Television programmes [2]

halfwise wrote:The Orville.  sort of meh, but I came in halfway through the episode, maybe wasn't sufficiently brought in.  I was hoping it would be on the level of Galaxy Quest but was disappointed.

I saw the first 20-30 minutes of it with my dad while we were waiting for Sunday Night Football to start and I found it to be pretty dull. Good to know that the second half of the episode wasn't a major improvement.

I think if we hadn't already been treated to a superior comedy experience it might have felt fresher. But it didn't seem to know whether it wanted to be drama or comedy. Galaxy Quest was wise enough to make its villain so over the top he couldn't be taken too seriously, but with the Orville it was never clear if we were supposed to be worried or laughing.

{{{  Twin Peaks the Return Part Two- Some mysteries solved!

There are three key pieces of dialogue that I think are of huge help in narrowing down what Twin Peaks the Return is about and what the ending might mean.

The first is from the original TP but repeated again in the penultimate episode of the new series by Mike, the one-armed man-

"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see, one chance out between two worlds, fire walk with me"

The second is the opening scene of the Return in a Lodge location where the Giant/Fireman resides (very possibly this is the White Lodge) and speaks with Cooper-

Giant- Agent Cooper. Listen to the sounds.... (scratching/squeaking sound emerges from old fashioned gramaphone horn) It is in our house now.

Cooper- It is?

Giant- It all cannot be said aloud now. Remember 430. Richard and Linda. Two birds with one stone.

Cooper- I understand.

Giant- You are far away. (Cooper fades and flashes out and disappears)

The third scene of importance to unpacking this mystery comes from Gordon Cole himself in the penultimate episode in this revelation to Albert-

"Now listen to me. For 25 years, I've kept something from you, Albert. Before he disappeared, Major Briggs shared with me and Cooper his discovery of an entity, an extreme negative force called in olden times "Jowday." Over time, it's become "Judy." Major Briggs, Cooper, and I put together a plan that could lead us to Judy. And then something happened to Major Briggs, and something happened to Cooper. Phillip Jeffries, who doesn't really exist anymore, at least not in the normal sense, told me a long time ago he was onto this entity, and he disappeared.
Now, the last thing Cooper told me was "If I disappear like the others, do everything you can to find me. I'm trying to kill two birds with one stone".....And I don't know at all if this plan is unfolding properly 'cause we should have heard by now from our dear Dale Cooper.'


Ok so lets do some unpacking- the first quote from Mike, the one-armed man has some features we can now answer and some that are open to speculation still.
It refers first to a Magician who wishes to see future past- who is this magician? For me there are only four contenders- the lodge entities we see in action over the years- such as the Jumping man, the Arm, the old woman and young boy in the mask- Cole's Blue Rose team (the least likely candidate I think), Judy the ultimate evil entity who seems to want to spread her corruption into our world or the Woodsmen. I will come back to the Woodsmen later I am sure, but for now all I will say is that out of everyone we see, Lodge and our reality, they act most like magicians and seem to be the ones who perform rituals. They also seem to be in control to some degree or another of access between realities. But as they dont seem friendly, dont look friendly, and seem to be in control of access and activities 'above the convenience store' which is a gateway to the Lodges, or at least the Black Lodge, they may well be just be Judy's agents ultimately and not acting independently. This seems very likely to me as in at least one instance they appear to aid Judy in impregnating the young Sarah Palmer with her parasite and they twice try to aid Mr C.

The next crucial bit is the reference to a chance encounter between two worlds- we actually see the precise moment this happens in the Return in a flashback to the first nuclear bomb test, in the very heart of whose explosion Judy appears to spew forth Bob and her eggs into the world. In this sense the 'fire' of fire walk with me is a literal reference to the nuclear inferno that caused a chance encounter to occur in its heart. It also still retains it metaphorical meaning within the mythos of the black fire of Judy which is consuming and corrupting.
But what is really useful here is that it tells us this was a chance encounter between 'two' worlds, not many.
The world of the Lodges ect is quite possibly that other world, the different realities we see are accessible through that realities higher knowledge and presumably technology, so advanced it looks like magic to us watching (but we get hints its not, entirely anyway, the Dougie version of Cooper is 'created by someone' we are told, and we see later for its replacement it requires the golden seed from the destroyed original plus a fresh sample of Coopers hair suggesting DNA from the original is required, this hints towards some sort of technology or science at play).
I said the Lodge world was quite possibly the other world referred too, but its possible the other world is the reality Cooper ends up in and the Lodge entities exist as outsiders to both. This could be indicated by the fact that the Fireman seems to have a device which can place objects into our reality, hinting that he and his realm exist entirely outside of it and other worlds.
On the other hand the first encounter which happens between the 'two worlds' is the appearance of Judy in our world and the insertion of the evil essence of Bob inside a globe into our world.
This in turn is immediately countered by the Fireman who uses his device to send the golden globe containing the essence of Laura Palmer into our world as a  seeming counter measure, or at least direct response to this act by Judy. This could mean both the Fireman and Judy are from the same place, the other world.

Now the opening scene of the Return with Cooper and the Fireman poses a series of riddles.
So lets see what we can answer of them by the series end-

'Listen to the sounds.... It is in our house now.'

The first part we can at least somewhat answer- the sounds we hear, though never identified as anything specific do reoccur, crucially in the moment Cooper looses Laura in the woods  in the penultimate episode as she is taken off screaming, as happened to her in the first episode inside the Lodge.
The second crucial time is in the final episode when they are standing on the street outside what used to be the Palmer house right before Laura screams and all the electricity goes off.
It is tempting therefore to think the reference to the House is the Palmer House, and that it indicates that what is inside the house now is Judy. Why refer to it as 'their' house, ie the Fireman and Coopers? Possibly because its where there plan needs Judy to be in order for their plan to work.
The line about not being able to speak about it aloud I think just refers to Cooper having got live through the experiences leading up to that moment to have any hope of understanding yet its meaning.
Next up is -'Remember 430' This at least we do have a simple answer to- its the distance in miles out from the Twin Peaks sycamore portal to a set of massive electricity pylons whose shape resembles the outline of the 'Judy' symbol in the Twin Peaks owl cave and on Hawks map. This is the point where Cooper and Diane can cross the threshold between realities- not with the Lodge world but with other realities which are similar to our own or even near identical save in small details.
Then the Fireman says- 'Richard and Linda. Two birds with one stone.'
This is an interesting one- we can answer who Richard and Linda are- its the first names of Cooper and Diane in the alternate reality they enter in pursuit of Judy. The second part would imply from its placing that the two birds being referred to are Richard and Linda- but this seems unlikely indeed to me given everything we see. But especially because when Cole is recounting the plan with Cooper he says the last thing Cooper told him was -'I'm trying to kill two birds with one stone'. It seems hugely unlikely he is referring to himself and Diane here, and much more likely its a reference to Bob and Judy, and that too is what the Firemen is referring too therefore.
Now its possible this scene is out of place linearly in the plot- the manner in which Cooper visually vanishes from the Firemans location doesn't happen again except once. When we next see Cooper after the Fireman scene he is back in the seat in the Waiting Room of the Lodge, but he doesn't reappear in the same visual manner he disappeared in, he is just there. The only time anything close to that happens is in the penultimate episode when he appears in the past on the night of Laura's murder. So its possible this conversation takes place right before that, which would explain why Cooper is able to say at this point he 'understands' about Richard and Linda as they are about to enact the final part of the plan which will involve those names. It would also indicate that was plan B if the attempt to remove Laura from her time stream and reality failed.

Either way its clear that Cooper and the Fireman had a plan to kill two birds with one stone, and that Cooper understood his part in that plan.


Now onto the scene i think is the most revelatory of all- Cole's confession to Albert.
Key here is that we learn there is an actual plan, and that Cole, Cooper, Major Briggs and probably Jeffries were all on in, and the plan was to somehow get to Judy, and presumably get her and her influence, Bob, out of our reality.
Cole also says he doesn't know if the plan is working because he should of heard from Cooper by now (immediately following this conversation he does).
Coopers message to Cole ends with him pointing out that a series of numbers adds up to '10, the number of completion'- its seems clear therefore the message to Cole is that the plan is indeed still on going and the end game of it is now near. Cole immediately dispatches for Twin Peaks to witness it.
The other interesting, if not surprising thing, is that Major Briggs was part of this plan.
When Mr C (bad Cooper) finally gets to the coordinates and the portal he seeks he is trying to get taken to the Palmer house where Judy is now residing inside Laura Palmers mother. But crucially as he is moving between points he is intercepted and appears in the Fireman's place inside a cage opposite the big floaty head of major Briggs. The device the Fireman uses to put things into our world displays the Palmer house, but the Fireman with a wave of the hand changes the destination to the Sheriff station instead, and its there Mr C emerges to meet his prepared fate. The appearance of Briggs here indicates he is a participant in the plan and a necessary piece of it.
We can almost certainly add the Fireman to the people involved in the plan, if not its originator. The reason I say this is Freddie. He is a new character who only appears very late on and will be the one to destroy Bob, because its his fate and he has a super powered glove on his hand he can never take off, given to him in a dream by the Fireman along with a message to go to Twin Peaks.
Everyone needed to witness or defeat Bob is present at the appointed time at the Sheriffs office.
This it seems has been the plan all along to trap Bob.
But even once Bob is dealt with we still have the main player to deal with, Judy.
Which is where the controversial final episode comes into play, the finale of the plan is acted out, and we have to decide if it worked or failed, or possibly both! }}}}}

{{Watched the first 2 episodes of The Orville. I am really not sure what to make of it as I am not sure it knows what it wants to be.

I cant call it a parody of ST as it doesn't really parody the tropes of that show- in fact the St-esque setting is largely taken at face value and the humour, as such, derives mainly from people in that environment, not the environment itself.
I would be inclined therefore to call it a comedy/drama, but that would be to emphasize the comedy over much I feel- its amusing in places but not enough to warrant calling it an outright comedy.

Its desire to be ST seems the strongest thing about it, the setting, the fact it utilizes classic sci-fi story-lines and the humour coming out of the characters not the plots or setting kind of overrides everything else. If you took the jokes out it would just be a sci-fi ST style show with little to distinguish it from regular ST.
And that is kind of the problem- take the 2nd episode as a good example, the plot is a mix of classic sci-fi ideas- advanced alien species who kidnap 'lesser' species to exhibit in their zoo. With a subplot that the young green officer left in charge has to defy the typically ST like grumpy Admiral telling her she cant go rescue her kidnapped Captain and 1st Officer, and rises to the occasion over the course of the episode. That's the sci-fi ST bit.

And the biggest problem with that bit is because it leans on classic sci-fi ideas anyone with any grounding in watching sci-fi will have seen it all before. Alien zoos, come on, old hat by the 1950's! Even when parodying old ideas you still have to think of something new to do with them, and the sci-fi elements whilst played pretty straight are not handled in a new way- they play out as any sci-fi watcher will expect them to with nothing unique added bar a few jokes, which then tend to feel out of place.
The comedy in this episode comes in the form of say, someone mistaking a Kermit the frog puppet for an unknown species, dealing with multiple species breeding habits- as one officer has to go spend 21 days sitting on their egg. Interpersonal sitcom style relationship stuff between Captain and first officer. And added in your ST like morality points- a dig at zoos and reality TV.

Problem is, as so much is played straight its often hard to tell when its being funny and when its not- for example the critique of zoos- there's a bit where we are reminded of how zoos on earth treated animals cruelly just because humans felt they were superior, and how at the time humans never considered themselves cruel for doing so- its a typical, moral, preachy ST sort of speech- but am I meant to take it as that, at face value? Is it meant as a parody of those sort of ST moralizing speeches? Its not written like a parody, there are no musical or camera cues to indicate its meant to be parodying so I dont know, the context of the show makes it almost impossible to tell at such moments if we are supposed to be taking it seriously or not.
Its not that its bad as such, it is watchable, its leads have a certain easy charm to them, but its neither funny or satirical or parodying enough to be an outright comedy and what you are left with is a very typical sort of ST episode, with sitcom jokes added which doesn't really work, its neither one thing nor the other.
I feel it should either have been a much broader swipe at sci-fi tv in general, or ditched the comedy element altogether and been a proper sci-fi show (but then it would be even more exposed for the plots being so reliant on obvious sci-fi tropes).
As it stands its neither and sits somewhere rather awkwardly in-between the two. }}}}

very disappointed with Tin Star, with Tim Roth. all the characters are highly unpleasant and Tim Roth just stands around looking miffed, does nothing but stand around being a knob. not worth it.

Petty: Exactly.  In my opinion they should have aimed purely at comedy, with the sci-fi setting providing extra situational fuel for that.  But they either weren't willing to work hard enough at that, or decided after much thought that such an approach would not be sustainable.  If it's the second then it's sure proof that all creativity has been beaten out of the TV business.  I suspect with another year of development they could have pulled off a full comedy but were too rushed to do so, leaving us with the same old tired formulaic structure.

Given that Seth MacFarlane has talked about wanting to make an actual Star Trek show for years, I'm more inclined to think that he set out with the intention of making a more dramatic series and that it was just (misleadingly) marketed as a comedy since that's what MacFarlane is known for.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/seth-macfarlane-family-guy-star-trek-247364

The Orville is truly terrible. cringeworthy unfunny.

Waste of great potential. But I could say the same thing about my life, so perhaps I shouldn't complain too much.

Haha, Halfwise, that seems a bit harsh.

I have also been going through the new Twin Peaks season, and I am rather enjoying it at the moment. There are however also things I find mildly infurating about the whole thing.

(i) The glass clear images. It does perhaps go with the time, but Twin Peaks had this almost daytime tv (with exceptional writing) feel, that probably came off it being made in at a time when this feel was endemic. The glass clear images of the new one is so jarring to me. It, one, removes some of your distance to the story, in creating a realistic feel. And, two, it makes the show look like a lot of other crime shows around on tv these days, whether its your Hannibals or NCISs(ad naseum). Twin Peaks always had something special about it that elevated it above such shows, I felt. Therefore I guess the simmilarity is jarring.

(ii) The supernational nature of the show. One thing I liked about the old Twin Peaks was that although it hinted and sometimes even showed the impact of the supernational on reality, it was mostly done through the evil done by human beings. Now the show has gone full on supernatural, and I'm not sure I like it. There is something to be said about showing something too much, leaving it mundane rather than scary or interesting.

(iii) The gore. Yes there was gore in the original too, but it was more... realistic. This ties in with the supernatural quality I related above. I think there is simply too much of it when it is not needed or adds anything particullar to the story. It again makes the show feel a lot more like one of those modern day crime shows.

(iiii) Some of the casting choices. I never did mind Leach character much. And I think it works well as a centre for the show to spin around here. But.. the show does miss several strong central characters that helped define it as what it was. The fact that they did not manage to bring back the Sherrif Truman actor I think turned out to be a big mistake. He was in many ways the heart and soul of the show. To Cooper's brilliance and insight, Truman was the everyman relatable character. The new actor, who was originally meant to play the role, and character simply does not have the same charisma. Maybe worse is that he doesn't have the close relationships and chemistry with the actors ad charactes he interacts with to really pull his role off. However good an actor he is. It has gotten better than it was at the beggining, but I still feel somethng about it is missing. Additionally, the fact that Cooper does not really appear as himself in the show, at least as far in the show as I have gotten, means that the two main characters of the old show are effectively missing. Some other alterations and choices also seem odd.

(iiiii) Loosing the small town setting. The setting of the show in the smal town of Twin Peak gave the show the feeling of a real living breathing enviroment. You were shut in with these people in this small town. Ok, perhaps there were small exceptions, but that was mostly it. Now the show is all over the place, and I'm not sure if it does it any favours. It has certainly lost that tight nit closed in small town feel of the original.

(iiiiii) The cgi. It is a recuring issue on modern television. Give a writer/director/producer cgi and he will inevitably run wild with it and try to tell/show/do too much. I think it is a problem because writers no longer limit themselves in the same degree to focusing on telling a story well through the televisual medium. I think its a problem here too. Instead of solving things simply, complicated, big and impressive is always available so you go for that solution.


I think in general the show has tried to do a bit too much of everything. And in the process lost some of the things that made it special.

That said, I am enjoying it.

{{{{ I dont want to give any spoilers of any sort Blue, (hope you'll go back at the end and read my previous musings on the matter however and add your own) but I feel I can say that most of what is troubling you is a matter of how you approach the show, and you are not alone in your feelings at this time. Having gotten to the end (I will put this in spoilers as an extra precaution just in case, but I would not call it so myself, and had I considered it when I started watching much grief on my part would have been saved!)

Spoiler:

}}}

Ah, I should probably hold off on reading that until I'm done

{{{ Its really not a spoiler in my view, I was just being extra, extra cautious- put it this way- whats the full title of the show? Thats all you need to know really, that's what this series of it is about- and that cant be a spoiler! Its literally the title of the show. }}

Ah, yes, it does seem to head in that direction. I still have my contentions, but as you say it is perhaps better to think of it as its own thing

Getting towards the end of Twin Peaks: The Return

Spoiler:

Finished up Twin Peaks. And even after reading Petty's post, I am not entirely sure what I think..

Spoiler:

{{Been watching the new series of Red Dwarf and glad to report the boys from the Dwarf have still got it! Still the best sitcom set in space ever made   }}}

I never got around to watch red dwarf so much, although, I always thought it seemed interesting, and those videos doesn't play in my location, but I always liked Craig Ferguson's appearance.

{{If you can find it I highly recommend it- despite being about for over 30 years there are only 10 series and most have only six half hour episodes per series so not that hard to see them all.











personally my favourite character is Rimmer, he is such a git, coward and all round smeg-head! }}

{{Ok been longer than intended- but here is the concluding part, after rewatching a lot of it, of what I think Twin Peaks was all about and what the buggery happened at the end- I think a hell of a lot more than whats in this happened and that it was touching on thematically, but this is my attempt to simply break down the story to its simplest level and present just the narrative of what the story actually was!


Twin Peaks- more than one world.

Ok here is my conclusion so what I think Twin Peaks the Return is about, the basic outline of events, and what happened at the end.

It begins with the formation of the plan, initially by Gordon Cole, Briggs, Jeffries and later incorporating Albert and Cooper into the team.
This plan was also being directed from outside our realm of existence by the Fireman, residing in the White Lodge.

So what was the plan? The plan was to destroy the evil entity Judy, a sort of mother of evil figure.
Judy and likewise the entities of the Black Lodge consume to survive garmonbozia, which is represented as a yellow or golden creamed corn like substance and is the manifestation of pain, suffering and misery.
Judy as a producer of misery and evil in worlds is fine, but when she settles down in one she consumes everything, spreading pain and misery with her until there is nothing left then she consumes everything.
This is obviously a problem for those on the side of saving the world, such as Cole and his gang, but it also makes Judy a problem for the Black Lodge too eventually, as she is a massive competing predator for their food stuff. Hence why Mike and other Black Lodges entities aid Cooper in his plan, it is possible some such as Mike might even be in on the plan.
Judy therefore has to go.
Bu how to trap such a being?

The first step, in response to Judy entering our reality due to the first nuclear testing, was the creation of Laura Palmer.
Laura was created by the White Lodge, not as a super-being but as a martyr, someone of almost pure goodness, indicated by her sphere being a pure golden corn colour. Laura is the bait for Judy.

But Judy doesn't want good corn, she wants the black dark sort, to which end Laura is placed in the timeline in Twin Peaks to be born to a man who was by that time already possessed by Bob, the son of Judy.
Laura was as planned to good for Bob to resist and he set about getting to work on her abuse, corruption and degradation, causing her an entire childhood of suffering and fear. Making her the perfect tasty target for Judy along the way and primgn her with negative energy like a bomb- which is exactly what she is as far as the plan is concerned.
But whilst Bob was doing this he was not doing it for Judy. Bob was acting independently and he had associated himself with Mike and the entities of the Black Lodge, and Laura was their golden calf, a constant supply of garmonbozia. Her suffering sustained them.

Right up till Bob screws it up by going and slaughtering her.This not only cut off a major food stock to the Black Lodge, it also screwed up the Fireman's plan to use Laura's pure corn turned bad as bait to lure in Judy.

It takes the Fireman a long time to correct this major issue and he does so by manipulating realities and recruiting. He speaks directly in dreams or some other fashion to Briggs, Cooper, Andy and Freddie at least.
The Fireman's job is implied by his name- he puts out fires. What sort of fires?- well Judy is represented on Hawks map as a black fire, the log lady refers to the fire that consumes Laura, and the title of the film part is Fire Walk With Me, so its fairly safe to say that the fire he puts out is Judy. Whether Judy is a single soure of evil the Fireman has been after for a long time, or just one such representative of it that's found its way into a populated reality is not clear, but I favour the latter.

In essence everything that happens from the opening shot of the original Twin Peaks to the moment Bob is defeated and Dale Cooper becomes fully reintegrated and goes back to save Laura becomes a redundant reality.
Coopers aim is not to save Laura, it was never to save her. Coopers aim was what the plan demanded, that he keep Laura alive to be the bait and weapon.

Cooper succeeds in preventing Laura's death and she is whisked away by the Fireman and placed in a pocket reality stemming from her own mind. This reality is the trap for Judy and Laura is now placed as the bait within it primed to go off. As such the world Laura grows up in from the age of rescue till we meet her again is out of date with reality, rotary phones, crt tv's the RR diner not being a franchise ect.
And other realities, like dreams are somewhere you merge into, feel like its natural and you've always been there- you forget who you are if you stay long enough.

Cooper and Diane then follow Laura into her reality, and help lure Judy there by having sex- really uncomfortable for them both sex- Diane because she is doing it with someone who looks exactly liek the man who she once loved and who raped her Mr C, and Cooper because he knows this and can remember it now he is reintegrated his doppelgangers memories of the past 25 years. The very uncomfortable sex is deliberate, they go through with the personal humiliation and pain of as garmonbozia to lure Judy who is already pissed with them over killing Bob and thwarting her plans to feed of Laura by stealing her away.

Unfortunately in this reality they start to forget who they really are, falling into their alternate reality personas- Diane eventually merges entirely with the already existing version of this reality, forgetting her mission. Cooper holds onto the single notion of finding Laura and getting her to Judy- who has taken possession of Laura's mother in this reality (incidentally almost every time we see Sarah Palmer it is the Judy version in this reality, hence all the weird reality glitches round her like loping tv shows).

Cooper however manages to find Laura, who has forgotten who she was and all her pain and suffering. But Cooper convinces her to go to her 'real' house where Judy is hiding out in Sarah.
At the point Laura remembers her true life and all that happened to her she lets out a horrific scream- this is Laura releasing all that pain all that misery all that garmbozzolia all at once, in a small cut off reality containing only a handful of 'real' people. It overloads the reality- all the electricity- the representation of the energy underlining everything- goes out, the reality collapses and takes everyone in it with it. Judy is defeated, Cooper, Diane and Laura self sacrifice to accomplish it.

Back to the Giants words at the very beginning-

'Listen to the sounds. It is in our house now.'

The sounds Cooper hears only again each time Laura is taken, first in the Lodge and again in the woods, and one last time at the very end on the street outside her house. The sounds indicate to Cooper at which points in his time stream the plan is set to go.
The 'It' is Judy, their house is the house in this reality, the trap reality set up by them to lure Judy in.

'Remember 430'- the distance ot travel to the electric pylon symbol of Judy that will be the crossing point between realities.

'Richard and Linda. Two birds with one stone.'

This reminds Cooper of who they will become if they cross realities. The two birds I personally believe to be Laura and Judy. Laura was created by the Fireman as a counter to Judy in our reality, in that sense they are equal. And the success of the plan will mean the destruction of both. Laura will have served her purpose as the fully loaded weapon of pain and grief needed to overcome Judy and so her suffering will finally end as all she was created for was to be corrupted and suffer, and Judy will be destroyed by over consumption- more garmonbozia than even she can deal with all at once in a confined space.



So to summarize-

timeline one- Laura Palmer created to counter Judy a pure good food, that could be corrupted over her life to be a tempting target for Judy by having her abused by her father/Bob. Bob kills her and Cooper is sent by the FBI to investigate as it seems connected to a Blue Rose case- ie something to do with the Firemans plan. Cooper ends up discovering the existence of Bob and gets possessed by him, his good side being held in the lodge whilst Bob takes a doppelganger of him out into the world.
Cooper after 25 years exits the lodge according to the plan and defeats his doppelganger and is moved back in time in order to save Laura Palmer from being murdered, and instead hides her away in a reality created by the Fireman but whose contents originate in Lauras mind from her mind.

timeline two- Laura Palmer no longer dies, instead she is missing and never found. Instead she lives out those years in her alternative reality forgetting who she was until Cooper from the first timeline as it collapses crosses over into her reality. He then takes Laura to the part of her reality that represents her suppressed childhood memories of her real life in Twin Peaks, her family home where all the abuse and pain happened- at which point she remembers, releases all her pain at once and blows the whole reality out of existence taking Judy with it.

Final end reality- Laura Palmer went missing and was never found again- Cooper joins the list of other FBi agents like Jeffries, who become more legend than people- ufo stuff, x-files cases- missing in action. There was no Mr C and no Dougie and Sonny-Jim. From the moment Laura goes missing a new consistent reality unfolds, one without Judy or Bob and everything else related to it or the Lodges. The Fireman has put the fire out. The End.  }}}

Well, good write up anyway. (I haven't seen the show!)

{{Worth a watch as a piece of art- fascinating to decipher if you like that sort of thing.

We see all the realities at various points- we see the original Twin Peaks- this reality is the one stemming from Laura dying- the continuation of the original series time line and the Black Lodge, the ancient evil in the woods the Book House Boys have been fighting for generations continues to cause small scale misfortune and misery to feed of the gamonbozia of the town- so Ed failing to ever get with Norma the love of his life, the RR being a franchise and all those problems, the domestic abuse, the hit and run ect and people's obsessive behaviour getting worse, like Jacobi- all caused by the Black Lodge long term feeding off the misery they can generate in the town.

We see the alternate trap reality a few times when we see the possessed Sarah Palmer, containing the spirit of Judy. And of course we go there at the end when Cooper and Diane enter into it.
And we see the reality where Laura does not die but instead goes missing begin to unfold when we see Pete go fishing ect

There is also one other reality we see, a more meta one I believe- its more subtly represented but its us the viewer, the obsession with unraveling Peaks as I have been doing and the relationship between viewer, artist and creation.
In series this is represented primary by Coles dream, which takes place on a real street cafe in Paris where he is talking to Monnica Belluci, playing her real self. The location where it is shot is across the street from a real art exhibition hosting the works of one David Lynch who of course is playing Cole recalling this as a dream- the idea of dream realities, and what reality is if not a solid dream is crucial to getting your head round the overall story of Peaks.




The Road House is another example, as it seems to be a constant across all the realities, and people from different versions seem able to appear there and we often hear of characters spoken of in the Roadhouse who do not in fact appear anywhere else in the story. But its also meta- when Audrey gets up for her dance the music she dances to is referred to as 'Audrey's Dance' this is its 'real world' out of universe name on the soundtrack listing. The Road House also features real bands from the real world playing there.

All this meta stuff also ties into some of the first imaginary we are presented with, someone sitting on a couch starring at a big glass box waiting for something to happen in it.

So, any questions!! }}}

Going to watch the first Twin Peaks again before i start on the 2nd lot.



He had to cut his hair for his part in X-Files.

don't know if any of you guys can access this on Sky or in English, as I watched it dubbed into Italian, but it is amazing. its based on Wiemar Berlin during the Decadent period before the Nazis era. It perfectly recreates the atmosphere of Berlin in the 20s. fabulous stuff. and quite suitably weird.