... is perhaps Episode number 10?

Many of us will probably agree that Season 1 maintains a very high level from a to z. I am not the one to say that after Season 1 Twin Peaks had never been as good again but as for keeping the level I do find all seven episodes flawless.

Then come the two Lynch-directed episodes and even if Ep.9 isn't exactly among my favourites it still doesn't go down, either.

What about the tenth then, why would I find it not only to be slightly worse than any before but also indicating that here and there something wrong is going on with the series? I mean, one could easily argue that it is a very good episode taking a fair number of really class scenes and also, important plot lines. I appreciate very much the Harold Smith scenes with their dense atmosphere and the feeling that once again we touch the mystery of Laura’s very private life (haven’t had that for a couple of episodes). I see a couple of Albert classics, most of all the priceless “any relation with the dwarf?” remark as well as his unforgettable Gandhi and King tirade. Powerful stuff is shown with Gerard in the police station toilet and Leland’s news of the match-throwing man at Pearl Lakes is highly disturbing. A lot of really good moments and the cliffhanger tops it very well, too. What then?

This episode lacks what I would call flow. It jumps from scene to scene quickly and rather chaotically. The drama is not well built and it is not structured in a way that makes one scene fluently evolve into the next one, either as far as mood or the logic of drama is concerned or at least visually. You know what I mean? Sometimes there are movies where scenes follow one another in a very natural way; as a viewer you feel that it is right that this image follows the previous one. They flow. It happens so with music, too – when a moment before a song ends you already hear how the next one starts because it just fits so perfectly. I have not counted but it seems to me that in Episode 10 there are more scenes than in any of the previous episodes, thus they are shorter and it doesn’t really allow the viewer to get involved. It’s that unpleasant feeling that the moment I sink into the mood, there is a cut and I have to see what somebody else is doing. That’s the main problem I see.

Another one is that for the first time (is that right?) Twin Peaks shows a tendency to include sitcom scenes. The European way scene at RR is funny alright but it’s actually kind of empty, too. The Ed singing to Nadine hospital scene has a typical sitcom touch, which I do not appreciate at all. We haven’t had that before but we know it is coming more and more in the later episodes. Teen-Nadine and a certain Dick are new subplots starting in Episode 10 and that is bothering.

As well as showing off a hint of sitcom, the Donna-James subplot seems to be more melodramatic than ever but that removes the focus from real mystery to a rather tabloid curiousness about whether they kiss or not. I definitely do not like the graveyard scene, either, it is meant to be a very important one but the emotions don’t reach me at all, I find it way overtalked and it seems to me a serious waste of time as it doesn’t say anything we did not know before.

Having said all that, I will repeat that it is not a bad episode – just hinting some unfortunate directions in which the series will go later. I do remember that Ep.11 was worse and I used to find it the worst up to the Laura Palmer finale in Ep.16. I will see next Friday night I suppose ;)

Bobi 1 Kenobi

B. Beware
O. Of
B. BOB 

See, I'm really not sure. After the powerhouses of the pilot and Episode 2 (especially the dream sequence), the rest of the season sort of... simmers. It's not BAD, but it's also not Twin Peaks at its finest. It feels like it's Twin Peaks at its safest. Yes, there's no actual downturn in quality, like the Evelyn subplot and things like that, but there's also no real spark. It's very much a slightly quirky, slightly eccentric but fairly straightforward murder mystery/soap opera, and it's not til Lynch returns to direct again (the S2 opener) that we get the sense that the series is far wider than "Who killed a high schooler in an odd town?"

So yeah, while the lows aren't as low, I don't think the highs of S1 (post-1.2) are as high as S2. The first 15-20 minutes of 2.1, Maddy's murder in 2.7, Leland's death in 2.9, the Black Lodge stuff of 2.22, etc. It's why I'm always slightly, "...Huh?" whenever I hear Lynch's off-made complaint that Laura Palmer's murder should have never been solved. Let's face it, if after a 22 episode second season, her murder was not explained, the show would've been canceled anyways. And if it comes down to a world where the show had 22 episodes of a second year that stayed at S1 quality level and didn't resolve the murder, and then got canceled, and the one where it was explained early and we got the colossal Lonely Souls and the absolutely incredible FWWM, that (among other things) explores incest, which (along with the Pilot) are the most emotionally powerful material in the TP world, I'll live in this one.

Bah, sometimes I agree totally with you and sometimes I absolutely don't ;-)

First of all I, too, have always been very surprised to hear Lynch complaining about how they made him solve the mystery of Laura. The top moments of Eps. 14 and 16 are perhaps the best of anything that happened in the series so I cannot accept any complaints even from the ones who made them!

Thus I also agree that the tops of Season 2 are higher than those of Season 1.

But apart from that I wholeheartedly disagree about what you wrote about Season 1. My opinion is - and the older I am and the more times I have watched Twin Peaks this impression grows stronger - that Season 1 is in its whole totally magical and like I called it: flawless. Well of course there are a couple of worse scenes but none of the episodes is worse than VERY GOOD.

And Episodes 10 and 11 that I referred to in the previous post are only fairly good I would call it.

Oh, let me make a short star-giving to illustrate how I see these rises and falls of level
(basically 1 to 5 stars, with a 6th star possible in extreme cases, oh and ZERO, too!):

Pilot *****
Ep 1 ****-
Ep 2 ****
Ep 3 ****
Ep 4 **** 1/2
Ep 5 **** 1/2
Ep 6 *****
Ep 7 ****** (six)

Ep 8 ****** (six)
Ep 9 ***1/2
Ep 10 ***

(here I am with my most fresh viewings)

Ep 11 **1/2
Ep 12 ****
Ep 13 ****
Ep 14 *****! (the last 15 minutes could have 7 stars as well but the rest of the episode isn't as good)
Ep 15 **** 1/2
Ep 16 ****** (six)

Ep 17 **
Ep 18 **
Ep 19 ** 1/2
Ep 20 ***
Ep 21 ****
Ep 22 **** 1/2
Ep 23 **** 1/2
Ep 24 ***
Ep 25 *** 1/2
Ep 26 ****
Ep 27 **** 1/2
Ep 28 *** 1/2

Ep 29 ****** (six)

Bobi 1 Kenobi

B. Beware
O. Of
B. BOB 

sorry Bob, I read your initial thought like a week ago and was going to comment. 

I remember thinking the same thing back in the fall of 1990 when the third episode aired.  There are wonderful moments, but I thought something is changing.  And it's got to be the introduction of Dick into the series.  To me it was the beginning of the ushering in the new expanse of characters in an already perfectly cast series.  And then I thought the next episode was going in the same vein.  In the series as a whole, I overlook it  and think of the series as perfect until the discovery of Maddy's body.

I'm not a fan of the Leland death episode though.  I still hate, hate, hate the Roadhouse scene.  Following the clues and mystery and Cooper's brilliance to it all come down to a flash of remembering Laura whispering, "My father killed me" irked me to no end.  And the computer owl at the end made me so mad. 

I hate to let in any criticisms of peaks into my head in case they cause me to hate the show, but: yeah, at the risk of sounding like a cliched parrot, i do believe the Lynch directed episodes are the best, unquestionably (but the best non-lynch is probably Ep 1, congrats mr dunham!!), with Ep 8 being probably my overall favourite.

I agree that I'm not hugely fond of Leland's death, nor the roadhouse scene, nor the awkward forcing of logic into symbolism outside the cells (Cooper explainging literally what his dream meant..ugh). However, on a side note, the high of that episode was the creepy scene with Leland dancing with Donna, it redeemed it hehe!

oh come on! I don't really think there is ANY such risk! On the other hand criticism does well for us, we usually only praise, why not try to look from another perspective :-)

Having thought about it for a while now, I really think that it is the new characters that make that disturbing shift around Ep.10. Dick of course, but also the "new Nadine" and also, Jean Renault. Jean is theoretically a well created character, he's got his style, he's well acted. But there is something wrong with him... I don't know, perhaps all those plotlines are kind of lame. Starting with his obsession of "I must kill the man who is responsible for my brothers' death", which I don't really buy, and then all the drugs business, somehow it doesn't fit the whole world of Twin Peaks for me. And what I dislike the most is that in Eps. 17-19 the plot of setting Cooper up and Jean's revenge becomes the MAIN plot and how poorly it replaces the Laura Palmer mystery!

I also paid attention to this lack of good pacing in Ep.10, I mean that it changes scenes too quickly, doesn't let the mood to be built, even in the best scenes. And I find it strange that such an episode came from Lesli Linka Glatter. Her Ep.5 was so stylish that some even consider it overdone. The bird flying over Twin Peaks Theme, the shot of four faces together, the music in the woods... Personally I love it but I can understand that for someone it is in a way "overdirected". (And her Episode 23, too!).

But now Ep.10 is quite clearly "underdirected" - it seems as if no one was controlling it, they shot a few dozens of scenes, some of them very good, but then played them together without much concept and the result is much worse than could have been. Strange.

PS. I disagree with you about Ep.16, which is perhaps my favourite even over the Lynch-directed ones, but I don't want to get into that now, I do not think it drops any level at all ;-)

Bobi 1 Kenobi

B. Beware
O. Of
B. BOB 

Is anyone else familar with these episode titles?  I know they were never shown on screen, but I am presuming they must have appeared on the original teleplays, otherwise I'm at a loss as to where they may have come from?

Season One:

Pilot
Ep1 - Traces to Nowhere
Ep2 - Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer
Ep3 - Ret in Pain
Ep4 - The One-Armed Man
Ep5 - Cooper's Dream
Ep6 - Realization Time
Ep7 - The Last Evening

Season Two:

Ep1 - May the Giant Be With You
Ep2 - Coma
Ep3 - The Man Behind the Glass
Ep4 - Laura's Secret Diary
Ep5 - The Orchid's Curse
Ep6 - Demons
Ep7 - Lonely Souls
Ep8 - Drive With a Dead Girl
Ep9 - Arbitrary Law
Ep10 - Dispute Between Brothers
Ep11 - Masked Nall
Ep12 - The Black Widow
Ep13 - Checkmate
Ep14 - Double Play
Ep15 - Slaves and Masters
Ep16 - The Condemned Woman
Ep17 - Wounds and Scars
Ep18 - On The Wings of Love
Ep19 - Variations on Relations
Ep20 - The Path to the Black Lodge
Ep21 - Miss Twin Peaks
Ep22 - Beyond Life and Death

Online-Inquirer

Online-Inquirer

Dispute between two brothers - that's Ep.17, so the funeral party and the two brothers and... yeah, absolutely agreed about the "B-material".

And of course I rather agree that up to then it's pretty solid but also I do find what AndyDeputy has written above: that after Ep.8 it gets kind of boring. Not really boring, not bad, but ... a little boring still.

And that goes especially for Eps 10 and 11, because Episode 12, which I just rewatched last night, with the Secret Diary plot and Coop's raid on One-Eyed Jack's is much better again. Keeps the pace and does not wander without focus in all directions at the same time. Harold and the Diary + Cooper and Jack's make the whole episode and the rest are just small details (rather nice... I'm a whole damn town!).

Bobi 1 Kenobi

B. Beware
O. Of
B. BOB 

 They are translations of the episode titles that were used when TP aired in Germany.

Eh? I never posted anything like that.

Of course it is six stars!

Bobi 1 Kenobi

B. Beware
O. Of
B. BOB 

I think that had it been made later, such as an HBO show, many of the issues we have wouldn't have been present. Many of the things I grew to hate ("new" Nadine, Dick, James's adventure, etc.) were due to being forced into a network pattern. A pattern, I might add, I still see too often to this day. 

I could be wrong though.

Hi, I´m a german Twin Peaks fan and I´m new to this forum. I saw no sub-forum for introduction so I just start here. For the last weeks I read my way through  the forum and I love the interesting topics you brought up.I also want to share some thoughts on this topic.

I watched Twin Peaks about five times now and while I love the Pilot and the other episodes of season 1 it´s more like a expose for me. The really interesting stuff for me happens in Ep 2, Ep 8-9, Ep 13-16 and Ep 27-29. The other episodes in season 1 are good and set up everything perfectly in terms of characters, plotlines and stuff but it lacks the mystery that I love the most of the show. There are some sparks whenever the log lady shows up and when Coop and his gang make a walk through the forest in EP 5 but besides that it isn´t that interesting to me like in the episodes I mentioned.

I thought about this topic and while I appreciate that Lynch und Frost wouldn´t want to reveal the killer i don´t think it would work for more seasons of TP. EP 8-9 are both directed by Lynch and that´s what makes them interesting. The following episodes 10-12 are good but for me they feel a lot more like the episodes after the LP case was solved. They are entertaining, funny and have some greats scenes like Lelands confession, all Harold Smith scenes and the Tremonds, but they also make B-storylines like Lucys pregnancy and Nadines superstrength more important. While I find Ian Buchanans performance entertaining throughout the whole series I think he wasn´t needed for the show.

Well, Ep 13 is whole other thing because it leads to this terrific finale scene: "The Great Northern Hotel". The whole Scene where Mike and Cooper talk with each other and recite the poem is just great. I remember watching the series for the first time without any spoilers before and was just blown away by this episode. It was late at night and I had to go to school the next day but i ended up watching Ep 14-16 also. Needless to say I couldn´t sleep after it.

But i wonder how Lynch and Frost would have handled it if they knew from the start of season 2 that this would be the last season of Twin Peaks and if the network didn´t force them to reaveal the killer. If they had to choose not to reveal the killer and just leaving us with a lot of clues that wouldn´t be better I guess. We wouldn´t have Ep 14, one of the best things that aired on television. But it would be better to drag out the search after the killer of Maddy til near the end of the series while setting up the BL/WL stuff so Lynch could blow are mind in Ep 29.

I like the episodes from 23-28 but the Windom Earle arc is just not enough to maintain the darkness that was always there before the murder was solved. While I like Kenneth Welshs performance and the crazy things he does, he´s no BOB. BOB is one of the most terrifying characters I have ever seen and of course every other villain is pale in comparison. Besides Ep 29 no episodes reaches the madness of Ep 14. There´s a lot of set-up BL/WL, Project Blue Book, Windom Earles games but there are no "event" episodes anymore. It seems like after Lynchs departure (and Frosts for a while, right?) no other director or writer would come up with some mind-blowing stuff. They all play it safe. It´s entertaining for the most time but very often also redundant. It´s not like anything moves forward at all. Til Ep 16 Twin Peaks was like this arthouse-horror-drama-show and after it it´s mostly comedy-dailysoap-boringness. It picks up at episode 23 because at least theres´s some direction it´s heading. If they could only erase the Evelyn Marsh, Little Nicky, Lana Milford-plots forever the Ep 17-22 were just half as annoying as they are.

Wow, sorry I ended up writing more than I wanted but it´s great to have a forum here to write about that stuff. In Germany we have only one "big" Twin Peaks forum and there are just a few entrys every few months. 

welcome aboard, I love twin peaks and its world (wow, that's a mouthful for a username)

I have Peaks on the brain again since I'm gearing up for the Fest next month.  It's been fun reading your posts as well as Bob1's.

It's a tough situation since Peaks was the pioneer in this type of storytelling.  Long before Mad Men or The Sopranos had the luxury of doing shorter controlled seasons at their leisure.  Sure there were countless night time soap operas already on the air -since Peaks was already sending that genre up.  But nothing surrounding a series on the single question of Who Killed Blank Blank.  it would have been quite a neat and admirable trick if the series continued on with that.  (can you also imagine the discussion still going on today if they never even answered the question -every character would still be a suspect!)

Frost maintains that they would have answered the question sooner rather than later, and Lynch imagined the opposite.  Regardless, if Laura's case wasn't solved, the show still needed the other plots to take over anyway -so things like the Black Lodge and Earle would still have to make it into the show -basically the intended hat trick is to keep viewer invested in the characters and new plots to almost forget about the initial murder -an excellent plot device to bring you into the show.

*I love Lesli Linker Glatter's direction.  (even when i see her name attached to Mad Men, True blood, sopranos etc I know it's going to be good) Ep. 13 is my favorite non-Lynch of the second season and I think the perfect tone for a "regular" episode -the type you would need consistantly for many weeks if the show continued (until lynch pops in an directs another "event/watershed" episode).

While BOB is excellent, i think the character has to be used sparingly- keeping us on edge to when he/she/it will appear -or else it losed its effectiveness.

As well as showing off a hint of sitcom, the Donna-James subplot seems to be more melodramatic than ever but that removes the focus from real mystery to a rather tabloid curiousness about whether they kiss or not. I totally agree. I felt that the sitcom-touch made the series into something else. I also hated the scenes including Lana Budding Milford.

I totally agree. I felt that the sitcom-touch made the series into something different. I remember when i started to watch the show it was one of the scariest shows I had ever seen. I also hated every scene including Lana Budding Milford. Just as much as Dick!

Thanks Audrey for the welcome!

Yeah, if only... imagine Twin Peaks on HBO with 12 episodes per season. Total freedom for Lynch and Frost. That would be great.

It´s interesting to speculate about what-if-scenarios. But honestly I don´t think that Twin Peaks would work for a lot of seasons if the LP-case would be just in the background. We don´t have to talk about ratings. They would have dropped really fast. But also it would be hard to keep up the high quality of the episodes. I mean we have the episodes 10-12 to prove that. While they are solid as I metioned before the also lack excitment and tension. I think that Twin Peaks is a show that would work best with 30-40 episodes as a whole. Reveal the killer in episode 28, have him caught in episode 32 besides that set-up the BL/WL stuff so that Coop could find his way to the BL in episode 34. Harry should contact Major Briggs to help him. Then find some way to get the good Dale out of the BL. And then...I don´t know.

I wonder how they would have ended the show if they were able to tell the whole story. I don´t believe Lynch and Frost would have answered all the question. I´m sure it would be an ambigous ending. I can´t see Cooper driving out of Twin Peaks, talking to Diane and looking after Douglas firs the last time. Also I can´t see Cooper buying a house and living in Twin Peaks with Annie. Hm, well...we´ll never know.

Yeah, Audrey I like Glatters episodes too. The only scene she screwed up was the Josie death scene in episode 23 were BOB is crawling over the bed. The lightning in this scene is very bad and BOB doesn´t scary me. And if BOB doesn´t scary me the director must have messed up. It looks almost comical.

I would like this scene more if we would see BOB in the dark behind the bed. He slowly comes out of the dark and his hands are already on the bed. Then we see through BOB´s point of view how terrified Coop is looking. BOB laughs and says: "Coop what happened to Josie?" and he crawls right in Coop direction. We see this all trough BOB´s eyes. He moves faster and faster and before he reaches Coop the scenary changes back to Harry holding Josie. I like the idea that BOB just messes with Coop to scary him. He´s eager for fun.

Besides that Ep 16 is also a episode which Lynch should have directed. I like this episode but it´s like the solution no one really wants to see. The script is too literal.  Like the original script of episode 29. If Lynch hadn´t directed this episode I would probably end my Twin Peaks re-run after ep 16.

While ep 16 has some fine moments I couldn´t help but wonder what it would look like if Lynch would´ve done it. I will talk about this episode next week more in detail. I´m tired.

OT:

perhaps dl would have liked it better if tp had aimed for establishing a 90% certainty in the viewer's head that leland must have played a MAJOR part in laura's fate. but like it is, when you're 90% sure: you reach that point, don't come any further and start from scratch again and again.

or perhaps he just meant, that the actual (A) capture of A leland and A locking him up in an A prison cell by A police & fbi was, though it was only a matter of a couple of minutes, destroying his vision of tp in an immense way. i'm very fond of the theory that the fbi in tp's universe is a spiritual fbi, like the court in kafka's "trial" is a spiritual court (or at least the core of the court) (or it is meant to be a spiritual court but it isn't). and if you recount the actual acts this spiritual fbi does in tp (and that are not taken back later), i guess you'll find none. the fbi doesn't do a thing in tp, besides capturing that leland. and if the creators of tp wanted in the first place, regarding the question of culpability and imputability (?), to create a state of suspended judgement, which would leave the viewer without any 100% sure orientation, then the actual capture of leland would have destroyed that. just 20 minutes, but they grow and grow and cast a dark veil of certainty on the rest of the show. the rest of the show gives no easy solution, there's always uncertainty and suspended judgement; but then there are those damned 20 minutes, but these minutes are something definite, something one can easily grasp and somehow, in the consciousness of the casual viewer, these 20 minutes overrule everything which has been build up by the rest of the show. (even with maddy's murder still in it ... one could have found other explanations of leland's behaviour (besides concealing his original crime.)) (well, i'm not so sure about that. just thinking a bit. i haven't got a clue what this maddy is doing there anyway. the need for a character that has access to the palmer's house and is in league with donna & james. the wish to have sheryl lee back in the cast. one laura that does get along, another one that doesn't, both look the same - the question: why? why just didn't she get along? and another possibility for james to just do nothing and have the next girl falling into him. bad luck that is, actually.) another thing i'm fond of is laura's death being a spiritual death. but you don't lock people who (more or less) caused spiritual death up in an actual jail. if there wasn't this scene in EP16, the question about the nature of laura's death would be more visible and less appear to be out of discussion.

so, what i wanted to say: perhaps lynch just complained about the police and the fbi solving that case and not about linking more or less obviously laura's death to leland.