Histeria wrote: ↑Sun Oct 17, 2021 10:17 am
AXX°N N. wrote: ↑Sun Oct 17, 2021 8:44 am
It almost feels like the 26th season of a show and we're tuning back in randomly.
!
I'm not so sure that's necessarily always a good thing, though.
missoulamt wrote: ↑Sun Oct 17, 2021 10:57 am
In response to "
The point is to show a very grim 'slice of life' in rural America." Whose point? Lynch's? Yours?
Capturing a grim slice of life in rural America was the key to the original show's success. Sarah's scenes in TR had the same quality.
While I suppose it was probably the point, I agree - I'd caution saying it's the actual point unless we're sure it is? Have Lynch and Frost said it is? Besides, surely the randos-in-the-roadhouse scenes accomplished that point enough. They were plentiful and difficult to watch. Did that have to spread so much into the main show's narrative and characters too? At a certain point, I felt like saying, I get it, I get it. It had all the subtlely of a sledgehammer.
But you know, I'm not sure the point of Twin Peaks was ever to portray a slice of life in rural America. Maybe here and there, in parts. But it was more of a heightened version of reality, exploring the lurking underbelly of corruption in a small town ala Blue Velvet, soap opera characters and storylines (some, like me, say it was a parody of soap operas; Lynch disagrees and say it was an actual soap opera) with very liberal doses of the supernatural that became stronger as it progressed.
In any event, I'm not sure Twin Peaks - both the original or The Return - is necessarily the ideal vessel for such slice of life stories, at least to such an extent. And I'm not sure they did it terribly well. As I said, for one thing it wasn't subtle and felt VERY heavy-handed, artificial and heightened. Should a good gritty slice-of-life feel that way in its construction or should it be more authentic and naturalistic and blend more seamlessly with realism? It didn't work for me, at least, especially as they continued to also explore the supernatural and other storylines. It just felt too much, out of place, and depressing - but not in a pointed way, as if it was trying to be depressing, if you get what I mean. That's not to say the world can't do that kind of stuff well - I thought the original series and FWWM delved into corruption in small towns, drug use, quite well. But The Return was much more hit and miss in that respect.
At times it really just felt to me Lynch and Frost either didn't know what to do with the characters, didn't have strong enough subplots worked out to support the main arc of the story, or just weren't interested in developing them. Which is fine - but I'd caution not to say it was the point when it may have just been one of those reasons. It just felt like artifice to me - slice-of-life in place of developing something deeper. Not all the time, but a lot of it.
They're welcome to do what they want of course and I welcome all sorts of different approaches to the story should it continue, but I continue to think Twin Peaks worked best when it was a soap opera (or parody of such) that ventured into nightmarish, supernatural realms. And I also think branching out to so many different locations was a mistake. I don't want the original series back - that's impossible at this stage - but I think the show's core strengths was its setting and its chosen genres at the time. Of course it can change and evolve like all great art can - and perhaps should - but I still think it was strongest when it was following its initial premise (perhaps not initial as in Pilot, which was if anything grittier and more realistic again than perhaps the original series or The Return, but the overall premise moving into Season 2, when the supernatural became more of a core feature of the show).
It's funny to think, though, if you look at the pilot - it may never have gone in a supernatural direction and could have remained a more "realistic" soap opera/soap parody with hard-boiled detective elements. And, yes, perhaps those slice-of-life vignettes might have arose naturally then too.