Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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Audrey Horne
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

Post by Audrey Horne »

Hell, I was so excited for Season Two. To me, it’s not about the real Twin Peaks starting then. Naturally in any story the more and more exciting events should be happening as we go along. Like a car chase scene in a middle of a movie, and naturally it should be more thrilling than the setup… if the setup has done its job. The first season did its job expertly. The pacing, the writing, the directing, every aspect from a craftsmanship is just tighter. Leslie Linka Glater’s season two, episode six to me is the tightest for going back to a regular Non-directed Lynch Peaks episode should be. Everything is crackling in that one. I also think you need episodes like that next to Lynch’s to give the show room to breathe- one of my biggest problems with The Return. I love the second season premiere’s opening… those Cooper and Audrey scenes are excellent… but that middle section.
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Jonah
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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Oh yeah, the middle section is pretty bad, and the last six episodes are only mostly so-so apart from 29. When I say Season 2, I mean more the first long half so 8 - 14 or even 8 - 16 plus 29. There's a lot of good stuff in 23 - 28 and even some in 17 - 22, but there's a lot more crap too. Still, as a whole, I prefer S2 vastly to S1.

Edit - At this point, I brought up The Return/Season 3 and the topic went in that direction! It's now been split. You can find that thread, now titled 2021 Thoughts on Season 3, here: http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=4309

And we can continue keeping this thread about ABC's treatment and handling of the original series back in 1990-1991.

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Here's an interesting post from AudreyHorne that seemed to have gotten lost in the merge to the new thread. It definitely fits this one too:
Audrey Horne wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 10:51 am This goes back to what I was saying before, even if the show was tight it was going to be an uphill battle.

The two things the press was talking about was The Who killed the dead blond girl in plastic, and the FBI guy and the saddle shoe vixen, and how weird talking logs and little men in red were.

But even then when the whodunit was closing in and Cooper was zeroing in on captive damsel in distress Audrey, the ratings were still diminishing. Granted it was on Saturday night at 10:00 (!!!) but with those being the show’s two biggest hooks and couldn’t get the Neilson numbers, it was always going to be an uphill battle.

And even with the nixing of it, it’s not like we knew it at the time… it really came in potentially as an upheaval when JJW came in, and then the series was pulled for another two months. And then those last six episodes (well four of them) aired when the majority wasn’t watching.. so for all they knew the things we’re speculating were happening, they just weren’t watching.

The show would’ve needed an overhaul almost immediately into the second season to keep general viewers. Probably The Avengers route (which I know all the creators loved) … do the Cooper/Audrey characters as a John Steed/Mrs. Peel blueprint… “detective extraordinaire and talented amateur” as a backbone for conventional TV. It was probably its only shot… but you’d have a lot of angry actors.
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And one of mine that also got moved over but is more relevant here. (Though it's not anything I haven't already said a million times on this thread and maybe others.)
Jonah wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 8:05 am I wonder if Twin Peaks led to Northern Exposure getting picked up? China Beach was also doing some pretty quirky, ground-breaking stuff, so I understand why Twin Peaks sort of fit on ABC - I just think they should have given it another year.

Regular readers of this thread, feel free to ignore the next paragraph as I've said it all many times before - Backlash dies down, ratings pick up, and even if they don't they could cancel it then. I know it was a business/money decision but I stand by that. Back in the day, Cheers was not a hit, it spent it's first year at the very bottom of the list, but it was nurtured, its ratings improved in Seasons 2 and 3, and then became a huge smash that kept getting bigger, it even survived one of its leads packing it in and being replaced. I know Twin Peaks had probably peaked (!) but you never know, ratings and the public imagination ebbs and flows, the right storyline at the right time in the right series of episode, and it might have yet picked up again and had its second wave and been a big hit again. If it had gotten lucky enough in its next season to recapture the public's imagination - shows are sometimes forgiven for their stumbles, and often can become successful again in later seasons, it's not unheard of. I'll never stop banging that drum, wishing for what might have been! (But I've got real life stuff to attend to right now so I'll be back on later.)
I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.
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Jonah
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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So I'm rewatching Northern Exposure (http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=4337) and I noticed Season 1 is 8 episodes and Season 2 is only 7 episodes. Not only that but there was almost 8 months between the end of Season 1 and the beginning of Season 2, almost a year in TV terms, with S1 airing in 1990 and S2 in 1991. Not just a summer break. The show would eventually move to summer breaks between seasons (starting in 91) and larger episode counts, starting with Season 3, where it was 20-something episodes for the next four seasons until it ended after a total of 6, but it got me thinking - Twin Peaks really should have been similar.

The first season of TP had a similar episode count - 8 episodes (Pilot and 7 episodes, 9 hours if you count the Pilot being a two-parter). And the first 8 or so episodes of Season 2 are generally considered to be of great quality before the mid-season dip. Now, maybe ABC would have still insisted the killer be revealed, but whether or not that was the case, I think a 8-episode or so second season (similar to the first) would have done the show a favour and allowed them to prepare for longer seasons after that. Even if the network still insisted on them revealing the killer, it could have been the finale of Season 2 with time to come up with new hooks for S3 and beyond.

Also, was CBS was ever interested in the show or could have taken it over after ABC cancelled it? We've mentioned Bravo being a possibility before but what about one of the other big mainstream networks or would they all have been too gun shy to take on something so quirky and dark? CBS kept Northern Exposure on the air for an impressive six seasons. Now, granted, it is much lighter than TP - BUT it is VERY quirky and existential and at times dark, the show even has a direct nod to TP in its first season (to the waterfall, mentions of coffee and cherry pie and the Log Lady all in one sequence) so maybe CBS would have made room for TP too.

I wonder if TP would have ultimately ended up being lighter had it gone on? Not only did ABC seem uncomfortable with the darker themes, but the writers themselves seemed to dovetail into much lighter fare very quickly after the Laura Palmer storyline ended, which seems like an odd choice in some respects. The show always had lighter, goofy and quirky subplots (even The Return has them) but I wonder if these would have started taking over had the show continued with occasional mysteries and darker arcs taking centre stage until they were each resolved. Not sure I would have liked to see that approach (I love how it started to go back to its darker roots towards the end of Season 2 and Lynch REALLY took it back into dark and scary territory for Episode 29) but just something else that occurred to me.

Anyway, what do you think - would a shorter Season 2 have been better and given them more time to prepare for Season 3 and allowed the show to flourish longer? Would CBS or another network have made a better home than ABC or were all US networks at that time likely to end up stifling the show to some extent and/or would Bravo have given it more free reign had they had the budget?
I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.
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