DUBAI: It’s a little over 30 years since oddball American director David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” premiered on the small screen and — for a brief moment — introduced the mainstream to an arthouse sensibility that was unlike any television show before it.
It lasted two seasons (a third arrived 25 years later, on Showtime in 2017), plus a widely derided feature-length prequel, 1992’s “Fire Walk With Me.”
The show was ostensibly a murder-mystery. Obsessively by-the-book FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) arrives in the titular town to help local Sherriff Harry S. Truman investigate the killing of homecoming queen Laura Palmer. That story was, in itself, a beguiling one, incorporating a seedy world of prostitution and drugs, and implicating several of the town’s seeming ‘pillars of the community.’ Like much of Lynch’s work, one of the main themes of “Twin Peaks” was the darkness behind the prim and proper façade of middle-class America, balanced with a genuine affection for the community spirit of small towns.
“Twin Peaks” is directed by American filmmaker David Lynch. (Supplied)
That detective story was fleshed out with surreal supernatural elements, some genuinely frightening horror tropes, and Lynch’s trademark mix of claustrophobic weirdness and left-field humor — making it all the more intriguing.
MacLachlan gave a career-defining performance as Cooper — whose reliance on logic and procedure soon buckles under the sheer strangeness of the town — and the rest of the cast were similarly excellent, even if Lynch’s direction often called for them to be hammily melodramatic.
It was also one of the first TV shows to look this good. “Twin Peaks” had the aesthetic appeal of a big-screen feature, even though this was well before the days where most homes had televisions that with screen size and resolution to do it justice.
Watching those first two series again now, it’s just as easy to be drawn into Lynch’s weird and wonderful universe, and to revel at his skill in blending high-concept art with low-brow pop-culture to create something truly unique.
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