Twin Peaks S1E1 Thoguhts

Twin peaks is an early 90's television show that, like its name suggests, consistently plays with themes of character duality. The acting is reminiscent of a soap opera with an abundance of melodrama. It quickly gained a cult following due to its serialized nature, art style, and creative dialogue. It is also undeniably quirky.

the first episode exposes us to the weird town of Twin Peaks, the murder of Laura Palmer, and introduces us to a few of the main characters.

Twin peaks has a clear visual aesthetic, from the opening credits with plainly colored backgrounds in contrast to neon green titles. The town itself holds an interesting palate, almost as if we cannot tell if its 1990 or 1960 (aside from the cell phones). cinematography wise, the show has excellent framing as well as a lot of very long shots. a definite style, one that isn't uniquely Twin Peaks, but certainly stands out from the crowd of shows back in the 1990's. Today's shows follow the typical rule of not holding shots for more than 10 seconds at once which makes twin peaks a bit jarring.

One of the main draws to Twin peaks was its serialization. for a bigger network (like ABC) they make shows that appeal to the masses so a lot of people will watch, which draws in more ad money, which in turn makes each show more profitable. a lot of shows like NCIS, for example, are very general, they have self contained episodes, and they draw a large viewer base. At the end of the day some of those shows are just outright boring. A new skin is thrown over an old idea, and lots of people watch it, which is why those shows endure for so long. With Twin Peaks, and its atypical serialization, viewers had to tune in every week in order to follow the story. traditionally speaking these formats are left for smaller networks (like AMC) which don't have to worry so much about viewership because they are a smaller niche network. Little did NBC know, this new and unusual format would actually draw a cult following. Since this was so rare it sparked a lot of other shows to dare and be different as well. Although not on a public network, The Sopranos has a lot of Twin Peaks influence.