This is now already one of my favourite TV shows of all time.


The original run of Twin Peaks - seasons 1 & 2 - is a fascinating display of the benefits of creative collaboration, but also the dangers of creative compromise.

I can see how this show revolutionised turning live-action TV into an art form on equal footing with film. It uses the (at the time) familiar setting of a melodramatic soap opera, but full of strange, quirky and likeable characters and a very foreboding atmosphere. The murder mystery that kicks off the show is quickly coated in a sinister sense of dread, which makes you want to know more yet hesitant to really find the nasty answers at the same time.

It's incredible to me that the pilot was written with very little future planning, and that the spiritual throughline of the show came from Lynch needing to come up with an ending for the European standalone film. Of course once Lynch and Frost both partially abandon the show in the second season due to their dissatisfaction with studio meddling, it ceases to be the same show anymore. But still, there's a point you can jump back in where they start to reel things back and build back up towards an excellent ending.

Despite the rocky road of ups and downs in the mainstream, Twin Peaks is an incredibly unique and captivating show that takes you to a strange, dreamy place like no other. Things get a little bumpy down the road, but after all -
Heaven is a large and interesting place.


Twin Peaks: The Return is very much about returning to Twin Peaks. It appears in a near unrecognisable state, with new characters and what appears to be a new modern style murder mystery to unpack. Instead of every scene being a soapy nugget of intrugue to grab onto, we're steadily handed what seem to be open-ended questions at a downright glacial pace. Twin Peaks is no longer welcoming; it's incredibly violent and sick. But, we're baited in with the hook of following Cooper's spiritual journey. As the series goes on and more familiar faces appear, you discover that it's all tied back into the story of the characters we love and Cooper's investigation into the source of Laura Palmer's death.

This is very much a David Lynch baby, much more along the lines of Fire Walk with Me than the original series. Mark Frost works his usual magic of weaving together Lynch's intuitive magic and madness into a (relatively) coherent narrative, forming a deep rich lore for the dream-like world of Twin Peaks. As well as the titular "return", the other main goal of the series seems to be expanding and even explaning the mythos of the series, showing us how the supernatural elements work and where they come from. Of course much of it is left up to the viewer's interpretation, but I felt it gave me enough to form a magical fairytale in my head.

That's also why I feel there's not much need to go into the final episode. It's definitely polarising by design. Lynch and Frost intentionally made the penultimate episode to be the ending that would please most people. Things are explained, all plotlines converge and the story is tied up in a lovely narrative bow, even back to the very beginning of the series. Not to say that it's very conventional, it's still one of the more beautifully artistic things I've seen, but it's there to make sure that people like me are satisfied. Part 18 feels like David Lynch's ending, totally unbound by any further obligation to conclude the narrative or stay true to character. I feel like he has every right to do that, and I'm perfectly happy with part 17 to appease my headcanon.

At first I found it a bit odd that something like The Return was considered "season 3" of a show from the 90s, but by the end of it I realised that, much like Fire Walk with Me, it's quite inseperable and I consider it all one single narrative. If there's one thing I can say for certain about Twin Peaks, if not just The Return in particular, it's that there's nothing quite like it, and I absolutely adore it.