Those words, uttered by a witness who found the lifeless body of teenager Laura Palmer, helped Twin Peaks become an instant hit.
Back in ancient times, before the advent of DVD season-collection boxed sets, I would tape every episode of Twin Peaks on my VCR. And I would watch this show over and over again, looking for clues in the story of the murder of Laura Palmer, and the dreamlike, surreal world of a Northwest Pacific lumber town and its inhabitants.
It was an odd, rainy, misty world. And every time one mystery was solved, five more mysteries arrived unanswered. FBI agent Dale Cooper arrives to investigate the Laura Palmer murder, and he works with Sheriff Harry Truman (yes, that’s also the name of the first person killed in the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption). Through a combination of forensic science, dreamscapes and various tropes, the show progressed through a powerful first season.
How popular was Twin Peaks at the time? There were viewing parties on Sunday night. People quoted lines from the show about a damn fine cup of coffee, people visited Snoqualmie Falls in Washington State, where the first few episodes of the show were filmed. You could purchase Twin Peaks trading cards, you could buy tie-in novels like The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer – no, that didn’t give any clues to solving her murder, either.
And the show pushed plenty of boundaries. How this scene got past the censors, I’ll never know. But to set the scene up, teen girl Audrey Horne gets a job at a house of ill repute called One-Eyed Jack’s. And in order to convince the madam to hire her… well… I’ll never look at a maraschino cherry the same way ever again.
Eventually, the mystery was solved – Laura Palmer was murdered by [SPOILER ALERT], and then the show continued on a second arc, about a demon named Killer BOB that possessed victims to do his bidding. Or something like that. Because after two seasons and about 30 episodes, Twin Peaks was cancelled.
Aside from a prequel motion picture, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the show left these dangling plotlines behind. And no letter-writing campaign could save the show.
But maybe the show wasn’t cancelled after all. Here’s a clip from a famous scene in the show’s second episode, the surrealistic lodge scene where an aged Dale Cooper meets a dancing dwarf and a sultry Laura Palmer.
Now take a look at this short clip. And listen to her words.
Hmm… 25 years… the show went off the air in 1991 … so that means that in 2016 …
Hokey smokes, Twin Peaks is coming back!!
According to Deadline, Showtime will air the original episodes of Twin Peaks, then in 2016 will broadcast a nine-episode limited run series, with all nine episodes being directed by series creator David Lynch. The new season will take place 25 years after the events of the final episode in 1991, and hopefully many of the original characters will return to reprise their roles.
Wow. Okay… Now I gotta go find my old videotapes and plug in that old VCR unit…
Gotta catch up, you know… maybe there are other clues in the original series to mysteries that will be answered in the future.
Chuck The Writer 