Review: Twin Peaks (S3 E7/18), Tuesday 20th June, Sky Atlantic

Without doubt, Twin Peaks is the hardest show I’ve ever had to review in this site’s relatively short life. Not only is it dazzlingly brilliant in places, it’s also frustrating, strange and doesn’t follow any of the narrative conventions we’ve all come to know. If that wasn’t enough, this series has required extreme patience, as Good Coop slowly starts to find himself again. There were signs in part six that he was beginning to emerge from his Dougie Jones reverie, and there were more signs in part seven, too. 

Review: Twin Peaks (S3 E6/18), Tuesday 13th June, Sky Atlantic

Five weeks in and we were no closer to a resolution to the fate of Good Coop – Agent Dale Cooper – returned from The Black Lodge, and living back in the conscious world as Dougie Jones, still struggling to grasp basic social, movement and speech skills. To begin with, his predicament was high comedy, but as the minutes, hours, wore on I was left wondering – hoping, even – that it wouldn’t be too long until this strange duality would be resolved. The sooner we got Agent Dale Cooper back the better. There were signs in this sixth part that things were starting to turn around.

Review: Twin Peaks (S3 E5/18), Tuesday

I have to say that this fifth episode was my least favourite of the series so far. The previous four episodes had been a stupefying mix of nightmarish surrealism and high farce – Good Coop had battled to escape The Black Lodge, but when he emerged Lynch and Frost gave us something entirely unexpected: he returned to the conscious world, taking the over the body of loser and chancer Dougie Jones, who, we soon found out, was some sort of decoy made by Bob (maybe). Good Coop’s brain was struggling to process the stimuli of our modern world, and he shambled around it with childlike innocence and incredulity. It was almost as if Good Coop was acting out a response to the leaps in technology, habits and consumerist ephemera that litters our world. Twenty-seven years’ absence can do strange things to a person.

Review: Twin Peaks (S3 E3&4/18), Tuesday 30th May, Sky Atlantic

After last week’s incredible, dark, unpredictable start to the much-anticipated third series of Twin Peaks, there was no telling where things might go in episode three. Those first two episodes featured everything from two Dale Coopers – one in the conscious world reeking havoc and killing people, the other (the one we know and loved from the first two series) still imprisoned in the unconscious world of the Black Lodge – a brutal murder (or three), some mind-bending aural and visual thrills, visceral fear, and some familiar faces making a return. It had a bit of everything from the Lynch canon, and so, too, did these next two episodes. Just not in the way that anyone could have expected.

NB: Spoilers inside 

Review: Twin Peaks (S3 E1&2/18), Tuesday 23rd May, Sky Atlantic

It has been a long time since 1990 – 27 years, maths fans – and since those heady days, when Twin Peaks took over the world for a short while, we’ve had all kinds of dramas on television that have elevated the medium to new heights. Just think, we’ve had The Wire, The Sopranos, Sex And The City, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, True Detective, The Killing, The Bridge and the rise of Netflix and other streaming sites. All genre-defining – era-defining – dramas that have raised the bar. But at the start of it all was Twin Peaks. It struck a chord for so many people – me included – thanks to its beguiling alchemy of whodunit, police procedural, soap and a melodrama (unashamedly so), as well as Lynchian expeditions into other dimensions and the subconscious. There were memorable characters, cliffhangers, emotionally engaging moments, as well as terrifying scenes aplenty that are still branded onto my retinas. Despite its many influences, it became a post-modern masterpiece, something genuinely fresh and new. But 27 years is a long time, and even though I’ve been impossibly excited by its return there was a kernel of dread fomenting in my belly. How would it hold up after all these years and after so much good envelope-pushing drama? My only hope was that this new run of 18 parts, this return to the world of Twin Peaks, would not be engulfed by the new benchmark in quality we’ve seen develop over the past decade or so. I just wanted it to hold its own and be good. It was more than that.

NB: Spoilers inside

New Twin Peaks trailer is most revealing yet

Anyone who reads this site knows how excited I am for the return of Twin Peaks in just over a week’s time. Growing up it was one of the shows that changed my outlook on the world, and was the first TV series that I became gripped and obsessed with. Yes, my excitement is tempered by a little caution (I really hope it’s good), but the latest trailer -released yesterday – certainly stokes the fires. Have a look after the jumperoo.

Sky Atlantic releases two new Twin Peaks teasers

Up until now all the cryptic promotional material for the new, upcoming Twin Peaks has been from the US and its new network home, Showtime. But now Twin Peaks’ UK broadcaster, Sky Atlantic, is getting in on the act with its own promo campaign, a campaign that has seen two new teaser trailers released in the past day or so.