I have heard this so much it has become a cliche and I tune it out when I hear it now.

I was on the edge of my seat in season 1 when it was more grounded because everyone was a potential suspect and the scripts were tight and the show was downright fun.

It seems like the casual TP fan fell off right away in season 2 because of the more supernatural direction of the show.  I don't get that. I actually thought the supernatural elements made the show even more sinister, mysterious, and interesting.  Season 2 should only get flak for that little section of the season right after the LP murder was solved and right before the Windham Earle story ramped up.

But the season 2 premiere (cooper with the waiter, killer bob cliffhanger), the death of Maddy ep, and the season's final hour were in the top 5 of the series and have never been matched on television to this today for their groundbreaking originality.

I just have never understood why the "season 2 sucked" (kimmy robertson) cliche even exists.

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

Twin Peaks has this strike against it compared to most buzz shows: you pretty much have to watch it all.  Every television series has the occasional flat episode, or an added character who doesn't really work out, or dips in the writing quality, and it's okay because you don't really have to watch most of the bad parts more than once.  With Twin Peaks being as strictly sequential as it is, you're pretty much stuck watching them all; the best you can hope for is to ff through the parts you don't like.

I do believe season one is stronger, and pretty solid from start to finish.  But the second season is still some of my favorite television ever... 

What really yanks my chain is that cliché seems to be a popular and widespread opinion, even among those who didn't get the show to begin with, those who only saw a few episodes here and there.

You mention TP to someone, and their first response is "Yeah well the second season really went out of control, didn't it? I stopped watching it, it got too weird." That's because you weren't that into it anyway.

Like many here, I love nearly every moment of TP.  But many of us had the privilege to watch it for the first time on VHS or DVD at our own pace.  (Like JVS said, you can just ff...)

Imagine waiting a week between episodes- if you had the interest to stick with it through the schedule changes- and seeing the filler subplots that even die hard fans complain about.  There was no TiVo in 1990.  Season 1 was riveting, never a dull moment. Worth putting off real life and sitting through commercials for. 

I don't know if I'd have had the patience to ride the series out through Little Nicky, Lana, Evelyn and Nadine, or if Windom would have interested me as much as BOB while it was on the air. Some of Season 2 is downright embarrassing to watch.  Would I even want to spend the time/money to record them all on the ol' VCR? 

The average TV viewer is fickle and impatient, and Season 2 would've had to be as FLAWLESS to maintain Season 1's reputation, but it fell short.  So I, for one, can see why those who were let down the hardest are going to say it sucked.

 Did Kimmy Robertson say that?

My Mum and Dad were the same. They kept on saying "It went on for too long, in the end" which seems ridiculous to me as in fact, it's run was too short. If it was given a chance I'm sure it would have got some storylines back on track. How bad were the Season 2 ratings? Because it seems for a show so popular in its first season people must have hated it in the second. Do you think that if they cut out stupid storylines like Little Nicky and Nadine reverting to a child etc. then the show would have carried on? Or was it the supernatural element which for me was a part of the appeal.

i dont know about you guys, but in 1990 and 1991, twin peaks showings were family night for me(then 11, my sister (8-9) and parents. my dad would hook up the stereo for the novel surround sound capabilities and i remember just being mesmerized. its strange tho, because i have faint memories of the first season, and much more vivid memories of the second. i may have missed an episode or three, but i watched most of the show during its first run, so it all kinda runs together for me and i cant really put down season 2 because i never thought of the show in that way. it was all one. my sister, now 25, still gringes at the thought of BOB and she hasnt seen the show since! ahhh, good times...

We really need to distinguish among the people who stopped watching during what you might call the "Bob phase" (8-16) and who stopped just after that. That some frown at the thought of supernatural action doesn't explain that the series nearly comes to a complete standstill after the Bob storyline is resolved. The plotting alone is disastrous, and violates every rule in the soap opera manual. And not in a good way, "pushing the boundaries" blah blah, in episode 17 hardly anything happens, and several characters are pretty much left by the wayside. After watching episode 19, I don't blame anyone for not giving it another chance, and if I'd watched it in the original run I doubt I'd have made it through episode 22 after the horror that was 21.

I would disagree with people who says that 8-14 constitutes a downfall. But the view is understandable. In the first season there's one case of a vision and Bob appears in a dream, in episode 1 and 2. Bob is hardly even mentioned again for the rest of the season. People cared about the people of Twin Peaks, not the spirits. Episode 8 is really the most important one in the series from a storytelling point of view, because it takes so many left turns that it redefines pretty much all that came before it. So many, in fact, that I don't blame people for feeling alienated from their favourite show.

From Entertainment Weekly, October 27th, 1990:
>>>THE HIGH POINT of the new television season thus far was the moment during the Oct. 6 episode of Twin Peaks when, ever so briefly, there were no giants mumbling about owls, no tuxedoed boy-magicians making creamed corn disappear. It was the moment when James, Donna, and Madeleine sat on the floor and, with James strumming an acoustic guitar, sang a gently off-key, shiveringly beautiful tune. <<< 

I agree with them. 

And, btw, I think the supernatural aspects of Twin Peaks are way too tongue-in-cheek. Briggs' disappearance so important it makes the cold war seem like a case of the sniffles? Project Blue Book? Lodges? Being abducted by owls? Monks in silhouette? I mean, come on!

"What credit card do you want to put that on?"
"Caash, prease."

You also have to remember they changed times AND days on it like 3 times. 

That pretty much always hurts a show.  For a while, I THINK it was running on Saturday night against Saturday night Live.  Enough people complained, so they moved it back....but it was too late.  Maybe it was late Sunday night....hmmmm, not sure.....

As far as the season 2 content not being as good as season one....I agree...but I still think it was all pretty good except for a few moments.....it is just too much to take in for only 1 hour a week.  It works better watched 2 - 4 episodes at a time.

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

Twin Peaks is certainly fundamental, I think, in helping to create a shift in the patience levels of the TV viewing public who are now willing to watch Lost for six years or whatever without anything much substantive ever being revealed, or if it is, 10 new mysteries crop up to immediately obscure things again. It was a victim of the time in which it aired. It might have survived a little longer if a new, equally compelling mystery of some kind replaced the Laura Palmer mystery. I think the who shot Cooper storyline was a partial attempt to accomplish that, though this mystery never built up the same momentum.

I remember at the time many of my fellow viewers being exceedingly annoyed and exasperated at the long and confusing opening scene to Season 2 with Senor Droolcup and the Giant. The viewers were too mainstream to accept this much Lynchian weirdness.

The downfall of this series has and always will be the premature revelation of Laura's killer.

 That and the decision to have so many episodes in the second season. If they had ended the second season on the cliffhanger of Maddie Ferguson's death and Benjamin Horne's jailing that would have giving more than enough steam for Season 3 and would have kept the series alive for at least 5 seasons.