World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

Last year some of us were wondering not just why TR was such an awful pile of donkey dung, but why L&F appeared to have set out to make something so systematically awful. There seemed to be some glimmer of method to their madness/shoddiness but nobody could ever nail what it was.

I recently moved to Madrid and had months of trying to get the internet connected that were unbearable in their grinding tediousness and oafish displays of professional contempt and Dougie-like incompetence – or they might well have been unbearable, had I not had the experience of enduring The Return.

This, then, is my best guess as to L&F’s project: to provide the Twin Peaks fanbase with an endurance test so far-out in its tediousness, frustration, desolation, ugliness and general fuckwittery that nothing in our lives would ever again seem to have those qualities to any significant degree. Considering the derision L&F have received, not least from the ingrates in this thread, this project seems to me almost Christ-like in its generosity and sacrifice. The Return was indeed an act of love from Saint David and Saint Mark to their loyal fans.

I can only apologise on this thread’s behalf for our collective failure – until now – to get it.

eyeboogers wrote:I don't see how it's debatable since the writers have told us that this was their intention. It is also the thematic basis for everything that happens in the rest of episode 17 and 18.

Frost absolutely said Freddie was them experimenting with deus ex machina, yes.

He never said it was purely satirical or there to be mocked or dismissed.

N. Needleman wrote:

eyeboogers wrote:I don't see how it's debatable since the writers have told us that this was their intention. It is also the thematic basis for everything that happens in the rest of episode 17 and 18.

Frost absolutely said Freddie was them experimenting with deus ex machina, yes.

He never said it was purely satirical or there to be mocked or dismissed.

Deus ex machina means something that is too easy, unearned and something which will feel unsatisfying to any audience. Here they utilised this to make a point.

We see it differently. That's not how I read Frost's (very brief and oblique) commentary on the sequence. I thought it was them playing with the narrative conceit, not using it to lampoon anything. That's rarely how Lynch works in sequences like that - it is often both earnest and subversive at the same time. We are meant to invest in it but also to see beyond it, which we do with Cooper's dark odyssey afterwards.

Either way, YMMV and that's fine.

eyeboogers wrote:Deus ex machina means something that is too easy, unearned and something which will feel unsatisfying to any audience. Here they utilised this to make a point.

The convention originated as a completely earnest, sincere storytelling tool in ancient Greek theater. It was very powerful for audiences to see their gods come down and interact with mortals, clearing up our earthly problems. The more cynical connotations to the phrase are much more modern and certainly not an inherent part of the concept’s DNA. Given that much of TR seems to have been inspired by Greek myths and storytelling (Frost has cited Orpheus, Odysseus, and Pandora’s Box as major components), I do think his use of the phrase “deus ex machina” could certainly be read within that context as a straightforward application of a classical narrative conceit, rather than as satire.

Of course, as Needleman said, it can be both things at once (like the robin at the end of BV).

And since this is the Disappointed thread, I’ll add once again that while I can intellectually appreciate the scene on all these levels (and have also come around a bit on the really trippy shooting/editing style now that I have the ability to freeze frame it in HD and appreciate the various components), in execution it plays like a crappy direct to video action/fantasy film and just falls flat for me. YMMV

Mr. Reindeer wrote:And since this is the Disappointed thread, I’ll add once again that while I can intellectually appreciate the scene on all these levels (and have also come around a bit on the really trippy shooting/editing style now that I have the ability to freeze frame it in HD and appreciate the various components), in execution it plays like a crappy direct to video action/fantasy film and just falls flat for me. YMMV

I just can't understand the defense of that scene, "it's meant to be that way". It's unsatisfying, random defeat of a powerful character that has been in our minds for 25 years. It's utter crap, horrible in idea and execution. "It's meant to be that way" doesn't help. If it was meant to be shit, then shouldn't every one be disappointed, since that was the purpose. By liking it, you're disrespecting Lynch and Frost.

Wow, Kilmoore, you really killed it with your last post! Thumbs up!

Kilmoore wrote:If it was meant to be shit, then shouldn't every one be disappointed, since that was the purpose. By liking it, you're disrespecting Lynch and Frost.

Somehow I think both they and I can live with that.

You think it's bad and meant to be bad. I think it's a trip and not bad at all. YMMV.

N. Needleman wrote:Somehow I think both they and I can live with that.

Oh I'm fully aware they don't give a shit about Twin Peaks or its fans.

Kilmoore wrote:

N. Needleman wrote:Somehow I think both they and I can live with that.

Oh I'm fully aware they don't give a shit about Twin Peaks or its fans.

Total nonsense. It is readily apparent that Frost and Lynch both care about the fans and Twin Peaks. Quite a lot of fans find season 3 alienating and they're angry about it, but don't project that onto its creators and suggest they were trying to anger you.

NormoftheAndes wrote:Total nonsense. It is readily apparent that Frost and Lynch both care about the fans and Twin Peaks.

Completely ignoring most of the continuity, dismissing characters such as Cooper to side notes and contradicting every theme and mood in the original speak loudly to the contrary.

What they wanted to do was a Dougie story. They couldn't get funding, so they painted the Twin Peaks -title on it and got to work. Any Twin Peaks connection in S3 is shoddy, disjointed, full of plot holes and ends up going nowhere.

Let's face it, they're the ones who walked away from Twin Peaks after season 1, and haven't looked back. They admitted that the only watched the pilot episode before writing S3. They don't care.

They watched Episode 29, not the Pilot.

As one of the former profoundly disappointed, I kind of like the Bob-Freddie scene now... there's also a build-up to it over the season that totally flew over my head. Lynch was hinting at it as early as the premiere, showing him at the Roadhouse with that slick green glove in plain sight.

Isn't the big difference between the original and S3 that you became invested in the characters of the former, but almost not at all with those in S3?

Also, regarding the glove guy killing off Bob, isn't it the opposite of the mood built up in the original? Should the scene be viewed as a parody or an art installation? More like film school student than the Lynch of old?