Watching Twin Peaks frequently left me with the impression I’d sustained a brain injury: it looked like regular television but somehow it was all wrong. Wrong yet wonderful. Looking back, I can see that it taught me more than the dozens of brain injuries I received trying to catch paint cans in my teeth.
Here are the top five…
1. If you live long enough you’ll see some absolutely mindbending stuff on your TV screen. A one eyed woman with unexplained super strength for example. It is insanity this program was broadcast on US network TV in 1990. More than twenty years later you still won’t find any TV show to compare to its flat out nuttiness.
2. Of course the heart of that oddity was the fact it seemed to start from the most generic cliché of all: the cop who plays by his own rules investigating the murder of a good looking girl. However we quickly found out that the best detectives are not frazzled rebels with drinking problems, but cheery souls with an interest in Tibetan mythology and a love of cherry pie.
3. Most TV crime shows will suggest brutal sexual murders are likely to be committed by a weirdo loner with a tangential connection to the deceased that only a cop whose is really good at putting on a pair of sunglasses can unravel. In reality and Twin Peaks, 99 times out of 100 such terrible crimes of sexual abuse are committed by close family members. Yes, sometimes those family members are possessed by monstrous demons from other dimensions, but family is still family.
4. There’s stuff out there in the woods, man. Weird, crazy, godless stuff. I’m not even kidding. This programme gave me nightmares. Actual, wake up sweating so much you think you’ve wet the bed, nightmares. I still can’t look at an owl without getting a shiver.
5. David Duchonvy looks pretty good as a woman
Awesome list! There were so many good things to learn from Twin Peaks; another would be to always check the percolator for fish.
Ha! Also the owls are not what they seem.