Twin Peaks (1990-91). "Reviewed. Wrapped in Plastic." 

I feel like FWwM adds a nice moment of grace for poor Laura, after all they put her through, and it acts as a nice weirdess bridge to the third season

It's amazing how a show so weird and quirky became an almost universal phenomena at the time - "Who killed Laura Palmer?" was repeated everywhere (probably to Lynch and Frost's horror). It certainly opened the door for less conventional TV programming even though I think many people miss what made it great, it wasn't the mystery, or the weird, it was the HEART.

I know that this makes me an exceptionally dorky fella,but FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is my very favorite character in all of fiction. If there's ever been a character to aspire to be more like,it's Agent Cooper.

I missed 'Northwest Passage' when it screened in Wellington in 1990 but a friend saw it and was bowled over; she put me on to watching the series albeit a year later on VHS. I watched on my days off, stoned while eating freshly baked doughnuts, when the reveal of Bob happened I called her at work to express my shock and state of disturbation. That meant getting her to the phone, which meant getting her out of the classroom at the school she worked as a teacher. I'm a bad friend. But she was one of my best friends.

Also I’ll say that Twin Peaks was one of those shows that really changed my perspective on TV shows, I watched it for the first time in 2017 just before the return and I became obsessed with it. Fire Walk with me is an amazingly dark film with incredible performances and while it wasn’t a continuation from the series it ended up being the linchpin between the return and the original series.

that's one of the best character summaries for twin peaks i've seen anywhere, ever. top work.

I remember only hearing about show when it came on german TV in the early 90s and reading about it in a TV show guide that my uncle had. The Picture of Laura Palma wrapped in plastic forever engraved itself into my memory and so did the Title. It was so catchy and for years i always wondered what the heck this show was about. I did make a huge mistake in the early 2000s when "Fire Walk With Me" came on TV and i watched it. Not knowing that it was a prequel movie for the fans. HOWEVER it did make me very curious about the TV show itself and i remember a good friend of mine back in 2006, who ALSO was a huge David Lynch fan like myself, had the show on DVD and let me listen to the soundtrack. And yeah, hearing the soundtrack already made me wanna watch the show even more. And after watching some clips of Twin Peaks on youtube, back in 2007 or so it made my desire to watch the show grow even more. Then somewhere in 2008 or so i decided to go out and get myself the whole show on DVD. And i probably binged the almost the entire first season in one day. I was hooked and felt absolutely at home in the world of Twin Peaks. Yes, i even love the episodes AFTER the reveal of Laura's Murder, because the show really was not just about the murder mystery aspect but ESPECIALLY about the characters. And this show has some of the most interesting and diverse quirky and super lovable characters i have ever seen. EVERY single role is marvelously played and really makes the whole universe of Twin Peaks feel so alive and vibrant. I have nothing but the upmost respect for the entire cast and David Lynch & Mark Frost.

That musical gag with repeating the first stab of the theme tune while listing the bullet points, before letting it play out, might just be my favourite musical gag of yours so far. And that's after I loved the wub-wub Doctor Who gag sooo much!

I can't wait to watch this after work. I'm sure it'll be a "Damn Fine" review

Stamfine is spying on me! I was literally talking to my family about how obsessed with Twin Peaks in my 20s. None of them knew what it was and I struggled to explain it. Now I can show them this video 😂

I was not expecting to open my RU-vid app and see let alone a review of Twin Peaks but a Stan Fine review of Twin Peaks?

It was really the first tv show that had a real cult following, And for good reason. It isn't for everyone, that is for sure but those that loved it really loved it.

One of the great moments where a network was so desperate for a hit they took a chance and briefly got what they wanted. Unfortunately, what made the series a hit also led to it's untimely demise. The mystery of who killed Laura Palmer was a double edged sword. True fans didn't care because they understood the true power of the show came from the characters and their interactions. David Lynch and Mark Frost made the most twisted soap opera since Dark Shadows. And a cult phenomenon that wouldn't be repeated till The X-Files.

Fire Walk with Me is one of the best movies of the 90s! Absolutely don’t miss it. It’s essential.

Twin Peaks is so good remember watching it when it aired in UK back in the day freaked me out then 😮 I was a young teenager 😂

I will watch this when home from work. I never watched this series, I was just too young at the time and never pursued it later. I know it was the spiritual predecessor to the x-files. THAT I did watch! This will be a great Friday night treat.

I think this was genuinely, along with say Kingdom, one of the television shows that showed the astonishing ability of surrealism to work within long-format television. Inhierently the network pressure breaking original intentions only further added to that tone-poem and medative approach. If it was hurt by anything I think it was the lack of interest from Lynch. The episodes with his cold focus and distant mind show just what he's capable of putting on screen. The pilot, the murder of Maddy, the confession, the finale - they are works of absolutely uncompromising art. The tension, horror and revelation there would stand against most works of significant cinema and I don't think Lynch would ever agree to build any walls between narrative and expressive or experimental art. That Twin Peaks confuses as much as it delights, builds devotition as much as anger and confusion only shows again that art should be polemic, should be confrontational - should be funny and should be profane. How good to live in a world where we can art that it loved and hated and that is there to be explored by anyone free to engage with it. The Return is, for me, absolutely the best thing to ever come from the rush to fund streaming content. It makes no sense at all within any normal television business planning and it's highest moments have absolutely no compare.

I watched this when it first came out and remember all the hype. For some reason the bit I remember most was the myna bird being assassinated.

Best tv series. Ever. The return is sublime ❤

Made by a genius, we will never see its like again. The deepest TV show of all time.

I've really come back around to the show after feeling burned the first time around and I highly recommend the fan cut NORTHWEST PASSAGE which condenses the entire Laura Palmer storyline into six hours. Aside from some ill-advised CG, it's terrific. If you go from that to the movie to the revival, it's basically a seamless experience.

Albert is the sultan of feelings

Your thoughts on Fire Walk With Me are wild, it's easily the pinnacle of the entire series

Love TP.when i was a kid i even read Lauras diary.

Great stuff! One thing that always boggles my mind is how many of the cast that is in the original West Side Story movie :D

I don't think those that were not there realise what a cultural phenomenon the first series was. Everybody watched it. Even people who would never go near a Lynch movie. It was marketed up like little had been to that stage. There were books and records and games. And then... the second season happened... and it went on and on. Something that had been event TV became.. samey and repetitive.

Now do Northern Exposure

I’d always wanted to watch this but have resisted since I love loads of things clearly inspired by it - Silent Hill, Deadly Premonition, Alan Wake - that I’ve been worried it won’t have any surprises for me. Then I started watching David Lynch stuff and, screw it, I wanna see all of Twin Peaks!

Thank you so much for creating this! I never watched the show, but I do like David Lynch. So maybe after this, I'll tune into it, I'm not sure.

I was there at the beginning-saw the pilot and the whole damn series. That's all I needed, I didn't see the movie or reboot on Showtime. It satisfied a need for weirdness, genuine weirdness, to be injected into network TV at that time. In that respect it can be appreciated IMHO. What's also interesting is to see how the Lynch/Frost DNA seeped into other series, such as 'Northern Exposure'. Even 'Lost' can trace a direct connection to what TP set out to do.

I've been waiting for you to get to this show, because it's one of my favorites of all time & your video was fantastic also.

Cheers, Stam. A superb in depth appraisal, funny and insightful as ever.

That review you like is going to come back in style.

This video, like Coop's coffee, was Stam Fine.

Twin Peaks is probably my favorite tv-show that I've only seen once from start to finish. I've tried several times to re-watch it but the weirdness doesn't quite land the second time around. Maybe this was the show that inspired JJ Abrams on how to write tv-show, just pile on with the mystery. Anyway I bought the DVD box set many years ago, maybe I'll get around to "force my self" to re-watch it.

Much as I like some of Lynchie's stuff and weird characters, this was just too bizarre and meandering for my taste. Never could get into it so thanks Stam for doing this review to clear things up...or at least as clear as this show can be.

Season 2 was all over the place, at points I had to remind myself it was actually Twin Peaks. However the first season was gorgeously surreal. My mum and I debated for ages over who the killer was.

Been waiting for this

Major Briggs left Twin Peaks after receiving a promotion and becoming commanding officer of Stargate Command.

I love everything about this show, even it's weaker moments are still better than most other shows. My biggest takeaway is that if there is a "meaning" or "purpose," it's that TP reflects how people can really act (which ties into all "double" and "twin" analogies woven into the show). I've lived in logging country, albeit on the east coast, and every time I watch TP I'm reminded of some of the funny, oddball people I knew.

Oh man I forgot how beautiful Sherilyn Fenn was. So rarely are actresses actually pale. Too much California sun, but she is legit pale.

I'm glad I watched TP sometime in the late 2000's b/c I was well aware of the network interference and so I watched from the beginning to the reveal of the killer, then skipped straight to the finale. I watched FWWM many years later and was not prepared for how dark it was. The third season though was effing sublime and even better on a rewatch!

Never knew the murder mystery was just an opening plot. Never watched after that was revealed.

I remember when this first aired. It was definitely weird but got too weird for me about halfway through the first season. I never realized it went on for several more seasons/movies.

21:27 I actually have a headcanon that the Laura that was murdered was actually a tulpa or doppelganger, which explains her duplicitous life shortly before her murder. It is a similar beat to how Mr. C created Dougie.

I think Northern Exposure hit some of the Twin Peaks vibe (quirky people in an unusual location) but without all the supernatural stuff. A Stam Fine review of it would be a great follow up to this one.

Good job with this breakdown, Stan. I appreciate the time and thoughtfulness you used to make this vid. I saw a breakdown about a year or two ago which used the premise about Twin Peaks: It's a show that is aware its a TV show, and it is used specifically to tweak the audience. I concur with this assessment, which was well reasoned. Wish I could remember the name of the video I saw it on.

Combine some actors, images and a scenario and someone will come by to explain what they mean eventually. It's just so Lynchian. Reminds of the last line of Chinatown... "Forget it, Jake, it's David Lynch."

Great work as always... no... never did watch at the time.. but then it takes a while to mature enough to appreciate it

Very good mate

very enterrtaining review - thank u.

I’m more of a movie guy than a TV guy,that said i do have a few favourites like The A-Team,Sopranos and Miami Vice but Twin Peaks is my #1 with episode eight of the return/ event series being the greatest episode of any show ever. It’s the first series that from start to end felt like every episode was shot like a movie,the only time I’d seen that done before was the pilot of Miami Vice and yes all the episodes of that series were shot beautifully but not every episode felt like one..to me anyway

Best TV programme ever made, especially season one and the finale. Nothing else is like it and it paved the way for so many new and interesting shows, as you mentioned, and to which I would add the x-files as well. You should check out an 80s sci-fi film called "The Hidden." In my headcannon it's the same character in both twin peaks and the hidden (yes I know how it ends lol!)

Oh, I'd kill for pancakes right now.

Never saw a single episode...on purpose. And now I can say that I've seen a few episodes (if someone asks) Thanks Stam Fine!

nah...Fire Walk With Me is the best thing David Lynch ever did. Sure it's different in tone to the 90s tv show but it's the nightmare reality. it's a totally frightening horror movie.

Psych did a tribute episode called Dual Spires. Plenty of cameos. Well worth a watch

Made a mistake of watching the movie on Shrooms.... Huge mistake bro.

Oh, this is gonna be good

"Almost time to shuffle off to Buffalo."

Don`t skip Fire Walk With Me, try to find the Q2 version that unites The Missing Pieces and FWWM and enjoy!

Thank you for watching it again so we don't have to. When it aired it felt like the most tonally riveting series ever, but because Lynch was behind it, as usual with him - there was zero substance underneath the beautifully bizarre veneer. As the years passed the sheen fell away from Lynch as he tilted more and more into aesthetically pleasing surreal nonsense. He's not a director really, but an artist that does film and TV art installations; where the viewer is encouraged to wind themselves up by trying to interpret what the hell it all means, when all along Lynch knows, it's as empty as a vacuum - much like his screen writing. Still, if you absolutely have to kill a few hours watching beautiful people behave strangely, you could do worse. Not slagging off all his work, but the majority of his work is over praised by film critics and then doesn't really stand the test of time.

Eagerly waiting for a review of Cop Rock

Have you thought of doing “Inland Empire?

So I guess your doing a super deep dive of wings next then!

Still weird that the killer looked a hippy Steven Botcho. RIP to both men. 🙏🙏

Skip FWWM? SKIP FWWM?! Do not skip FWWM. It is excellent.

35:35 Nah I have to disagree, if you're having any hoping keeping up with Twin Peaks: The Return, at least a cursory watch of FWWM is needed.

Twin sliders

Man, forogt what a goddess Lara Flynn Boyle was in the early 90's, by far the best looking girl on that show. Every guy's (if every guy was a gamer geek anyway) favorite vaguely nerdy fantasy girlfriend, heh.

Kenneth Welsh

DAMN good review!! And HOT!! :D

Twin Peaks is really about the deconstruction videos people make about Twin Peaks. This was David Lynch's intention.

after Leland dies it goes down hill fast. I started watching them all, but gave up at this point. But the first 17 episodes are mostly a damn fine TV experience :)

Will you be doing a review of, “the return?”

👌

how it going Pal

Never got into it

I apologize I don't like listening to other peoples interpretations of Lynch when its meant to be subjectively interpreted there's no definitive meaning its what YOU got out of it but that means anything anyone says about it is objectively correct even if I wouldn't personally agree. I like lynch for this even if I don't like watching most of his later works. Twin Peaks is like anti-Eraserhead to me. It's kinda the opposite like eraserhead is afraid of the elements that are lost at the very beginning and then we find out starting to be lost before the beginnning of Twin Peaks, like Eraserhead is afraid and finds normal 'idyllic human life' abhorrent and grotesque, twin peaks is about television and how those values are lost and can we recover them? that's not all of itbut I dunno all of Lynch's earlier films which I like seem to revolve around some sort of child like nostalgia and his personal feelings about the world.

Let's all just say it. David Lynch is special. In a good way?😂😂😂

Who really was Twin Peaks.

Massive dip of quality indeed. It was a shame the new limited series was even worse. Damn shame.

They didn't have to change the name for the p-rn parody. (featuring Laura Palm-er)

I never saw this when it came out. Thanks for the video, now I know I won't like it.

Laura palmer was killed by bob

Reviews shouldn't be as long last an episode of what is being reviewed.