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"She's dead....wrapped in plastic"
Published: 4/6/2010 12:29 PM
Last Modified: 4/6/2010 12:29 PM

It was 20 years ago today that "Twin Peaks," the TV series created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, debuted on ABC.

I remember that evening well. I had high hopes for this show, based on what I had already seen by Lynch (I was one of the people who paid money to see his version of "Dune," complete with the four-page handout explaining all the back story, and had found "Blue Velvet" at once horrifying and compelling), and based on the teaser that feature a wide-eyed, grinning Kyle Maclachlan as FBI Agent Cooper saying -- as the lights behind him flickered omniously -- "Sheriff, we got a lot to talk about."

For the first couple of episodes, "Twin Peaks" was an exceptional mystery. Then Agent Cooper woke up from a dream and started throwing rocks at a target to get answers to his questions. So bang went the hope that this show would be a slightly less perverse "Blue Velvet" crossed with the ultimate eccentric detective.

But I kept watching, and surrendered to the decidedly surreal aura of the world Lynch and Frost had created, and watched "Twin Peaks" to its ambiguous end.

"Twin Peaks" is usually pointed to as the genesis for much of today's TV programs: stories that develop in eccentric ways and deal with subjects that can be dark and troubling; characters who belie their seemingly stereotypical facades; ways of using sound (especially music) and silence in the most atmospheric ways.

And yet, "Twin Peaks" remains unique. No series has so effectively blended the realistic and the surreal, tragedy and comedy, nightmare and daydream as this one. In "Twin Peaks," the weird and the mundane went together like a slice of cherry pie and a fine cup of coffee.

And Angelo Badalamenti's theme song still haunts my mind.




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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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