Subject: TP Returns !
From: ekrell@ulysses.att.com (Eduardo Krell)
Date: 1991-03-07, 12:37
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

ABC Revives `Twin Peaks' on Thursday Nigh

NEW YORK - ``Twin Peaks,'' the moody, obscure nighttime
soap opera about the eccentric inhabitants of a Pacific Northwest
lumber town, is returning to ABC's prime time lineup, network
officials said Thursday.
           ``Twin Peaks'' returns Thursday, March 28, at 9 p.m. EST with
six original episodes to air in that time slot, said Robert Iger,
president of ABC Entertainment.
           ``We've returned it to the time periodr where it performed very
well against strong competition last spring, and we're hopeful that
this move will revitalize interest in the program,'' Iger said.
           ``Twin Peaks'' replaced ``Gabriel's Fire,'' a drama starring
James Earl Jones, which will be in hiatus following Thursday's
broadcast. ``Gabriel's Fire'' will return in April at a different
time period, Iger said.
           ``Twin Peaks'' had been languishing in a Saturday night time
slot until it was placed on hiatus last month. At the beginning of
its March 28 broadcast, Iger said, what has happened so far in the
season will be recapitulated.
           That's a tall order, considering how even fans of the quirky
series sometimes have trouble following its events.
           Let's take, for example, the mysterious death of Josie Packard
(Joan Chen). She died in bed while aiming a pistol at her lover,
Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean) and mystical,
pie-gobbling FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan).
           Was she angry? Who knows. She feared that he would learn all her
unsavory secrets. What happened to her after she died? Glad you
asked. Her image took up residence inside a dresser drawer knob at
the Great Northern Hotel.
           Let's not even discuss who killed Laura Palmer. Everybody knows
it was her father, Leland, while under the influence of the demonic
BOB.
           BOB, you may be interested to learn, appeared on the bed shortly
after Josie died. So did that really, REALLY strange dwarf who
appears in Cooper's dreams.
           The series was conceived by director David Lynch, the high
priest of cinematic anxiety (``Eraserhead,'' ``The Elephant Man,''
``Dune,'' ``Blue Velvet'' and ``Wild at Heart'') and Mark Frost, a
TV producer from ``Hill Street Blues.''
           ``Twin Peaks,'' a midseason replacement, was the year's most
written-about show even before its April 8, 1990, debut won a 33
percent share of the TV audience. It quickly became the most
talked-about show on television.
           But it was everything except a hit. Nominated for 14 Emmy
Awards, the most of any drama, it won only two technical prizes.
           Its audience share of 33 percent eroded when it went up against
NBC's blockbuster ``Cheers.'' It finished the season with a
respectable if unspectacular tie for 40th place.
           ABC's decision to return ``Twin Peaks'' to the Thursday night
slot against ``Cheers'' was bad news to one ratings analyst.
           ``They're determined to kill the show,'' said David Marans, a
senior researcher for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency.
``While pulling it out of that nowhere slot on Saturday, the
lead-in of `The Father Dowling Mysteries' is almost as incompatible
a program as they have.''

    
Eduardo Krell                   AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ

UUCP: {att,decvax,ucbvax}!ulysses!ekrell  Internet: ekrell@ulysses.att.com