Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

[Rialto]

And to stay on topic, like Sylvia_North I found the fog disappointing. The lights off camera also flashing on the trees surrounding JRP seemed clumsy/lazy to me.

Loathe as I am to get into the film vs digital debate, there are certain things - fog machines and contrast lighting being high on that list - that can look amazing on film, but are very hard to pull off in digital. Digital can reveal so much artifice, if not used very carefully.

[Aqwell]

Curious thing, some people are arguing against the fog, the trees or the lighting but no one said anything about the same shot of Hawk and Andy used twice almost in a row. The second time they just shortened and darkened the scene to make it different!

I repost my screen captures:





See the stump in the background? Exact same scene.

[BOB1]

Interested to hear you people's thoughts on Ep 14. (...)
Sounds like people loved it and am looking forward to watching it.

So am I. But it won't happen until Sunday probably - if you guys keep posting at the pace of the main thread, there's no way I'm ever gonna make it up! I am currently at page 147 and that's just Monday/ This thread has never been such a fast-runner yet. Go for holidays or something

I loved it. Really, really loved it.
My wife said that this is one of the best episodes ever. I will see what my kids think about it tomorrow

And what did they think?... Unless you've already written it somewhere between pages 148 and 169

I know a guy who is very much away from all the fandom. He watched the original Peaks and likes it. He watches The Return and likes it. Doesn't do any of the in-depth analysis (valid or overdone) that we are so used to... best example: he just now came up with a striking idea that it might be that Richard will turn out to be the son of Audrey and evil Coop, wow ... Anyway, he just told me that Part 14 was the best for him so far.

I've been consistently profoundly disappointed (other than maybe episode 8 ) and this episode was thoroughly enjoyable for me. All I've been complaining about all season has been terrible writing. Once they cut out all the extra characters who neither move the plot forward nor give us any reason to care about them at all and cut out a majority of the dialogue it instantly became WAY more enjoyable for me.

Haven't seen the episode but I know exactly what you mean. If Dougie was listening to you, he'd say:
cut out all the extra characters
and that'd nail it, as usual

[boske]

Curious thing, some people are arguing against the fog, the trees or the lighting but no one said anything about the same shot of Hawk and Andy used twice almost in a row. The second time they just shortened and darkened the scene to make it different!

Knowing how they inserted that scene where Janey-E is making a sandwich for Dougie, I'd almost agree with you.

However, it may be just like the Mirkwood scene from the second Hobbit movie where the forest plays tricks on the company:



Slightly off topic here, sorry, I just got me Johnny Jewel's Windswept CD, which already features 1 1/2 songs in the Return. Almost all of the music there could have found its way into the Return. Imagine finding Naido at the Jack Rabbit's Place scene with this music in the background:

[mlsstwrt]

This thread is LIT!

Sorry had to say that, lol.

Interested whether people will be talking for another 25 years after The Return finishes. I assume so. That's another thing, I think after this is done maybe some of us in this thread just won't post on Dupga anymore. The Return has really killed my interest. Not trying to argue with or persuade anyone, it's just kind of sad.

[Dreamy Audrey]

Allright, back to business. I have mentioned this before. Speaking for myself only, I never expected the return to the original. Why? It has been 25 years and a lot of things have changed since then, it is no longer the same place. Even FWWM was different in tone from the series and I liked it. The return is shot in digital, I wish it were not, but what can you do. I hate the plastic lodge video game-like setting with those opaque curtains. Try seeing Maddy or the doppleganger approaching the waiting room now, or the owl/planet flying in the background in the original dream scene, sorry, can't happen. But still, I grudgingly accepted it and moved on.

When Showtime announced the Return they dragged Kyle in front of the press, dressed him up as Coop and had him doing the "damn good coffee, and hot!" shtick. Now that was some false advertising. They should have had Gordon Cole there with his malfunctioning hearing device and a very fine bottle of Bordeaux. What a joke.

I agree with you on this. When the new series was announced, I didn't have any expectations, but then there was the false advertising and the photo shoot with a lot of the old characters, which seemed to indicate that the main characters were Cooper, Audrey, Gordon, Norma, Bobby, Shelly, Laura, James, Big-Ed and Nadine. So naturally, I assumed these characters would have big roles in the series, but until now most of them didn't have much screentime. Odd that characters like Hawk, Lucy, Andy, Albert, Tammy and Janey-E who had much more to do this season, weren't included in the photo shoot. This photo shoot was one of the few things I saw everywhere before the season started, though I tried to avoid any spoilers, so it seems to me this is what they wanted us to see.

I didn't expect that we would see the same Twin Peaks again. 25 years have passed, people and places change. But I did expect the main focus to be on the town of Twin Peaks and our beloved characters (it is called "Twin Peaks" after all, and not "Las Vegas", "Philadelphia", "Buckhorn" or whatever). I understand that Cooper would probably not be the same easygoing character that he was, because being trapped in the Lodge for 25 years probably would have left marks on him. But I would have been interested in seeing how he deals with this, how he has changed as a person, how his doppelganger's evil deeds in his name might have affected him and the people around him. Instead we got DougieCooper stumbling around, barely saying anything and not making any progress at all. Most of his scenes seem to be just for laughs but I don't find them that funny. There were so many opportunities for the character and they chose this?! I was also interested in seeing EvilCoop being evil and doing bad things, but he hardly ever does anything and he doesn't have much screentime, either. He acts like an ordinary criminal and is only a danger to shady people who cross him, so he doesn't seem much of a threat.

Now about the other characters. I don't like how most of the old characters were introduced in this series. It seemed like pointless cameos for nostalgic purposes. The James and Shelly scene in the Roadhouse in Part 2 didn't contribute anything to the story at that part, Norma barely had any screentime, she had a few seemingly pointless scenes where she was doing paperwork but never saying anything. Nadine was shown a couple of times watching Jacoby's show, Ben and Jerry's first scene also had no connection to the story, and then Jerry was running around in the forest for about 2/3 of the season. We might be wondering what that is about, but I don't really care. I could just do without his scenes. Have we learned anything about what these characters have been up to in the last 25 years? It's like teasing us with the old characters and then saying: "You want to know more about them? Tough, I'm not going to tell you." But I'm disappointed about the handling of the new characters, as well. So many new characters but we haven't been given a chance to connect to them. I liked Constance, for example, but now she hasn't appeared for a couple of episode and I almost forgot she existed. Same with a lot of the other new characters, it is hard to remember or care about them, if they appear in one episode, then disappear for 10 episodes and suddenly reappear. One of the worst things is Freddie Sykes. He had no real introduction, we just got a glance at him in Part 2, and suddenly he reappears in Part 14 with this apparently important storyline. He's like a parody of a superhero from a comic book, his whole manner seems fake and his explanation of a "jobsworth" was a copy word for word from wikipedia(!), which to me suggests lazyness on the writers' part (which in this case would be Lynch and Frost). I know there are people who say: "But he's supposed to be this way!" but that doesn't make this storyline or the writing any better. Is it really necessary to introduce this character shortly before the end of the series? Couldn't the character have been established throughout the series? Do we need this character at all for the story? And then there is the junkie woman who always calls "119". Her scenes seemed very unconnected to the rest of the story and I didn't like them at all, but I thought there might be a pay-off because she appeared a few times as if to remind us of her presence. Then - nothing. She hasn't appeared for a long time, will we even see her again or were we just supposed to wonder about her in vain? And even if she reappears, what is the point of this character? I'm sure whatever story there is, it could have been set up in a more interesting way. A lot of the series feels unconnected and randomly put together. Audrey's scene came out of nowhere. I love the scene itself. It's not what I expected or wanted for the character, but I think it is a good scene if it's stand-alone or maybe a prologue. But in the middle of an episode between scenes it felt unconnected and irrelevant because it was taking away time from the rest of the story.

There are a lot of scenes where I have the feeling they were added because Lynch thought they were cool ideas, even when they have no connection to the plot. The story is often unnecessarily stretched and as if everything that was filmed was included no matter its importance to the story. I think it would have been better, if some of the scenes had been cut. I know we haven't seen the whole story and some scenes might still pay off, however I don't think I will ever like any of Jacoby's scenes (except for the sweet moment he had with Nadine), even if it turns out his gold shovels are important for saving the world. Then I will still think it is a stupid plot.

Another thing I am really disappointed with is Diane's role in this series. I always though she was a character who wasn't meant to be seen. She was a mystery. We didn't know anything about her except that she was Cooper's secretary. We kept wondering who she might be, what she might look like and if she was even real. Therefore I think it was a bad idea to include her now as an on-screen character. Her inclusion is also something that has an effect on re-watching the old series because it is hard to block out this Diane whenever Cooper is recording his tapes for her It doesn't help that I can't stand her character at all, her constant "Fuck you, insert name" is absolutely annoying and boring.

[eyeboogers]

Dreamy Audrey, I read the word "expect" many times in your post. Don't you sometimes like to be surprised? In general I think everyone that is critical of the new show should see how it ends - and then decide if you liked it or not.

[mlsstwrt]

Dreamy Audrey, I read the word "expect" many times in your post. Don't you sometimes like to be surprised? In general I think everyone that is critical of the new show should see how it ends - and then decide if you liked it or not.

I'm not sure that's entirely valid. By the same logic shouldn't everyone effusively praising the new show wait until the end to say that they loved it?

[eyeboogers]

Dreamy Audrey, I read the word "expect" many times in your post. Don't you sometimes like to be surprised? In general I think everyone that is critical of the new show should see how it ends - and then decide if you liked it or not.

I'm not sure that's entirely valid. By the same logic shouldn't everyone effusively praising the new show wait until the end to say that they loved it?

I would certainly agree with that.

[Dreamy Audrey]

Dreamy Audrey, I read the word "expect" many times in your post. Don't you sometimes like to be surprised? In general I think everyone that is critical of the new show should see how it ends - and then decide if you liked it or not.

It seems like you didn't read my post very well because I wrote that I mostly didn't have any expectations for the new series. The one time I wrote that something was different from my expectations was the Audrey scene, which I liked, so your argument that I don't like surprises makes no sense at all. I like to be surprised but do I have to like something just because it is surprising? There are good and bad surprises. The Audrey scene was not what I expected but it was nevertheless good. I don't like the placement of the scene at all, but her story is one of the most interesting to me at the moment.

I'm tired of people claiming we are only disappointed because the story doesn't go the way we wanted. We are disappointed because we think certain aspects of the show are not good. I'm also tired of people saying we have to wait until the end to decide whether we like or hate it. Why is it okay to love and praise this show before the end but not okay to criticize? By that logic, shouldn't people who praise it wait with their judgment until the end of the story, as well?

[mlsstwrt]

Dreamy Audrey, I read the word "expect" many times in your post. Don't you sometimes like to be surprised? In general I think everyone that is critical of the new show should see how it ends - and then decide if you liked it or not.

I'm not sure that's entirely valid. By the same logic shouldn't everyone effusively praising the new show wait until the end to say that they loved it?

I would certainly agree with that.

Fair enough then!

I guess my point is that even if the ending is terrible, for the people who love The Return, it won't mean that they didn't enjoy everything up to Ep 18. And the same logic applies to those who aren't huge fans of The Return.

[LateReg]

To not derail further- regarding the jack rabbit's scene- the fog machine looked bad in digital, not at all like the fog in the dark corridor of Lost Highway. Very film school.

I really thought the fog looked amazing on my TV. That atmosphere seemed perfectly conjured for the scene. I hope I don't think less of it on second viewing.

[eyeboogers]

I'm not sure that's entirely valid. By the same logic shouldn't everyone effusively praising the new show wait until the end to say that they loved it?

I would certainly agree with that.

Fair enough then!

I guess my point is that even if the ending is terrible, for the people who love The Return, it won't mean that they didn't enjoy everything up to Ep 18. And the same logic applies to those who aren't huge fans of The Return.

Have you heard of "Lost" ?

For me this is mainly about respecting artists and their work. "Mulholland Dr." without the last 35 minutes is mediocre - with them it becomes one of the best films ever made. I currently have many reservations about this series, but let's at least hear them (Lynch/Frost) out before we throw mud for 137 pages.

[boske]

I'll be honest, I had two expectations, and probably other people had these same ones:

• Good Dale somehow escapes from the lodge;
• He somehow faces the doppelganger and the carnage left behind him;

It seems to me that L&F were really focused on what expectations we might have (e.g. Ed & Nadine and similar) and simply, as stated earlier, teasing us and not telling us. Maybe until the very end, or maybe even not then.

The expectation that Cooper would escape the lodge was dealt with early on, and rather unexpectedly. Cooper was (more or less) let go from the lodge. "Hey buddy, you have served 25 years, time to leave, here are your personal items." I know, you say, what about the non-exist-ent? That comes from a lodge splinter group, doesn't it?

Does this bode well for the C/Mr. C showdown expectation? Almost everybody is expecting that, I have yet to hear one person who thinks it may simply not happen? But what if it does not? And how will Dale Cooper face to what has happened. Is there time for it?

Is the point of the return to mess up with our expectations at the expense of the story itself? Would it be worth it? I mean, what is wrong if we have some expectations that objectively need to be met?

[Dreamy Audrey]

Eyeboogers, why does it bother you so much that people criticize the new series? People react to what they see, should they not have feelings or opinions about what they've seen until the end? Then there would be no point in any discussions about the series before the last episode. Some people love what they are seeing, some hate it, some have mixed feelings. Expressing an opinion about the show now is not necessarily a final judgment, people can change their minds when they have seen the final episode or after rewatching the entire series. But they still have need to talk about their feelings on this right now, so I think it is important to have a place like this thread to talk about things that we find disappointing, since Twin Peaks means a lot to all of us.