Subject: TP: Frequently Answered Questions -- NO SPOILERS VERSION From: swsh@ellis.uchicago.edu (Janet M. Swisher) Date: 1991-06-10, 16:08 Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks,rec.arts.tv TWIN PEAKS FREQUENTLY ANSWERED QUESTIONS ***NO SPOILERS VERSION*** ***Any reference to ANY plot points have been deleted. (If I missed something and spoiled it for you, my apologies, and please let me know by email.) However, numbering is consistent with the full FAQ file. Last revision: 6/10/91 (Many of these concern what various people said. Many thanks to Bart J. Geraci, the man with the closed caption decoder. Thanks also to Tom Neff for numerous suggestions and text of some entries.) WARNING: This article may contain references to any episode up to and including the most recent one shown in the U.S. New or changed lines begin with #. Questions answered in this article: ================================== TWIN PEAKS production details: ----------------------------- 1. a) Where is Twin Peaks supposed to be? b) How big a town is Twin Peaks? 2. What year is the show set in? 3. a) Isn't TWIN PEAKS supposed to cover one day per episode? b) If so, why does the moon appear to change phase so strangely? 4. Do TWIN PEAKS episodes have names? What's the best way of referring to episodes? 5. Was there an episode broadcast January 26, 1991, in the US? 6. Is it true that TWIN PEAKS has been cancelled? Where can I write/phone/fax to protest? 7. What are "closed captions" and why are people using them to settle arguments over exactly who said what on TWIN PEAKS? 8. [deleted] TWIN PEAKS actors: ----------------- 9. [deleted] 10. [deleted] 11. a) Is Miguel Ferrer (the actor who plays Albert Rosenfield) related to Jose Ferrer, the movie actor? b) Is this Miguel Ferrer the same one who's credited on the recording of "Fishheads"? 12. [deleted] 13. Weren't some of the TWIN PEAKS people in ROBOCOP? TWIN PEAKS-related merchandise: ------------------------------ 14. What's this "secret diary" that people keep citing? 15. Has anybody noticed that Julee Cruise's "Floating Into The Night" album (which includes several tunes heard in TWIN PEAKS episodes) gives special thanks to, among other people, Bob (no last name)? 16. I've just seen/heard about a videotape/laser-disc called TWIN PEAKS available in Europe/Japan/etc. What is its relationship to the series? #17. Where is there an anonymous FTP source for Twin Peaks material? Outside issues raised by TWIN PEAKS: ----------------------------------- 18. Has anybody mentioned the possible connection between: [various things] 19. [deleted] 20. [deleted] 21. Did you know that the book COMMUNION by Whitley Streiber talks about the connection between UFO's and owls? Questions on plot points: ------------------------ 22. a) [deleted] b) [deleted] 23. a) [deleted] b) [deleted] 24. [deleted] 25. [deleted] 26. [deleted] 27. [deleted] 28. [deleted] AND NOW, ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS: TWIN PEAKS production details: ----------------------------- 1. a) Where is Twin Peaks supposed to be? -- It's in the State of Washington, but where exactly is not clear. In Cooper's initial monolog to Diane as he's driving into town, he states that it's five miles south of the Canadian border and twelve miles west of the state line. That would seem to place it in the northeast corner of the state. However the surrounding geography is like that of the Cascade Mountains in western WA. References to cities such as Seattle and Tacoma, but not Spokane, also seem to place it in western WA. The show's creators seem to have smooshed the state so that it all fits west of the Cascades. Many of the outdoor shots were filmed in Snoqualmie, WA (and the surrounding area), which is in the Cascades, not too far from Seattle. The waterfall is there; the Great Northern Hotel is really the Salish Lodge (although it doesn't look like the GNH on the inside--the interiors of both the GNH and the Packard/Martell home were filmed in the Kiana Lodge); and the RR Diner is really the Mar-T Cafe, which really does have heavenly cherry pies. b) How big a town is Twin Peaks? -- Again, that's not exactly clear. The population sign that's shown at station breaks and on the TWIN PEAKS sound track album cover indicates 51,201. According to _Twin Peaks Behind the Scenes: An Unofficial Guide to Twin Peaks_, by Mark Altman, Lynch/Frost originally conceived of it as 5,201, but the network insisted on increasing it. This has resulted in mixed cues within the show. For instance, Twin Peaks doesn't have a resident circuit court judge, which any town of 51K+ in the U.S. would; it has a sheriff's department but no police department (sheriff is usually a county rather than a city office). On the other hand, it does have its own hospital, a fancy department store, and a large hotel. It seems Lynch/Frost hasn't worried too much about being consistent on this point. 2. What year is the show set in? -- References in the first season placed it in 1989. However, _The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer_ (see Question 14) places the action in 1990. Sources on the production team (i.e., Scott Frost) indicate that it's been sort of miraculously moved up to 1990. Apparently, the producers and directors have trouble keeping track of what day it's supposed to be in Twin Peaks, never mind what year. 3. a) Isn't TWIN PEAKS supposed to cover one day per episode? -- Yes, in general, that is the convention used. There are occasional exceptions; at one point, three days passed in Twin Peaks between TWIN PEAKS episodes. Sometimes an episode will start in the middle of the night preceding that episode's "day". As mentioned in Answer 2, Lynch/Frost doesn't keep track of what day it is as well as the fans do. For instance, teenagers in Twin Peaks don't seem to go to school much, but they have been seen in school on days that were supposed to be Saturdays. b) If so, why does the moon appear to change phase so strangely? One "day" it's full, the next half, etcetera. -- The moon appears to be used pretty much symbolically. There are only a few stock moon inserts used in the series, e.g., a closeup of the diagonal half-moon floating in a black sky. No particular effort at astronomical accuracy is evident. 4. Do TWIN PEAKS episodes have names? What's the best way of referring to episodes? -- The episodes are not named. Whether it's the best way or not, Lynch/Frost number the episodes with four-digit numbers, where the first digit is the season number, and the others are the order within that season. This system was apparently adopted after the pilot was produced, so the pilot is 1000, the first one-hour episode is 1001, and so on. However for the second season, the two-hour season premiere is 2001. 5. Was there an episode broadcast January 26, 1991, in the USA? Were there in fact several regional variants broadcast? Did we learn who shot Cooper? Did Dick Tremaine die? -- No, the 1/26 episode was a collective and spontaneous hoax started by R o d Johnson and carried on straightfaced by numerous alt.tv.twin-peaks posters. 6. Is it true that TWIN PEAKS has been cancelled? Where can I write/phone/fax to protest? #--TWIN PEAKS has been cancelled by ABC; TP is missing from ABC's #announced fall schedule. There is no point in continuing to #protest to ABC. Following the two-hour (US) series finale, #Lynch/Frost plan to produce a cinema-release movie version of #TWIN PEAKS. There are rumors TWIN PEAKS being picked up by #European or cable TV channels, but nothing official has been #announced. 7. What are "closed captions" and why are people using them to settle arguments over exactly who said what on TWIN PEAKS? -- Closed Captions (CC) are the text of a show's dialog transmitted on a side channel along with the standard picture and sound signals. Hearing-impaired viewers can install a special CC decoder on their TV sets to display this text on the screen. This means that all the dialog in the show is also being broadcast in written form, so that in principle the question "What did he say?" can always be answered authoritatively -- IF, that is, you believe that the CC's are reliable! There are two ways CC's are created: by people who sit and listen to a show and type in what they hear -- live events are generally done this way -- or by people with access to the script. Some, if not all, network shows are done the second, more careful way. We don't know for certain that TWIN PEAKS is such a show, but the lack of phonetic mistakes observed in the PEAKS captions so far suggests indicate that the captioners use scripts. In particular it seems unlikely that correct French like <> would come from anywhere but a script. 8. [deleted] TWIN PEAKS actors: ----------------- 9. [deleted] 10. [deleted] 11. a) Is Miguel Ferrer (the actor who plays Albert Rosenfield) related to Jose Ferrer, the movie actor? --Yes, Miguel is Jose's son. b) Is this Miguel Ferrer the same one who's credited on the recording of "Fishheads"? --Yes, Ferrer was part of Barnes and Barnes who recorded "Fishheads" (Bill Mumy was the other half). Ferrer and Mumy also make up a band called Seduction of the Innocent which plays very occasionally at comics conventions. They have also written some comic books together. 12. [deleted] 13. Weren't some of the TWIN PEAKS people in ROBOCOP? -- Yes, three of them: Miguel Ferrer (Albert Rosenfield), Ray Wise (Leland Palmer), and Dan O'Herlihy ([deleted]). No, Clarence Williams III was NOT in ROBOCOP! TWIN PEAKS-related merchandise: ------------------------------ 14. What's this "secret diary" that people keep citing? --_The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer_ was written by Jennifer Lynch (David's daughter), and is published in the U.S by Pocket Books, and in the U.K. by Penguin Books. It is officially sanctioned by Lynch/Frost Productions (the jacket says it is "A Twin Peaks Book"). [text deleted] 15. Has anybody noticed that Julee Cruise's "Floating Into The Night" album (which includes several tunes heard in TWIN PEAKS episodes) gives special thanks to, among other people, Bob (no last name)? -- Yes. 16. I've just seen/heard about a videotape/laser-disc called TWIN PEAKS available in Europe/Japan/etc. What is its relationship to the series? --It's a modified version of the series pilot, which was shown as a TV movie in Europe. It ends differently, [text deleted] #17. Where is there an anonymous FTP source for Twin Peaks material? #--The TP anonymous FTP site is audrey.sait.edu.au [130.220.16.88], #directory /pub/twin-peaks. You can submit things to it by #uploading to directory /Upload. The keeper is Peter #Asenstorfer at the University of South Australia #(peter@audrey.sait.edu.au). Anything submitted to the #Cribsheet to TP Resources (maintained by Keith Dawson, #dawson@Atex.Kodak.COM) also makes its way to the FTP archive. Outside issues raised by TWIN PEAKS: ----------------------------------- 18. Has anybody mentioned the possible connection between: * BOB and J. R. "Bob" Dobbs of the Church of the Subgenius? * All the donuts they eat in Twin Peaks, and JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech? What he literally said was "I am a jelly donut." * Agent Dale Cooper and D.B. Cooper, the guy who hijacked a plane and then parachuted over Washington State with a whole bunch of money and was never found? * Ben and Jerry Horne and Ben and Jerry's brand ice cream (in one scene the brothers Horne are even shown eating ice cream)? * [text deleted] # * Sherriff Harry S. Truman, and the US President, and the old man #of the same name who refused to be moved off Mount St. Helens #(in Washington State) when it erupted? -- Yes for all of the above. 19. [deleted] 20. [deleted] 21. Did you know that the book COMMUNION by Whitley Streiber talks about the connection between UFO's and owls? -- Yes, Streiber says that people who have been abducted by UFO's often have "masking" memories of owls, rather than aliens [text deleted] Questions on plot points: ------------------------ 22. a) [deleted] b) [deleted] 23. a) [deleted] b) [deleted] 24. [deleted] 25. [deleted] 26. [deleted] 27. [deleted] 28. [deleted] -- Janet Swisher Internet: swsh@midway.uchicago.eduUniversity of Chicago Phone: (312) 702-7608 Academic and Public Computing P-mail: 1155 E. 60th St. Chicago IL 60637, USA