SHOULD YOU LIKE THE NEW TWIN PEAKS? -a mystery solved in 3 somewhat strained metaphors
A bomb has gone off. Opinion seems to be splitting.
There is much talk on Twin Peaks Facebook groups, talk flying hither and yon, talk of how Twin Peaks: The Return is the best Twin Peaks ever (*excited emoji*), and talk of how it isn’t, and even of how it’s not really Twin Peaks at all.
And much has been the sniping, much the name-calling, much the figurative throwing of toys from prams, much the exclamations of “You’re just too stupid to get it!” and “it’s just pretentious self-indulgent toss!”
…and all I start to hear is Alan Partridge:
For those who are not enjoying Twin Peaks: The Return due to its radical departure from the original two seasons I have genuine sympathy; it is different, very much so, and if what you were expecting was more of the same soap-opera-with-a-few-sprinklings-of-quirk-and-the-odd-flash-of-dream-like-menace then no, this is not at all what you’ve been given.
However, this brings me to my first somewhat strained metaphor:
#1 – Bringing It All Back NO
This isn’t ‘Dylan goes electric’. This is ‘Dylan was always electric but did a few folk albums in the early 90s that you loved and has now gone back to being chiefly, and often yrev, very, electric’.
I can think of little in Lynch’s past that would suggest that he was interested in repeating himself, particularly in repeating something he did over 20 years ago; it was always going to be a departure and yet, with the advent of the brain melting episode 8, perhaps the old-schoolers might be forgiven for their consternation?
Which ushers forth my next somewhat strained metaphor:
#2 – The Radiohead Paradigm
Followup to the lauded (nay lionised) Radiohead album OK Computer, 1997’s Kid A confused the hell out of many with it’s idiosyncratic electronica and willful sonic abstractions; at the time a flatmate of mine dismissed the album, saying “I don’t go to Radiohead for that kind of music.” If you’re wondering, yes, yes he was an idiot. As the band went on to produce more records, their trajectory seldom flew anywhere near the stylings of OK Computer and remained on a steadfastly strange path; and thus there was a schism. I would say to the OKComputerers the same thing I would say the the TwinPeakoldschoolers: you may not like the new but at no point will you be excluded from enjoying the old. There has been no replacement, no George Lucas-like rewriting of history, merely a fresh, different and non-compulsory piece of art.
Which is to say, by way of my final somewhat strained metaphor:
#3 – Ideas Are Like Fish
This is, of course, a famous motto of Lynch’s, having to do with the way in which he ‘catches’ his ideas; but think of it like this: when you indulge in a new piece of work, be it music, film, television, sculpture whichever, you are going paddling with one of these fish. The artist has caught the thing, fed it (maybe deliberately starved it), maybe groomed it, filed down its teeth (maybe sharpened them), presented it in a tank they feel to be appropriate; and you? Well you’re climbing into the tank for a paddle, perhaps even a swim.
And sometimes the fish will nibble at your toes, sometimes they’ll give you rides like dolphins, they may even open their moths from time to time and flash you the size of their teeth, give you a fright; however, if you don’t like the look of those teeth, or feel that the fish’s eyes hold too hungry a look, GET OUT OF THE TANK.
Some ideas will eat you up, while others will just devour your time. My advice to all is to find something you want to eat you, and dive in.
But of course the question should never be Should you like…? but always, simply, Do you…? And if you do then off you go, fill yer boots. If you don’t, then… well… don’t.
HEY, NEIGHBOURS... 