Subject: A Dissenting Opinion....
From: barb@velvet.com (Barbara Petersen)
Date: 1990-10-02, 12:30
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

The word that came most strongly to mind was "pathetic".  A few of the good
points remain: many of the characters are still interesting; the direction is
still top-notch; there are still lots of "good lines".  On the other hand:

-- Is it a murder mystery or isn't it?  In the later episodes of last season,
   they'd abandoned the murder mystery angle in favor of "surreal experience".
   Now the murder mystery seems to be back, with much desperate scurrying about
   in an attempt to get the plot on track again.  Sunday night, we saw several
   long-ago forgotten clues/characters dragged back into the story: BOB/Killer
   Bob, Mike (the shoe salesman/one-armed man), Theresa Banks, Ronette Pulaski,
   the whole train car setting, the Log Lady's clues (the owls, what she heard
   at her cabin), Sarah Palmer's visions (now Maddy's visions), the letters
   under the fingernails, and on and on.  New clues, or new twists on older
   clues, were casually tossed in: Hawk's having found evidence of a third man
   near Jacques Renault's cabin, Laura's apparent dual personalities, and her
   fondness for the "Fire" poem (both brought up by James, in his talk with 
   Truman).  Other, dead-end clues/characters/possibilities were tossed aside
   just as casually: Jacques Renault, Leo Johnson, Dr. Jacoby, the necklace.
   And, we my yet have Ronette Pulaski simply wake up and clear up everything
   in one fell swoop.  (I even wondered if Albert's extended explanation of his
   coming in from Seattle was intended partially to answer the old question
   about "How did Cooper get to Twin Peaks so soon after the murder?".)  This
   factor alone destroyed, for me, any possibility (such as it was) of enjoying
   the episode; it gave it an air of frantic desperation and near-panic that
   was at first amusing, and ultimately silly and tedious.
 
-- The tie-ins to the "Secret Diary of Laura Palmer" were getting obvious and
   tiresome.  The whole idea that "there's the normal diary, see, and then
   there's this SECRET diary" is ludicrous to begin with; the process of moving
   it into the rest of the Twin Peaks world has been, thus far, even worse.
   All of a sudden, for example, ideas like Laura's dual personality thing, and
   the whole BOB question, are being pushed hard; we also saw heavy-handed
   changes in Blackie's character in order to bring it in line with the Diary
   (i.e. she needed to become a heroin addict, and be interested in fooling
   around with her "girls").  The new Meals on Wheels angle is going to go
   nowhere but downhill....

-- Similarly, Cooper spent a lot more time talking to Diane this week.  Gotta
   sell those tapes....

-- The continuity errors still irk.  How many siblings does Donna have this
   week?  Will the half-heart be on a chain or a leather thong this week?
   Which tape will we hear this time?  (Yet another?  Why, if Cooper had
   memorized Leo Johnson's police record, as we saw last season, didn't he
   already know that Leo was in jail on the night of Theresa Banks' murder?)

-- They're starting to repeat ideas.  "Well, everyone *really* liked the dream
   sequence, so let's do another one!" "Yeah, and instead of a dwarf, we'll 
   have a, a, a giant this time!  Yeah, that's the ticket!"  Albert is another
   example; yes, it's a great trick, but he's still a one-trick pony.

-- The quirkiness and moodiness is no longer an integral part of the show; it's
   become forced.  It felt almost as if they produced an episode of a "normal"
   television show, then, as an afterthought, ran the whole thing through their
   patented "quirkiness and moodiness" post-processor.  Things like the opening
   scene with the room-service waiter, or the bit with Ben and Jerry dancing as
   Leland sings, bordered on the farcical (or the idiotic -- take your pick).

-- The emphasis of the show has undergone a subtle shift; "favorite" characters
   are starting to get a lot more screen time compared to the rest of the
   ensemble.  How long before it's reduced to little more than "The Dale and
   Audrey Show"?  (Does anyone else think that the character of Audrey has lost
   some of the "edge" she had last season?  In becoming "nice", she's had to
   give up much of what made her interesting to begin with.)

-- The supernatural angle is getting out of hand.  Is Cooper a crack detective
   or a mystic?  Once again, the show seems to have taken off in yet another
   new direction.

-- And, yes, it's STILL a soap opera.

Ultimately, I wonder if it's even *possible* for a week-after-week television
show format to be compatible with the sort of production that "Twin Peaks"
wanted (and wants) to be.  As a mini-series, it could have been a classic; as
it is, it continues to grow embarrassing.

--
Barbara Petersen
barb@velvet.com                           {uunet, decwrl}!sjsca4!velvet!barb
                              "Dial 888...."