for instance, if he managed to defeat the doppelganger once and it seemingly died/disappeared, there's nothing to stop them from bringing it back a second or even third time, explaining it away with 'oh, the evil forces gained strength so they managed to conjure up another doppelganger and set it free out in the world... again! *sinister music* I honestly think they could've done much more with that than option A (if coop went bad, they'd have to kill him off to make things right again and so the whole show must've ended with him and no more seasons could've been made, and i doubt the viewers/fans would continue to watch the show if it went on without him...) But I've already lost the red thread in my post now, sorry- forgot what i was going to say

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Personally I really wanted to like it, as it features so many great elements which are usually interesting on their own- the whole travelling circus setting, the band of 'freaks', magic/occult-ish themes

I'm hoping this will be good...

 

[maya]

The whole sideshow/freakshow tradition (esp.of early america) is really interesting- I know most modern folks claim that it only subjected people with disabilities to further discrimination and ridicule (as could be the case, for instance in the tragic case/life story of the furry mexican 'Wolf Woman' Julia Pastrana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Pastrana - who all her life was controlled by greedy impresarios and forced to tour as a living freakshow, even after her death her 'loving husband' had her prepared and continued to tour with the mummified corpse of her and her baby son!), but in other cases where the so-called 'freaks' had more control over their own management and finances, the travelling roadshow/freak exhibition could also be a way of earning money, helping their independence and even perhaps a sense of pride and identity as it was a way for them to gain status and freedom...