In 2020 Twin Peaks turns 30. Feeling old?
Three whole decades have passed since we learned the name of Laura Palmer, and the eery tones of Angelo Badalamenti’s theme tune were first heard. Here at Must TV we can’t let this anniversary pass without a celebration, so smooth down your tux, grab an eyepatch and a log, and let’s get weird. Because weirdness is the animating spirit of this show – we’re thinking the Log Lady, Cooper’s dreams of the red room and all those “damn fine” cups of coffee. Arguably this baffling bizarreness is what helped it achieve cult status. And David Lynch has a knack for scaring the cherry pie out of his viewers. Be warned, however: Twin Peaks comes committedly off the rails in the middle of season two, taking a turn out of the spooky and into the soapy. However – thank Log – by the end of the season the suds are rinsed away to reveal a razor-sharp show which remains a pinnacle of TV.
We aren’t the only ones celebrating this anniversary, Gilbert Cruz for the New York Times commented that Twin Peaks “was always bound to be one of the weirder shows ever to air,” but is still “one of television’s most influential series.” Ed Power in The Independent has praised Lynch’s ability to “pour existential dread into something as clichéd as the mid-town Manhattan skyline twinkling at night.” The Guardian’s Scott Tobias also compliments both Lynch and his co-creator Mark Frost, who he says, “were dedicated students of the primetime soap opera, and were drawing from its immense melodramatic pull as much as they were subverting it.”
And it’s now streaming on Now TV and Sky. Damn Fine.
First shown April 1990.
