Where Season Two fell apart

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Black Rose
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Where Season Two fell apart

Post by Black Rose »

Season two (after Maddy's death) had three fatal flaws:

1. There are very few bad, freaky, or scary people. Bobby, Ben, Catherine, Mike, Jacoby, and Jerry (who all added layers of sleaze and malevolence to the first season) have all decided to be good. Josie, Leland, Blackie, Jean, Harold, Jacques, and Bernard are all dead. So the only freaky people left are Windom Earle, Vegetable!Leo, Hank Jennings, sketchy Asian dude, Andrew Packard, and Thomas Eckhardt. (We're not counting Evelyn and crew, 'cause if they'd bumped James off it would have done the world a favor.) Which brings us to:

2. There's no sense that any of the main characters are in any real danger. Maddy, Josie, and Harold are the only three people to die who are sympathetic. Everyone else who dies "needed killin'." The sheer tension present in the first season (and first part of the second season) is lost. Seriously, every time I watch Shelly washing her hair I'm waiting for her to die, even though I know how it turns out. And Audrey at One Eyed Jack's is in a whole universe of trouble she doesn't even know about. And there are probably 5 or 6 more scenes where I'm just waiting for someone to get it. And then there's the waiting for some of the loose cannons to go off, such as Bobby, Harold, and Nadine. But somewhere in the middle of season two that tension is lost. There's no longer a sense that the town is full of people ready to turn on each other. And speaking of chemistry:

3. All the couples are boring. Season one is full of forbidden love. Audrey and Cooper. Donna and James and Maddy. Bobby and Shelly. Nadine and Big Ed and Norma and Hank. Josie and Harry. Ben and Catherine. There's a real sense that all these pairings can only end in blood. Yeah, Bobby and Shelly had some serious problems as a couple, but that's why I liked them. Ditto for all the other couples. What does season two give us? A couple PG-rated after-school-special flings.

These three things drove the show through the first season, and unless they could have brought it back in season three, season three would probably have been as lackluster as season two.

Thoughts? Feelings? Impressions?
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Brad D
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by Brad D »

i think these are all feasible reasons that ratings tanked. no interesting romance, no villains (earle has always been comic relief to me) and just alot of characters were just not used to their potential. i would have kept BOB as a domineering presence in the show myself. i think i've basically said this in every one of these similar threads.
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Pete Dyson
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by Pete Dyson »

episode 14 ( when maddy got killed ) was when season 2 fell apart. it ruined the mystery, it ruined the ratings, it ruined a possible 3rd season! another thing that really made me mad was when wheeler and annie showed up :evil: audrey and cooper should've gotten together! anyone else that agrees with me?
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Audrey Horne
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by Audrey Horne »

good points. I think it's the tension that is lost. And the approach they use for the mysteries. There's no sense of danger of the unexpected. With Laura's murder we have the tension of never fully knowing the truth about ALL the characters, and the aspect of the unexpected happening at any moment. With Windom and everything else, it's not coming from the shadows and we are following him instead of wonderng if every new character coming in might be this new dangerous foe. And the mystery of the Lodges with the triangles, dugpas etc is too wordy and theretical instead of active- mostly just Cooper and Truman sitting in a room listening to Briggs or the Log Lady. Whereas Laura's was fascinating because it set off an active chain of events where the characters faced themselves.
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by DigitalGhost »

I think everything that can be said about the second season already has. The second season was killed by a combination of bad planning (Windom Earle should have been introduced sooner) and Kyle Maclachlan vetoing the Audrey/Cooper storyline, which left a big hole in the middle of the series.

I've never believed the resolution of Laura's murder was responsible for killing the series. Laura is by far my favourite thing about Twin Peaks and I was sad to see that story end, but Twin Peaks had so many things going for it, it should have been able to move on easily without relying on the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer to lure viewers. There was the darkness in the woods, the Bookhouse Boys and characters like Sarah Palmer, the Log Lady and even Pete Martell who never had the exposition they deserved.

I love the first half of season two and like the second half, but after Leland's death it's like they dispensed with half of the characters and everything people loved about the series in the first place. That's what I don't understand. It was too drastic to have happened by accident, which makes me think it must have been a conscious decision. And as much as I love the final episode it was crass to think throwing in a few cliffhangers and trapping Cooper in the Black Lodge would force ABC to commission a third season. The lack of care taken over season two wasn't just a kick in the teeth for loyal fans, it was bad business.
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TheArm
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by TheArm »

I admit that there are some definite creative failings in Season 2, but I also don't think the second season was so abhorrently abysmal to have deserved cancellation. More recently, the sophomore (and sometimes third) seasons of Lost, Heroes and Desperate Housewives all faced heavy criticism and big backlashes when they aired in which fans and critics attacked the shows' creative teams for failing to recapture the magic of their debut seasons. The difference is that those shows had something Twin Peaks didn't have - network support. ABC and NBC worked with (sometimes through firing people) the producers of the shows and carefully maintained or improved their time slots to ensure minimum audience erosion. The minute I heard that ABC was moving Twin Peaks from its successful Thursday night timeslot to the ratings graveyard of Saturday night I knew its days were numbered. No network that is actively trying to cultivate a show's audience would relegate it to Saturday night, the lowest-rated night of the week, *especially* among Peaks' target audience, and then proceeded to continually pre-empt it. When you look at its scheduling, it's no wonder the ratings plummeted; ABC clearly had no faith or love for the show.
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by blair »

I'm agree 100% with TheArm, every show have some problem for to keep the level, specially Twin Peaks who is near perfect, the second season is imo lot more greater that every others show in TV, the second keep a really good quality, specially the story of White/Black lodge (a storyline who have been a huge inspiration for X-files), simply awesome.

I don't think try to find a reason in the TV himself is very judicious, it's try to find a reason for nothing, for example I don't think that Kyle was all powerful in the show about him and Audrey, I think the author themselves have probably found some valid points in his arguments (and I'm agree with him despite I really love the chemistry between them), the Twin Peaks staff in general seem to agree that the principal problem is from ABC, not the show itself (despite some lower moments).
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Simbabbad
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by Simbabbad »

I agree with most people here, but on the whole I think the writers stopped taking the show seriously as well. Too many of the characters became jokes : Leo, Nadine, Bobby and Mike, Ben Horne all became comic relief. And of course there were the new ones : Dick, little Nicky, and Windom, the biggest joke of all, who started to kill "just introduced" people in "Batman TV series" ways. Oh, and the Lodge mystery was filmed and introduced like TV shows for kids do.

It was very hard to take the show seriously then. I know when I watched it for the first time (after it died) I stopped watching after Leland's death. Then caught it back when my mom told me how strong the last episode was.
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by blair »

The comic relief was already present in the first season, less that some part that the second season, but it was already a strongly attached to the show.

For Windom Earle, I find him perfect, specially the story with the lodge, with lot more detail, it was clearly a huge inspiration for another great show the "X-files", it's really imo an important part of Twin Peaks and something who was really well done (unlike x-files who have really bad moments) in all the season 2 (specially the part with the blue books).

Every show I have lower moment, it's very normal for a tv show, the problem it's with the quality and the perfection of Twin Peaks, lower moments is something that we can see directly, imo Twin Peaks is victim of his own near perfect quality, but again like TheArm have said, nothing abysimal, the show have kept a good level, with this logic, every show could be cancelled in the second season and sometimes in half of the first season.
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gavriloP
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by gavriloP »

If we speculate about TP's third season, then I have to say this: if the series would have continued in that fashion (latter part of 2nd season, after Leland's death) then I would loathe it now. But truth to be told, at that time I would've been happy with everything TP. And it was always still better than most of it's competition at the time.

But on the other hand, if Lynch would have gotten back on the horse and TP would've become more like FWWM (darker mysteries) It could have been pure gold. Well, sadly we'll never know. I almost feel like kicking myself when I watch the first part of FWWM and think that they could've done something like this with TP 3rd season (not those stories, but that style).
blair
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by blair »

I read somewhere, an interview with Mark Frost who have said that if there will be a 3rd season, they would be more careful that the second season, I don't think they would twice the same mistake, sadly Twin Peaks don't have the time to do that.

For the fist season, it's easier in comparaison to the second season to keep things fresh for 8 episodes, specially if it's the first 8 episodes, it was lot more difficult to keep the level after Laura Palmer story, personnaly I thing they have done a good job and keep that interesting (love the Denise characters, Briggs story etc...).
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Buck's Student
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by Buck's Student »

I would have loved to have seen more of the show, but it seems that it would have turned into a soap opera. :lol:

I don't see the mystery of Laura Palmer keeping the show alive forever, but there could have been more mystery added to keep some spice alive.
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TheArm
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by TheArm »

It's hard to say, re: Season 3. Mark Frost seems pretty adamant in interviews that the latter half of Season 2 and its subsequent ratings drop/network troubles were a wake-up call, and thus that he and Lynch would have been much more involved and "on the ball" with Season 3. But then I think about the fact that Lynch often says that his passion for the show died after he was pressured into revealing who killed Laura, and also the fact that Lynch seemed to have destroyed his relationship with Mark Frost when he showed up to direct the finale and junked at least half of Frost's (and Engels & Peyton's) shooting draft for the finale and re-wrote it himself. So I wonder if it would have been as easy as Frost suggests for them to get back to their old working relationship from the beginning of the series. Frost certainly wasn't present for any of "Fire Walk With Me." He took an exec producer credit and that's it.
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gavriloP
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by gavriloP »

Well, I think that if Lynch, Frost and other posse would've still really believed to the possibility of 3rd season, the finale wouldn't be just so radical... concerning the pile of destroyed characters. I know that some of it was in the original script but still...

The fact remains that when Lynch quietly abandoned the show, it started to fall down. I'd say it clearly started at Maddy's murder. That episode is very good in my books, and Lynch does it with heart but he is kind of lost after it.

My favourite episode apart from the finale is definitely the 2nd season pilot. It is amazing. It shows that at that time Lynch was totally inspired by world of TP still.

Like I've written before, here in Finland the show originally aired so that the last episode of first season was the maddy's death episode (was it 14 or 15, can't recall). It was really the best of TP to me.
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Re: Where Season Two fell apart

Post by evdama »

Film Critic Mark Kermode often refers to TP either outright or symbolicly
He thinks FWWM is,although brilliant,a very nasty horror film.
Which is actually spot on.
He summed series 2 up in just a few words- its up it own backside.
Ive had the complete box set for over a year now -i bought it just so I could watch S2 in detail as I cant really remember it from 20 years ago.
My passion for TP is stronger than ever but Ive stopped watching it!
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