Here is the link to the Peterson quote I mentioned.
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Twin Peaks seems to throw all kinds of interesting ideas out there about window-fallers, spirit attachments, extrasensory perception, and hyperdimensional realities, but it felt like it was just playing around and never quite delivered on a thought expanding or spiritually instructive experience like I thought some episodes of Star Trek and Twilight Zone did. Although I'm curious to see where they took it in the third season, I don't see a reason to invest another 16 hours of my time and $35 into it unless it's waaay better.
From beginning to end, the world of Twin Peaks seems like some type of hyperdimensional STS dreamworld.
The long and the short of it is, I would only recommend the original series to people who are absolute connoisseurs of murder mysteries and also happen to enjoy soap operas. The show is mainly about the stories of individual characters and their relationships with each other and their various love triangles/squares/whatever. There is a LOT of character development, but much of it doesn't seem to go anywhere; it felt like Lynch was wasting my time with superfluous diversions to pad the length of the series, unless you enjoy the soap opera element. On the same token, you can't completely ignore these segments either, because you never know what obscure details will tie into the main plot later. I found the paranormal aspect (the reason I actually watched the show) to be a small but integral literary device that is employed to tie the story together, but most often relegated to the back burner and only rising to prominence on a handful of occasions. Most often I would get a 5 minute segment of intellectually titillating material followed by an hour or two of make out sessions between characters I care nothing about, largely spurious sidebars, and "offbeat humor." I can count the number of times I actually laughed at the show on one hand. Most often it feels like it is trying to be artsy but comes off as a little autistic.
Isn't it precisely what happens in our world?There's vague allusions to a White Lodge, but the Black Lodge is basically the center of the universe and rules the roost.
We see it differently. To me first Cooper's qualities are vigilance and his ability read signs. Saving Annie wasn't worthless to Cooper. It was his choice to walk the path of shaman and accept evil spirit from the girl. Copper is a real down to Earth hero, not Batman or Captain America. Sorry you couldn't appreciate it.Even Cooper seems to be kind of a 4D STS depiction of what they think an STO being would be like: carefree, eternally happy, sacrificing himself for others to oppose their agenda, and ultimately unable to accomplish anything worthwhile.
Just like we have here.From beginning to end, the world of Twin Peaks seems like some type of hyperdimensional STS dreamworld.
To me, this show is certainly not spiritually instructive, there's something rather dark, disturbing and creepy about it (as about all David Lynch's movies that I've seen, except maybe Elephant Man). It's not uplifting, it doesn't really make you think or reflect on human relationships, it just makes you depressed and gloomy. Even though it can be compelling in some way and yes, it gives you hints about hyperdimensional stuff, I wouldn't recommend it (and this is coming from someone who watched all 3 seasons and the movie, and who used to enjoy them). Looking back, it's not something I'd enjoy watching again. Generally speaking, I'd put Lynch's work in the "negative dissociation" category - so, something to avoid.
We see it differently. To me first Cooper's qualities are vigilance and his ability read signs. Saving Annie wasn't worthless to Cooper. It was his choice to walk the path of shaman and accept evil spirit from the girl. Copper is a real down to Earth hero, not Batman or Captain America. Sorry you couldn't appreciate it.
The pacing in Twin Peaks is more true to life. That's not necessarily a good thing; it depends on what you're looking for. 80% of my life (including sleep) is probably just mechanical monotony, going through the motions, the other 20% is choices and individual experiences of various sorts, with maybe .1% of that being really interesting. I don't want to spend two weeks of my life to go through the same proportion of some fictional characters' world in order to learn every minute detail of their lives, I want to get to the .1% that is interesting and whatever slivers of the 20% and 80% that directly support the .1%. If I were to make a movie about my life, there is probably only 3 or 4 hours of material of a general enough interest to string together into a coherent narrative. Even then it wouldn't be enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, but the intent would be to keep it mildly interesting throughout. I approached Twin Peaks with the wrong expectations. I read some about it and knew it was going to take off in a paranormal direction eventually and was expecting a high strangeness event every episode which would become the subject of furious speculation/investigation which would then reveal a pattern that would unlock the mystery of Laura Palmer's murder and whatever Bob was. Kind of an X-Files miniseries with a more stable cast, a more localized focus, and Bob and the Black Lodge taking the place of alien colonization as the main plot with a few standalones to mix it up. From this point of view, I walked away from Twin Peaks feeling like you could cut the episode count in half and still not sacrifice much of the overall story. While the series does meander to that eventuality, that's not really what it is. From the more soap opera-y point of view, you have no main plot per se, but about 20 subplots with Cooper's being the meridian around which they coalesce and the paranormal element being just a backdrop that sets the whole thing into motion. I think that's how the creators originally intended it, and from that angle cutting down the content is wholly unacceptable. Different strokes for different folks, it just wasn't for me.Luc said:Well, I don't entirely agree. Yes, you might be disappointed if you expected paranormal galore, but isn't what you describe here actually closer to the real world? The paranormal is a very minor aspect of our lives, and indeed most of us have no contact with it whatsoever.
Meanwhile Cooper's spirit is in stasis and the only person who might have the constitution to mitigate the influence of the Black Lodge or broker some sort of truce has been effectively neutralized while Bob takes over his body and continues doing his thing to countless other victims. That's hardly what I would consider a victory. What's worse is that apparently he is brought back from the dead, so to speak in season 3, just to be put right back in the same predicament at the end. It's terrible, like STS making a complete mockery out of the hero's journey.aimarok said:We see it differently. To me first Cooper's qualities are vigilance and his ability read signs. Saving Annie wasn't worthless to Cooper. It was his choice to walk the path of shaman and accept evil spirit from the girl. Copper is a real down to Earth hero, not Batman or Captain America. Sorry you couldn't appreciate it.
I think we can all agree that Twin Peaks covers the subject of evil pretty well and what an uphill battle it is to overcome something so firmly entrenched, the way it sneaks into people's lives and subtly devours their souls. If you want to watch a soap opera infused with the essence of such works as Mask of Sanity and Hostage to the Devil, dark and with no apparent resolution, and have the time and inclination to ponder the minutia of its every interpersonal interaction, Twin Peaks might be a good show. If that isn't precisely your thing, I think you will be disappointed. And with that I think I'm closing the book on my long-winded commentary on Twin Peaks. It is just a TV show after all.
Thank you for that! You confirmed for me that spending more time watching it to try and figure out where the heck it was going would have been a waist of time for me. I think I would almost rather watch grass grow.
Some people dig it though, so that's cool. I thought maybe the problem was I no longer partake of a certain herb that mike actually enhance the watching the paint slowly peal off the wall paced drama unfold, a little more doable.