Subject: Twin Peaks vs. Northern Exposure; Lynch works; TP on HBO or Showtime?
From: platt@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Dave Platt)
Date: 1991-06-09, 13:38
Newsgroups: alt.cult-movies,alt.tv.twin-peaks

Northern Exposure? A possible TP substitute? Dream on. Although they 
would never admit it, the producers of NE obviously intended to emulate TP. 
What bothers me about shows like NE is that they borrow the superficial 
aspects of shows like TP and add little of their own. Last week, NBC ran a 
TV movie called Murder In High Places about a Colarado resort that had some 
similarities to you-know-what, but without the finesse. If TP's greatest 
legacy is that the networks try more shows about small Northwestern 
towns with "wacky" characters, then maybe Lynch and Frost shouldn't have 
bothered. I haven't seen much of NE, but it seems like the audience is asked 
to identify with an outsider character who is cynical towards Alaska (sort 
of an Albert figure) rather than someone who looks with awe, like Cooper. 
I'd like to think that (Andy Brennan and Nadine notwithstanding) TP never 
tries (tried?) to made fun of the residents of the town. Even in the comic 
parts (with a few lapses, like the Pine-Weasel riot scene), the humour 
comes  out of a sense of the weirdness of it all, not a sense of 
malice. So count me out as one of the TP fans who will "jump ship" to NE.

Dan Parmenter writes that he doesn't feel too bad about  TP's demise 
because of the similar themes in all of Lynch's works. I agree to an extent, 
but I think that Dan is underestimating the contribution of Mark 
Frost. Frost not only thought up much of the characters and themes  
(although admittedly Lynch probably came up with the majority of the visual 
imagery) but wrote more episodes than Lynch directed and directed one of 
my favorite non-Lynch episodes; Lynch had rarely used the supernatural, for 
example, before TP. Frost also has a keen ability to neatly weave taut cliff-
hangers into Lynch's weird mysteries; due to his stint on Hill Street Blues, 
Frost knows how to tighten a drama up for TV. As much as I love Lynch's 
work, I feel that Frost is an equal partner in the creation of TP.

Finally, if TP indeed resurfaces as another series on HBO, Showtime, 
Lifetime, or USA, it will really piss me (and a lot of other Canadians 
without sattelite dishes) off.  We can get only a few American cable 
channels in 
Canada.

Dave Platt,
Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada