I find your comment a bit odd, if only because I’m having trouble thinking of ANY show that was like Twin Peaks in any era of television. You write that shows you encountered then were incomplete, evocative and stylish as compared to today’s “quality television.” What shows do you mean (in both categories)? I think in order to do a fair comparison, you have to compare the best of each… and I think even taking the best of 90s televised drama, most of it pales in comparison to “The Wire” or the first two seasons of “The Sopranos” or “Friday Night Lights” or– if we bring other nations’ television into it– “Slings and Arrows”, “Life on Mars,” the final installments of “Prime Suspect,” and “State of Play.” And that’s just off the top of my head (hell, I just realized I left out “Mad Men”). In fact, the only two dramas from that decade that can really be said to belong on this list would be “Twin Peaks” and “Homicide: Life On The Street.” “Twin Peaks” is a total outlier, the only other show I can think of that was like it in any way is “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” in that both of them turned what normally are seen as deficits in a show (uneven acting, to put it politely, oddball pacing, constant digressions etc.) and turn them into assets.

When THE SECRET DIARY OF LAURA PALMER was released, we all ran out to by it, and pored over it like detectives with a really juicy clue. The book was very racy (if my Mom has known what was in it I don’t think she would have bought it for me), like ARE YOU THERE GOD IT’S ME MARGARET for psychopaths.

Reading the diary along with the series was such an intense fan experience–my first real fan experience. I think this was enhanced by the fact that this was before the DVR and DVD box sets. When TWIN PEAKS was on, I was there–it could not be missed, Although I have liked other TV shows more than TWIN PEAKS, nothing else has come close to recreating the level of fan engagement. I guess it’s like your first love?

Hope to hear more of your thoughts about this show on your blog!

The show is not really inconsistent, instead what happens is the show goes flying off a quality cliff into a ditch in the second season and doesn’t emerge from it until the very final episode. It is part of what is frustrating about the show. While the show has to be watched in its entirety, there’s a large chunk towards the end that’s pretty awful.

Most people attribute this to the decision (Forced on Lynch by the network) to solve the Laura Palmer mystery. And you can see that his name appears in the credits as a writer or director far, far less after this happens. He and Mark Frost kind of abandon the show, it seems. And one soon-to-be Hollywood starlet shows up and is terrible. How she ended up becoming a superstar and Sherylynn Fenn didn’t is beyond me.

I never followed “Lost,” but I understand that many people were disappointed that its finale failed to address its many mysteries. However, the “Lost” finale gave a satisfying resolution to its characters. No such luck with “Twin Peaks.” Lynch just tried to start a new mystery, so it remained an endless series of taunting images. I felt ripped off when I saw that, and so did most of its audience. People stopped watching, and the show was canceled.

I understand Lynch never wanted to reveal the killer, but was required to by CBS. Apparently , he wanted the series to run for years without revealing what was behind its mysteries; perhaps he never wanted to. I take from that, that he just wanted to produce endless images with no meaning. Frankly, I’m glad it ended sooner rather than later. I don’t like being played with.

Perhaps this is a bit like the “Battlestar Galactica” controversy over its finale. I’m a BG finale hater. That series, too, was well done. It was great drama, but its drama was, in my opinion, made empty by the finale which revealed many of the situations and characterizations were just writing devices, not actual drama. (I mean, What was Starbuck, really?)

So if you’re satisfied with the images per se, then you’ll find “Twin Peaks” enjoyable. Otherwise, not.

Are you going to be catching up on Buffy and Twin Peaks simultaneously?

I also have not seen Twin Peaks. I have the entire series but have yet to watch it. My only experience with Lynch is his film Mulholand Dr. which was phenomenal.

On his commentary for The Buffy the Vampire episode “Restless” Whedon mentions that people felt Willow’s dream sequence (specifically between the stage curtains) was influenced by Lynch’s work. Whedon said that the scene had it is own message but did not address specifically whether Lynch had influenced the work.

I wonder how much Lynch influenced Whedon (if at all). They come from similar perspectives but go in different directions. Whedon takes his existentialism from Sartre while Lynch is more transcendental.

I can wait to explore Twin Peaks.