wxray wrote:After reading a bunch of posts here, I realize that those who read the Frost books have a different perspective and came in expecting even more.
That's not a criticism, just an observation. I didn't read any of his books.
This is very true for me. If nothing else, Frosts book set up of the history of the ring, and the representation of old facts, the two dossiers and hidden clues all pointed to some new mystery which smelt like the old world of Twin Peaks. I wonder if what we're seeing is much like the script Frost and Lynch penned. I can actually see Frost writing the cube/alien stuff as it fits with his interests, but it feels like this final work is far removed from what was scripted. Distant. Elements of a script can be gaged, floating aimlessly behind the surreal montage. But it's almost as if Lynch hated the script and is manipulating it, like he did in the final episode of Season 3. Altering it to fit the aesthetic he likes right now.
That was great in the season finale, but it's not working here. A series really needs a tight first few episodes to convey a sense of place, urgency and drama. I feel like he's totally dropped the ball.
As for aesthetics, what surprises me is how unoriginal this feels. Twin peaks always felt like a mish mash of different things, that was what made it so great. But this series almost feels like it's over confident, often it feels like it thinks it's breaking the mould when actually it feels like a rehash of a lot of 90's movies or more recent shows.
Obviously the slow pace and grey tone makes it feel like Fargo. We don't need a new Fargo though, We've already got one. A lot of the police scenes have a very banal cop drama feel, like Law and Order, and the gruesome murder aesthetic feels like a stale, non effective true detective or 'Seven' rip off.
I quite liked this Vulture article about the new series, even though it was a lot more positive than I was, it articulated a lot of the way I felt about the aesthetic and what the first four episodes really said to the audience;
http://www.vulture.com/2017/05/twin-pea ... eturn.html
I particularly liked these quotes;
"It’s often impossible to tell how seriously Lynch is taking this sort of stuff — if he’s deploying it mainly for shock effect (as seems to be the case with the prolonged hotel room murder in the show’s second hour, a sub–Stephen King bit of sadism) or if he’s sincerely working through his own demons, or someone else’s, in the only way he knows how. It’s also unclear which of the prolonged, sound-and-light driven set pieces in the premiere were meant to push the narrative in a certain direction or which were meant as daringly self-contained spectacles that exist mainly so that we can argue about what they meant and whether they were brilliant, indulgent or something else. (More likely the latter, and there are plenty more where they came from.)
Regardless, it became clear early in the first hour that this wasn’t going to be the sort of show you can half-watch while doing other things, nor was it the sort of show that rewards certified public accountant–style fanboy viewing, where you add up all the clues and then announce on Reddit that you’ve “figured it out.”"
"His colleagues can’t help being impressed, maybe awed, at the extremes to which he pushes the medium, but it’s less a case of Lynch’s peers clapping him on the back and saying “attaboy” than something more akin to them periodically dropping a gold statue into the maw of a volcano as tribute to a dark sorcerer whose powers and motives they can’t comprehend."
"I bet Stan Brakhage would have liked the new Twin Peaks. I also bet that the majority of people tuning into the new Twin Peaks don’t want the 2017 equivalent of a Stan Brakhage film for TV. The joke’s on them, or on me, or maybe it’s on Lynch; I don’t know. The owls are not what they seem."