It Is Happening Again

In recent years, I’ve become much more inclined to binge watch when it comes to TV. Not a surprising statement, I know, given that we live in the age of the boxset, but it is indicative of something else that I’ve noticed recently:- there are fewer TV shows that I would categorise as “must see”, being happy to let them stack up and go through a big pile of episodes in a heap. There are a couple of notable exceptions when it comes to watching week by week but my watching them is prompted more by a desire to avoid spoilers than actually being compelled to watch the next episode. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good programmes but I’m just not obsessed with them to the point where I absolutely must watch the next one and that, I guess, is the point. There isn’t really much at the moment where I feel compelled to watch the following episode and am frustrated when it skips a week and I have to wait.

All that changed earlier this year with the return of an old favourite - an old favourite that, had my 15-16 year old self known there would eventually be a new series made, his excitement would have known no bounds. I’m talking about the recently aired and twenty-six-year-delayed third season of Twin Peaks.

I’m going to caveat it here:- is this something I would wholeheartedly recommend to everyone to start watching? No. This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it (although sometimes I didn’t - more on that in a bit); it’s just not something that’s easy to recommend. And that’s kind of the point. There is nothing like this at all on television. I’d even go so far as to say that there has been nothing quite like this on television before and that also includes the first two seasons of Twin Peaks. In structural terms, it doesn’t follow any of the established patterns or formats of conventional TV but it is nothing like a film either. What it is, is pure undiluted David Lynch* - much more Eraserhead than Twin Peaks Season 1 / 2.

Why would I not recommend it to everybody? It’s a really acquired taste - I’m hesitating to use the extremely overused “Marmite” here but I can't think of a better term. In fact, it’s not just a case of “love it or hate it”. For Twin Peaks; The Return, it’s also possible to love it and hate it at the same time. It certainly tries the patience - long, lingering shots of a man sweeping up a bar go on way past any potential interest has been sapped - and at times, it feels like Lynch is almost deliberately testing the patience of the audience to see what he can get away with. There were moments where my patience was close to snapping and I was tempted to fast forward but I stuck with it and was always rewarded by something that would draw me back in after having my endurance tested.

In the end, though, it is this unique mix of the mundane and the surreal, the boring and the violent, the funny and the dark that makes Twin Peaks worth the ride. The may have been some bumps along the way and the destination may have ended in uncertainty once again but, unlike the end of the second season, this felt like a planned lack of resolution and the only truly fitting way to end a television experience completely unlike anything else.



* Sure, I realise that series co-creator Mark Frost has co-written the whole thing with Lynch but, as director as well as co-writer for the whole 18 episodes, it very much feels like Lynch’s thing.