NON SPOILERS: Twin Peaks: Season 3 on Showtime Thread

[djerdap]

I like the opening of True Detective and don't think the song is hillbilly at all. Captured the feel of those Louisiana landscapes quite nicely.

[Dead Dog]

I like the opening of True Detective and don't think the song is hillbilly at all. Captured the feel of those Louisiana landscapes quite nicely.

I think the score itself did. I think the opening theme was about as predictable as predictable can be. Anyway, don't know why I'm rambling on about other opening sequences, as the topic at hand is Twin Peaks. I could be wrong, but I get the feeling people are going way overboard with their predictions on how different Twin Peaks season three is going to be. We have folks expecting it to be closer to Inland Empire than the original series, speculation that there will be no opening sequence, etc. I know we're just inventing things to talk about, as we've been given next to nothing, but we have a template, we know what Twin Peaks is. We know that world, the feel of it. David Lynch is on record "I love Twin Peaks and it's world" is an exact quote. Of course it's going to be it's own animal, of course Lynch and Frost's sensibilities have morphed over the years, just like the rest of us. But they aren't reinventing the wheel, it's going to still be, at it's core, episodic television about a world we are all intimately familiar with. This isn't a David Lynch controlled French-financed little experimental film that nobody is going to see. Mark Frost is an accomplished writer of episodic television and was accomplished before Twin Peaks was ever a thing. To my knowledge he was involved in the writing process from the get go. Showtime probably spent in the area of 50 million dollars on this production, they aren't interested in the labyrinthine obtuseness of something like Inland Empire or the immaculate Mulholland Dr. I think we all know, in general, what the show is going to be, so the predictions of mind warping changes just don't really makes sense to me. To each his own I guess.

[Rhodes]

I think we all know, in general, what the show is going to be, so the predictions of mind warping changes just don't really makes sense to me. To each his own I guess.

We don't all know. Actually I read quite some predictions, including my own, that the new season will indeed be quite different.

[Gabriel]

I think the score itself did. I think the opening theme was about as predictable as predictable can be. Anyway, don't know why I'm rambling on about other opening sequences, as the topic at hand is Twin Peaks. I could be wrong, but I get the feeling people are going way overboard with their predictions on how different Twin Peaks season three is going to be. We have folks expecting it to be closer to Inland Empire than the original series, speculation that there will be no opening sequence, etc. I know we're just inventing things to talk about, as we've been given next to nothing, but we have a template, we know what Twin Peaks is. We know that world, the feel of it. David Lynch is on record "I love Twin Peaks and it's world" is an exact quote. Of course it's going to be it's own animal, of course Lynch and Frost's sensibilities have morphed over the years, just like the rest of us. But they aren't reinventing the wheel, it's going to still be, at it's core, episodic television about a world we are all intimately familiar with. This isn't a David Lynch controlled French-financed little experimental film that nobody is going to see. Mark Frost is an accomplished writer of episodic television and was accomplished before Twin Peaks was ever a thing. To my knowledge he was involved in the writing process from the get go. Showtime probably spent in the area of 50 million dollars on this production, they aren't interested in the labyrinthine obtuseness of something like Inland Empire or the immaculate Mulholland Dr. I think we all know, in general, what the show is going to be, so the predictions of mind warping changes just don't really makes sense to me. To each his own I guess.

Agreed. Twin Peaks was sweet and funny as well as dark and sinister. Mark Frost is involved in this, so I suspect he'd have something to say about turning it into a nasty nihilistic nightmare series, devoid of hope. He wasn't involved with FWWM and, I'm afraid, it showed.

[Dead Dog]

I think the score itself did. I think the opening theme was about as predictable as predictable can be. Anyway, don't know why I'm rambling on about other opening sequences, as the topic at hand is Twin Peaks. I could be wrong, but I get the feeling people are going way overboard with their predictions on how different Twin Peaks season three is going to be. We have folks expecting it to be closer to Inland Empire than the original series, speculation that there will be no opening sequence, etc. I know we're just inventing things to talk about, as we've been given next to nothing, but we have a template, we know what Twin Peaks is. We know that world, the feel of it. David Lynch is on record "I love Twin Peaks and it's world" is an exact quote. Of course it's going to be it's own animal, of course Lynch and Frost's sensibilities have morphed over the years, just like the rest of us. But they aren't reinventing the wheel, it's going to still be, at it's core, episodic television about a world we are all intimately familiar with. This isn't a David Lynch controlled French-financed little experimental film that nobody is going to see. Mark Frost is an accomplished writer of episodic television and was accomplished before Twin Peaks was ever a thing. To my knowledge he was involved in the writing process from the get go. Showtime probably spent in the area of 50 million dollars on this production, they aren't interested in the labyrinthine obtuseness of something like Inland Empire or the immaculate Mulholland Dr. I think we all know, in general, what the show is going to be, so the predictions of mind warping changes just don't really makes sense to me. To each his own I guess.

Agreed. Twin Peaks was sweet and funny as well as dark and sinister. Mark Frost is involved in this, so I suspect he'd have something to say about turning it into a nasty nihilistic nightmare series, devoid of hope. He wasn't involved with FWWM and, I'm afraid, it showed.

It sure did. I'm as big a Lynch fan as anyone, but I think Frost gets short shrift sometimes when it comes to how magical that world was.

[secretlettermkr]

if INLAND EMPIRE means "nasty nihilistic nightmare series, devoid of hope" to you... you really need to watch it again...., beacause is FAR from that

[Agent Sam Stanley]

I like the opening of True Detective and don't think the song is hillbilly at all. Captured the feel of those Louisiana landscapes quite nicely.

TD is easily one of the best things of modern television, but I never really liked the opening. The song they used and the style felt too much like True Blood.

[djerdap]

if INLAND EMPIRE means "nasty nihilistic nightmare series, devoid of hope" to you... you really need to watch it again...., beacause is FAR from that

Mulholland Dr. was sweet, funny, dark and sinister as well. It's not like Lynch needs Mark Frost to have all those things in the equation. That being said, Mark Frost is absolutely essential to Twin Peaks and I'm pretty sure his contributions will be very much in the forefront. Hell, he instigated this whole return anyway!

[mtwentz]

My bet is we're going to have both 1. a real actual plot and 2. Weirdness and surrealism the likes of which we can only imagine.

[saygoodbyetojack]

My bet is we're going to have both 1. a real actual plot and 2. Weirdness and surrealism the likes of which we can only imagine.

Hear hear

[Mr. Reindeer]

A sentence struck me in my reread of MLMT today. For me, the biggest question of the new season is how Bob's possession of Dale will manifest (I expect it to be very different from the Leland possession, and very much related to Dale's specific dark side). While I don't expect the tie-in books to have much direct bearing on the new season, they are a fascinating insight into the writers' mindset at the end of season 2, and MLMT in particular develops Dale's complex relationships with sex and (especially) violence.

The passage that particularly caught my eye is on page 132. During a hostage situation, Dale takes a life for the first time, and is wracked with guilt about it afterward. However, his description of the event is rather odd: "My written report states that he was ordered to freeze and drop his weapon. He did not." This very deliberate phrasing seems like Dale (probably unconsciously) admitting that he jumped the gun and shot the suspect without giving proper warning. It's a small thing, but it might subtley hint at a deeply-repressed proclivity toward violence that Dale tries to overcompensate for with his extremely compassionate nature (similar to the passage earlier in the book where Dale shoots a crow and then feels guilty and can't remember why he did it).

(Also, completely OT, but since it's being discussed -- I, my girlfriend and my sister all think the GoT intro is a terrific adrenaline rush, and also fun because it telegraphs which locations will be visited this week -- more or less. While it's certainly not as perfect as TP was in its day, very few openings get me as amped-up. To each his or her own.)

[Dead Dog]

My bet is we're going to have both 1. a real actual plot and 2. Weirdness and surrealism the likes of which we can only imagine.

Just like the original series??? Sign me up!

[Dead Dog]

if INLAND EMPIRE means "nasty nihilistic nightmare series, devoid of hope" to you... you really need to watch it again...., beacause is FAR from that

Expand on this please...

[Agent Earle]

A sentence struck me in my reread of MLMT today. For me, the biggest question of the new season is how Bob's possession of Dale will manifest (I expect it to be very different from the Leland possession, and very much related to Dale's specific dark side). While I don't expect the tie-in books to have much direct bearing on the new season, they are a fascinating insight into the writers' mindset at the end of season 2, and MLMT in particular develops Dale's complex relationships with sex and (especially) violence.

The passage that particularly caught my eye is on page 132. During a hostage situation, Dale takes a life for the first time, and is racked with guilt about it afterward. However, his description of the event is rather odd: "My written report states that he was ordered to freeze and drop his weapon. He did not." This very deliberate phrasing seems like Dale (probably unconsciously) admitting that he jumped the gun and shot the suspect without giving proper warning. It's a small thing, but it might subtley hint at a deeply-repressed proclivity toward violence that Dale tries to overcompensate for with his extremely compassionate nature (similar to the passage earlier in the book where Dale shoots a crow and then feels guilty and can't remember why he did it).

Hmmm, what an interesting find! I forgot about that, though MLMT is easily among my favorite pieces of tie-in materials, like, ever - but it's been ages since I read it, so it's not that surprising that it slipped my mind.
In light of your point: let's not forget how Cooper disposed of Jean Renault during the Dead Dog Farm hostage situation. I know the going there was tense and his very life was in danger, but still, one would think that as morally upstanding a lawman as he was (or at least as he was presented by the series for the most part) would try to only disable the guy by wounding him etc. He, on the other hand, very obviously shot to kill.

[N. Needleman]

A sentence struck me in my reread of MLMT today. For me, the biggest question of the new season is how Bob's possession of Dale will manifest (I expect it to be very different from the Leland possession, and very much related to Dale's specific dark side).

Well, again, according to Lynch BOB did not possess Dale; this is Cooper's doppleganger, his shadow self (which one would assume is still associated with a part of his own self), presumably in league with BOB.

The passage that particularly caught my eye is on page 132. During a hostage situation, Dale takes a life for the first time, and is wracked with guilt about it afterward. However, his description of the event is rather odd: "My written report states that he was ordered to freeze and drop his weapon. He did not." This very deliberate phrasing seems like Dale (probably unconsciously) admitting that he jumped the gun and shot the suspect without giving proper warning. It's a small thing, but it might subtley hint at a deeply-repressed proclivity toward violence that Dale tries to overcompensate for with his extremely compassionate nature (similar to the passage earlier in the book where Dale shoots a crow and then feels guilty and can't remember why he did it).

I read it a bit differently. I did think that yes, Cooper freaked out and shot the suspect possibly without waiting for him to drop the gun, which is a typical coming of age anecdote for men and women in law enforcement that might as well play out in an episode of Mark Frost's alma mater Hill Street Blues. But I didn't believe it tipped to a deep yen for violence and darkness within Cooper. It happens and it is a growing and learning experience which helps shape Dale into the man that he becomes, along with many other stories in that book - cautious, methodical, learning slowly how to stare into the abyss on his own terms and with his own tools. And yet, in the final stretch of episodes we learn he is, like all humans, still imperfect - though how Frost and co.'s take on that differed from Lynch's at the time is an open question, and one which even Season 3, made years later, may never resolve.

I may (or may not) differ with Lynch's original vision of the character as I don't think Cooper is a perfect ideal, the Eagle Scout, etc; I thought the backstory and shadings Frost and the other writers, the book, etc. offer were fascinating. But I also don't think they added up to a much darker underbelly to the character based in violence or sex - I think they merely illustrated that Dale, like the people of Twin Peaks, had his own profound demons to grapple with, as well as showed how he became who he was. I am curious to see if shadings of the Coop in the pilot, who's a bit edgier in addition to his soft side, a bit more quick to make a colder joke to rile someone, may return in Season 3.

(Also, completely OT, but since it's being discussed -- I, my girlfriend and my sister all think the GoT intro is a terrific adrenaline rush, and also fun because it telegraphs which locations will be visited this week -- more or less. While it's certainly not as perfect as TP was in its day, very few openings get me as amped-up. To each his or her own.)

The GOT opening also had a hidden meaning, beyond setting the scene - at the end of Season 6, it was revealed to actually be the view from the giant astrolabe in the Maesters' Citadel when Sam Tarly arrived there.