Let's talk changes: how would you change the second season?

[Evenreven]

Finally got to read this. Some really cool stuff here, and I think everything works. I think I'll have more to say later (really busy now), but a favourite for me right now is Shelly and Sarah with the meals-on-wheels. And I think you're right not to show it, especially when crosscutting it with the woods scene with the Boys.

All in all really impressive!


PS: I'll have more to say about herr Doctor later on, suffice it to say that I laughed out loud.

[Audrey Horne]

thanks, even.

Ive got to tell you, it's hard as hell. And it's not because it's a question of doing a fantasy of what you would like to see happen, but instead figuring out the puzzle in a plausable way based on the criteria already established. There are a ton of scenes that I wouldn't be overly interested in, bt would conclude they would happen and so forth.

but it has been fun -especially figuring out okay how would each episode be shot, who would be available, how would production go, what sets do we have built, what are the locations? etc

[Audrey Horne]

hey faithful followers- judging by the view counts, people are still checking this out. Hopefully, that's cool.

haven't forgotten this one bit -just a little bit of you know real life, work and the holidays. but getting ready to fire up the next episode. It's tricky because it's kind of like walking through a mine field and making sure it will make enough sense in the Peaks universe, answers questions and still leaves the beautiful ambiguity.

anyway, to be really geeky -

Next on Twin Peaks...

The guests at Ghostwood's Gala are in for an explosive surprise.

Leo has a bumpy homelife.

Truman discusses Andrew Packard's past with an old "friend."

Audrey and Albert's return to Philadelphia hits a snag when a deal is made by a third party.

Shelly's life takes a new direction.

Catherine's life is in dire straits.

And Cooper begins to solve a new mystery -his own.

[Audrey Horne]

sorry, long break -anyone still reading this I'm starting it back up this weekend.

hold on to your hats!

[Evenreven]

Bring it on!

[NoiselessFan]

1) I'd have kept Leland in the show:

I don't get why they wrote Leland out. Why not leave him alive and in the show - a Hanibal Lecter-type madman kept under lock and key and surveilled? Dr. Jacoby could've studied his behavior along with Coop to try to understand his possession (especially since the BOB persona was integral to the next plot move anyway). MANHUNTER had already aired so there was precedence for leveraging the insane to track other insane people.

2) I'd have introduced Earle mid-Season 1:

I don't understand why Windom Earle wasn't introduced in the first season. He could've been one of the lead suspects in the Palmer murder as a vehicle for establishing his presence in the show - this way, when the Palmer case was resolved, they'd have Earle built up already. Once the pilot was a smash hit, they must've started thinking post-Laura.

3) I would've made Kyle M play BOB

I think it would've been cool if Maclachan had doubled as the BOB character, stubble and greasy long gray hair. Imagine the different ways this would've been interpreted early on. They could've even implied in season 2 that Earle could be the good guy if Coop is actually evil. Maybe even Coop killed Laura, or at least was responsible for possessing Leland. Heck, maybe even Coop killed Catherine and Earle was the one seeking revenge instead of the other way around?

They could've implied Laura wasn't even dead, had sightings of her late in season 2, had her body disappear from its coffin. They could've reopened the whole "murder" after it was solved. And if she isn't "dead" is Leland really insane?

4) I would've put Coop and Aud together:

Imagine if they had gotten Coop and Audr together under all the above circumstances and if she got pregnant? By season 3 she'd be carrying the baby of the Bad Coop and maybe by then the Good Coop would be revealed as being trapped in the Lodge. If he escapes, there are ramifications of his relationship with both Audr AND the baby of his evil ater ego.

And once the Bad Coop is gone, Leland could be freed and you have the drama of his re-entry into TP, a madman now "cured." This show had so much more to do.

[Audrey Horne]

Noiseless,

the Windom answer is probably an easy one -most likely he wasn't even thought of until after the series was picked up at the end of the first season -and was drafted with plot angles for the second season. His first mention is in the second episode of the second season along with Cooper's concern about Audrey -most likely, Frost had anticipated the Cooper/Audrey/Windom arc to be the next thing. (I don't know how soon in advance the ABC powers came down on them wrapping up the Palmer mystery -but it was probably during the summer of 1990 when they were developing the scripts.

I get why they killed off Leland. I think they thought they were wrapping up the Palmer mystery completely and then moving on. However, once Maclachlan put the kaboosh on the Coop/Audrey plot they were stuck with very little time to scramble in production and the B storylines were plumped up (Nadine, James and Evelyn). Frost has talked about this, Engels has talked about this in Wrapped in Plastic- basically saying they were left with no story.

And Cooper playing Bob -great idea (maybe to some) -but again, BOB was thought of on the spot essentially with Kyle already cast. The show didn't have the luxury of being all mapped out from beginning to end and was more of an evolution (or dissolvution). I'm sure when the first season ended, there was no inkling that Cooper would be this strange thing staring at himself in a mirror.

great ideas though!

[NoiselessFan]

Not sure if you watch DAMAGES but the first season of this show was based entirely on a civil action case that resolved in the final ep - realizing they had to resolve it at some pt, they mapped out something upfront and the 2nd season is better than the first.

Seems to me once the pilot for TP brought in Superbowl-like numbers, they'd have realized they needed a post-Laura story and would've prepared for it with something. Not sure how they got caught SO off-guard. Not that it matters now.

[Audrey Horne]

right, but the first season was already shot and completed by the time the pilot aired.

And most shows (Lost, Sopranos, etc) that have a layered template usually have their roots in Twin Peaks -with the creators being a fan of the series and also knowing the trappings that Peaks fell into. Peaks was a pioneer, and also a victim because of that.

I do agree though that I have no idea how they got so far off track -even back then, when I was a teenaged idiot, I thought if they consistantly took the worst route possible with every fork in the road, they found it.

[NoiselessFan]

The way Frost and Lynch describe it, they went into a room and banged out the script for the pilot quickly and pretty directly, not a lot of revising. These men are clearly gifted and work well together.

If they came up with a great pilot that easily, by simply putting their heads together for a short span of brainstorming time, I can't imagine why they couldn't have had some of these sessions to find better material than Season 2...

unless of course they didn't care enough to even try. That Nadine storyline with the supernatural strength and was just idiocy.

[LatelyDavidBass]

I think that it was just a case of too many people trying to acheive the same goal. I think Lynch lost interest when the network came down on "solving the murder" or "killing the goose that kept laying these golden eggs". Yes, they should have hit the audience harder with some the stronger second season subplots, as Mark Frost indicated. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. There are so many what-ifs and speculations to the second season that we'll never really know. It simply is what it is.

To me, the show got off track at the onset of season two. The second season premier was "weird" and too much Lynch to keep any general fan-base. Maybe it's a little close to home, but I remember when that show aired and common folk like my parents and grandparents just dropped out. They lost interest. The honeymoon was over, so it goes. While the show was quirky and strange, that second season premier was way from left field. I loved it, but most people were fed up. I think the murder solving was a way to bring people (like my parents) back. By then, it was all over but the crying. A long slippery slope. I think that alot of those dumb subplots that many of us hate were simply things to try to bring people back into the show. They were typical TV soap opera plots done Peaks-style. I think alot of those writers were just trying to garner interest in a dying franchise.

Of course, Peaks was the type of show that if you missed a week, then it was over. So much happened in a single episode that it was nearly impossible to recover from a missed show. And many people who watch soaps are able to miss a week here and there and pick back up. Try showing TP to someone who's never seen it and start with episode 5. They'd probably get frustrated and give up.

Shows like X-Files were able to learn from this. My favorite episodes of that show were the ones that were stand-alone cases. The whole CSM/conspiracy stuff just got to be too much. I just liked to watch Mulder and Scully solve weird cases. But, the brialliance is that you had the best of both. You had on ongoing story arc that built upon itself, but you also had the stuff to keep general folks interested.

It's easy to see where TP went south and went wrong. It's easier to blame Lynch/Frost for the thing spinning off it axis. But, this was before the advent of the internet and on-demand. If you didn't tape the show and missed it, it was very likely that you tuned in the nxt week and got frustrated. We're lucky to get to watch the whole show in order, but it also brings to light those sagging drifting episodes.

Sorry for the rambling, but hindsight is...well...you know...

TB

[NoiselessFan]

I don't think the show failed because the Palmer murder was resolved or because they didn't pursue Coop/Aud or because the network moved its airtime. I think it failed because the style of the show changed.

The second season felt like a spoof of the first season, where weak attempts to recapture what the show had were exaggerated for the sake of shock value rather than to advance the story. Nadine is the clearest example of this.

[Evenreven]

Do you have a problem with episode 13? I'm asking because I think that's the clearest pointer of what the later second season could have been like had the Audrey/Cooper story been allowed to flow. Even though it feels slightly different than the first season, I don't mind it much, nor do I mind much else from the first eight episodes. I like Harold Smith too. Ernie Niles is the first dud, I think. Apart from some weak lighting and directorial choices in episode 12 - and even that one has greatness, like Donna's telling Harold stories - I can't really find much to dislike in the first eight at all.

(In fact, some of my what I'm most unsure about are Lynch's touches. Briggs's print-out, and the Giant actually taking the ring (not in the script, if I recall) thus going from strange to supernatural - a very important step.)

[Audrey Horne]

yes, even's back!!!

sorry, my life has been upside down the oast few months, but getting back into the TP world slowly but surely.

reviewing this thread and all the loose ends before carefully going forward.

still the most fun I've had on the internet!

[Evenreven]

I'm getting back to the scripts project now. I found some lines in episode 2x08 and 2x09 I had completely forgotten about. Like Catherine putting on her mustache again for fun, and saying "where the buffaro roam" in the voice of Tojamura. It's really more of a Pete line ("two-by-fours... four-by-eights...") than a Catherine line, and I kinda like that. The reveal in episode 14 is perfection - "And brue as the open sky" - and it seems that Catherine is really enjoying dressing up. I like what few weird touches Catherine shows.