Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

General discussion on Twin Peaks not related to the series, film, books, music, photos, or collectors merchandise.

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Mordeen
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by Mordeen »

Where? At the shared home of a friend of mine, in the living room, already fans of The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Dune, amazed that David Lynch was actually about to destroy his career and make yet another unwatchable crappy television show. Who Killed Laura Palmer? Probably Fonzie. Maybe he'll even jump over her.

I wasn't fully convinced it was going to be any good because nothing else on TV was any good, even though Lynch was great. Then, a little while later, I was waiting for commercial breaks to go pee, which I normally only did for baseball games. This was different.

It was just the two of us that first night, but when the series finale aired, that living room was standing room only.

When? The night the Pilot aired.

Who? Same dude I am now, in general. Still looking for great television, and while only finding it in little bits, finding out a year ago that Twin Peaks is coming back to save television, and likely break it forever. Because if this return is as good as we believe it will be, nobody will be able to live up to it. Again.

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Moving Through Time. . .
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

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dud
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by dud »

it's fascinating to me that the majority of you are people who saw twin peaks either in its original broadcast or shortly after, i guess that makes sense though. i watched twin peaks for the first time during the spring semester of my freshman year of college...in 2013. i can't even fathom the level of joy and excitement you all must have felt last october when they announced the new season
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by Audrey Horne »

The night of the pilot -after it aired. Had a conflict and set the VCR. Thank god, or else I wouldn't have it on tape. it was alllll about the rewatch, baby! Keeping every episode and pouring over it for clues. The summer of 1990 was a long, long, long wait.
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by Applesauce McGee »

I was 14/15 when the show first aired, and I watched it starting with the first airing of the pilot. It had me at "hello." I never missed an episode. When it was moved to Saturday nights, I was usually babysitting when it was on. If a kid came downstairs while I was watching, I'd yell, but not get off the couch. If the parents came home before an episode ended, I'd awkwardly find a way to just sit on the couch until it was done. I think I only had a record an episode once. Was invited to a Hartford Whalers game. I was terrified that I'd program the VCR incorrectly, else someone else in the house would mess it up.

I know that I realized that the show took a sharp dive in quality in season two, but I still always loved it.

I read all the tie in books, had a "Damn Fine Cherry Pie" t-shirt, etc. I was also very active discussing the show online via Prodigy! There was a pretty active community back then in the days of dial-up/pay by the minute Internet.

I was devastated by the cliffhanger and crushed by the cancellation. I was excited when the movie was announced, disappointed when I learned it was going to be a prequel, and then I actually hated the movie itself. It's since come to grow on me. I just really wanted something different at the time, and I was really annoyed with the way the movie shifted from BOB as an actual possessing entity to what seemed at the time more or less a metaphor for incest and abuse. Like I said, it's grown on me since.

When the show became available on VHS and then DVD, I rewatched with folks who were important to me who had never seen the show. First my brother, when were in our twenties. I'd go over to his apartment every night after work to watch an episode. Then I watched it with my (now ex) wife. Both loved it. In between and since, I'd go back and watch random episodes.

I'm over the moon about season three. It's one of those weird miracles I never really ever even hoped to hope for. Lynch's departure was announced in the midst of my divorce, and it felt like an extra kick in the balls. I'm also really excited for Frost's book.

And now's the part where I have to admit something truly awful. During season two, when it was KNOWN that the show was facing cancellation, family received a package in the mail. We were a Nielson Family! The package even came with a roll of quarters for compensation. I remember thinking that I could singlehandedly save the show. Unfortunately, I was 15 and you had to fill in a book and mail it back, and- well, I was 15. So- sorry the show got cancelled. But, if it hadn't, we wouldn't have THIS excitement after 25 years!
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by Shloogorgh »

I watched Fire Walk With Me first. My sister wanted to watch it, so I watched it with her on vhs. I was pretty young, early teens. I can't remember if it was before or after I saw Blue Velvet. It left a big impression on me, but for some reason it was much later before I tried watching the show. I wasn't overly eager to jump in since I already knew the answer to the central mystery

The first time I tried watching the show it didn't fully grab me because of how different it was from the series, so I stopped early on.

The second attempt was when it was first added onto Netflix streaming, so only about 5-6 years ago. That's when I gave it the chance it deserves and fell in love. I've watched it all the way through at least 4 times.
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by Louise Dombroski »

dud wrote:it's fascinating to me that the majority of you are people who saw twin peaks either in its original broadcast or shortly after, i guess that makes sense though. i watched twin peaks for the first time during the spring semester of my freshman year of college...in 2013. i can't even fathom the level of joy and excitement you all must have felt last october when they announced the new season
I was very skeptical when the news came out. OK, my first reaction was total excitement, followed shortly pessimism. I was afraid it would be like having my favorite '80s band reunite for a tour...instead of being exciting and fresh as they'd been originally, they'd just be middle-aged guys playing tired oldies and becoming parodies of themselves.

Learning that Lynch would be at the helm made it a lot more exciting, as did remembering the "see you in twenty-five years" reference. Reading the entries here give me even more hope. Maybe the news just initially made me feel old. :)
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by dud »

i can understand that! i definitely feel the same way about music - if a lot of my favorite old artists were to regroup i would be very dubious about it instead of being psyched. i guess the reason i feel more confident about twin peaks is because i trust lynch. i feel like he's the kind of artist who would only make something if he felt it was worth making. i hope he proves me right!
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by HoodedMatt »

I was aware of the series back in the day, but I was a pretty sheltered 11 year old* so I only knew the name and that my relatives were divided over whether it was genius or if it was rubbish. I pretty much managed to stay spoiler free as it left my radar after that.

Fast forward until February 2014 and my wife finally managed to talk me into giving the show a go. To say I fell in love hard would be an understatement. From the opening of the theme tune I had goosebumps and they came and went as we watched the pilot.

I feel very lucky that I managed to go for 24 years without finding out the identity of Laura's killer. The only thing I know for certain that I did know before hand is the existence of the MFAP, but I knew none of the context. I also feel lucky that I didn't have a long wait between becoming a fan and the release of the Bluray box set, let alone the return of the show! I have nothing but respect for all you veterans who stuck out the long lean years!
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John Justice Wheeler
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by John Justice Wheeler »

I was 16 when the show premiered in 1990 and I had been anticipating it for months based on, I think, a brief Star magazine piece of all things. A friend and I got caught up on Lynch in the period prior to the premiere and that entailed a first viewing of Blue Velvet which was pretty bracing to put it mildly. Actually, at that time and in that place perhaps in particular (I was living in Springfield, MO), it had to be a kind of covert screening as video stores wouldn't rent R rated films to kids without a parent's consent and I wasn't likely to get that. I believe that I had also seen The Elephant Man by this point, probably far before this, and of course I had seen Dune which I loved and still love deeply to this day (it is probably my personal favorite of Lynch's films; that doesn't mean that I think it's in any way better than his more established classics--though it remains hugely underrated). I don't think I had seen Eraserhead but I more or less knew what I was in for with Peaks.

The advertising leading up to the premiere was great, appropriately wispy and ethereal and inspiring attention from those inclined toward such stuff. The genuinely mysterious quality of it all is what hooked me from the start. I recorded the original broadcast episodes as they screened and had a bit of ritual in which I would I would re-watch all the episodes in order every single week leading up to the newest one. This practice did admittedly get a bit unwieldy by late into season 2 and I may have stopped it by then, I don't know. I did re-watch the entire series annually every year since '90 (and more times than that early on) until just a few years back when I intentionally stopped doing that in anticipation of the blu-ray release. A fun detail is that recording them in this way also allowed me to include the occasions when the local station would do cut aways during the break to Peaks parties in local bars (this only happened at the start as you can imagine); you'd get customers dressed up in character and positing their theories (e.g. "I think it was the psychiatrist!"). One thing that's always been difficult for me personally is that I have gone according to the numbered listing for the episodes I made at the time with the pilot as episode #1 and the last as #30 and that's sort of permanently ingrained in my head at this point so when others refer to the episodes using the more standard numbering system I always have to do a quick conversion in my mind and I can't always remember which way it goes. Another detail: I used to walk every Monday morning down to the 7-11 a mile or so from my house in order to get the new TV Guide just for its paltry plot synopsis paragraph for that week's episode. Those were the days.

I remember certain moments distinctly. The end of the second season premiere was and is genuinely horrifying to me, one of the best evocations of a nightmare state I've seen, all brief and potently fragmented. There was some inane controversy on TV at the time about that sequence because somebody claimed that you could see a nipple (!) through the dirty lingerie. The Big Reveal in episode 15 (excuse me, episode 14) was also something I'll never forget as it remains about as close to enacting the directness of deeply dismaying trauma on TV as there has ever been and that seems utterly appropriate. I remember being almost physically effected by the prolonged, confrontational nature of it, maybe even hiding behind my bed (though I may have amped up the memory of that response over the years). I do remember too that I kept expecting Cooper and Truman to kick down the door and save Maddy, which was an expression of the same sort of deep seated and ingrained expectations that kept making me think we'd get some Highlander style face off at the end of it all between Cooper and BOB.

I never minded the episodes most consider a low point in the series that came after as any Peaks was better than everything else on TV and good stuff could be found in even the weakest of episodes, depending on what you'd consider "good". The Earle chess match did seem to go on forever at the time but that's because of interruptions in the schedule and delays and all that; I also never found Earle all that compelling because he was too much of a portentous, pompous blowhard compared to the more subtle and insinuating evil of BOB or the deeply felt and horrific tragedy of Leland. The friend I watched episodes with was unavailable during the screening of the final one but called me immediately after and bellowed, "NOOOOOOO!!!!" into the phone for a duration of time. I certainly felt the same and whenever I have re-watched the series I always approach the final ones with a real sense of profound melancholy, not just as it's the end if the show but because of how it ended. I have, after many years, managed to wrest some sense of appropriate resolution from the end of FWWM but even that remains of the crestfallen and bleakly resigned variety, however spiritually enrapturing it may be (and it is). I saw the film during the one week or so that it played a theater in Naperville, IL back in August of '92. Oddly I don't remember my earliest reactions (though I always loved the film as an example of Lynch's great and fine art) but I was probably in agreement with one other audience member at the end who said; "Well, they can't leave it like that." Well, they did until now.

As a side note, I had been saying to people for years that if Lynch ever came back to Peaks it would probably be because of the whole 25 years later prompt as a possibility. It always just seemed to me the kind of detail he would spark off of intuitively and of which he could not help but take advantage.
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Audrey Horne
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by Audrey Horne »

JJW, great story! And so similar to my experience too. Recording those episodes came in handy. I would pour through each one making notes. And then would hook up another VCR and make copies for my Peaks friends... Never lending out my precious copy.

And yes it was always episode 1,2,3 etc. the dream is always episode 3 in my mind. I would also have my tapes handy and ready to try to record the next episode's commercial during other network shows. Or Entertainment Tonight. And yes, I remember anxiously waiting for the TV Guide for the synopsis... But it was always a week ahead... Like when Leland was the killer, we knew a wake was coming, and that tipped me off he would be dying soon.
God, I love this music. Isn't it too dreamy?
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John Justice Wheeler
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by John Justice Wheeler »

Audrey Horne wrote:And yes it was always episode 1,2,3 etc. the dream is always episode 3 in my mind.
I think the reason that it's always been difficult for me to accept the more standard numbering is that though the pilot is, yes, a "pilot" and not one of the episodes ordered to follow, it's not the kind of pilot that's disposable. You really can't just start watching the show at what most call episode 1. So technically they are right to call it that but it's one time when I really don't care what's technically "right". The fact that the pilot was originally a 2 hour presentation (and thus, non-standard) shouldn't matter either as, of course, so was episode 9 (ugh, I'm sorry, reduce that by one I guess), not to mention the soldering job that went on with the combination of the final two episodes for presentation during one block of TV (which always seemed so awful as the tone changes drastically between them, right there in the middle). And, on top of that, as we look at the series now as a unit it just seems awkward and unduly specific to distinguish the pilot from the rest. I think it could really confuse new viewers.
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by LostInTheMovies »

I use the pilot + system simply because the discs use them and that's how I've always watched the show. That said - and mostly just to play devil's advocate - one thing I DO like about separating the pilot from the regular run is that it was such a different production process from the rest (especially the location shooting), and I also feel it has a significant albeit somewhat subtly different tone and style than the rest of the series, even adjusting for the difference between Lynch and non-Lynch episodes. But yeah, I agree, it certainly isn't the type of pilot you could "skip" or anything (quite the opposite - and when I first tried to watch the show in '06, pre-Gold Box, the lack of entry point was jarring). Also, I do like the 30-episode count because it reminds you how symmetrical the series is, to the point of the killer's reveal coming at the EXACT halfway point (well, unless you count it by hour of course). If that numbering was to become the standard, I wouldn't complain - but I've kinda committed to the pilot + numbering and just stick with it now out of convenience.
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by Audrey Horne »

To me, it's just how I talk about tv. If it were Cheers, I'd say, "oh, I love the first episode of Cheers when Diane walks into the bar..." These are all childhood memories so it's just how I think of Peaks... Not right or wrong, just how I will always process it.... Oh, the fourth episode? The one with Laura's funeral, right. Etc.

I think what also has reinforced how I remember Peaks, and seems so different than fans that discovered while watching it all at once, is rewatching the early episode so much while trying to solve the mystery, and tapering the rewatch when there wasn't a prevailing mystery to solve. Things like the White Lodge always take me a second, because it was never really reinforced in my mind. Remember the Red Room wasn't revisited by Cooper for over an entire year in real airing time.
God, I love this music. Isn't it too dreamy?
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Re: Where (and when and who) were you when you found TP?

Post by LostInTheMovies »

Audrey Horne wrote:Things like the White Lodge always take me a second, because it was never really reinforced in my mind. Remember the Red Room wasn't revisited by Cooper for over an entire year in real airing time.
This is a GREAT point. I had watched the series about five times - even including a rewatch where I actually *SKIPPED* all the White/Black Lodge episodes (except for the finale) - before it occurred to me that the Lodge mythology was completely a creature of the show's second half. It took reading an alt.tv.twin-peaks post where a user observed that the show split into two halves, the Laura story and the Lodge story for me to realize just what a narrative turn that was.

Likewise, another alt.tv user observed that the Black vs. White Lodge didn't play a part Fire Walk With Me (or maybe they just pointed out the absence of a White Lodge aspect, I'm not sure). This threw me for even more of a loop since the finale (which equates the Red Room and figures like the Little Man with the Lodge mythology of the previous episodes) was so fresh in my mind when I saw the film. But for someone who had sat through all of the second season, with months spent watching and thinking about the Project Blue Book/Windom Earle, and then waited a year and a half to see the movie, the absence of that stuff might have been more notable. That Lynch never uses the word "Lodge" in the film (except when Annie makes a direct callback to the finale) and that the relationship among the creatures seems to be less about a clearcut good vs. evil struggle, more or less escaped me.

Another good example of this is that until I wrote about the series and film early last year, for the first time in over 5 years, I didn't realize that "garmonbozia" is never spoken until the film.

On the other hand, I wonder how much watching it years later - especially recently with access to resources like Brad's book (or even if I had watched it in the 90s while Wrapped in Plastic was being published) - reinforces an awareness of how the show was uneven and messy in its storytelling, whereas watching it in real-time on ABC would have made me think "Oh, they know exactly where they are going, this is all part of a master plan." I knew almost nothing about Twin Peaks the first time I watched it (I even thought that Laura's mystery was never resolved) but I DID know the show was cancelled and thus was expecting a certain unfinished quality from the beginning.
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