Postby Agent Earle » Fri May 18, 2018 1:12 am
Dear Mr. Reindeer - always so gracious and insightful. You once again nailed it with your speculation about the nature of my "Santa Claus" post - that is exactly what I meant. Reading your and some of the other S3 lovers' (Needleman's, for instance) comments about the season, I'm almost compelled to give it another shot, that's how good you make its intentions and mechanisms sound. Trouble is, I've got a nagging feeling that a lot of it is you ascribing to it things that just weren't there or, better, are so poorly conveyed that they might as well not be; and since the viewer, a fan of certain property in particular, is inclined to strive to make sense out of what is on the screen, he comes up with a theory that sheds positive light on the show no matter what. Don't get me wrong, theorizing about a beloved show/movie/book/whatnot is certainly a fan and fun thing to do, and Lynch in particular is well known for encouraging it, but in order for it to be, at the end of the day, meaningful and satisfying, there has to exist a strong enough groundwork provided by the creator. It's in this respect that I find TP: S3 to be grossly lacking - to me, it comes across as one giant rigamarole of loosely/un- connected fragments of not-quite storylines, half-ideas and wannabe concepts, where the majority of characters are swimming in a vast universe completely independent/unaware of one another, so much so that they might as well be inhabiting different shows. That was never the case with the original show, for all its multi-writer, multi-director, multi-showrunner, behind-the-scenes-meddling shenanigans and exotically different tones - you always felt that these characters are all a part of one living, breathing, functioning entity, a part of wonderfully, if secretly cohesive world, universe, tapestry. A poster earlier in this thread (I think it was WhiteLodge something) described it beautifully in his long reflection in which he speaks of poor treatment of the show's returning characters - playing off one another before, they're now confined to their single for-lack-of-a-better-term "storyline" for the whole duration of the show. It's like a product of a creative writing school, where a class of future writers were given the assignment to each come up with a story for one of the existing TP characters separately ("Write a scene in which you 'catch up' with TP character AB after 25 years and see what he/she might be doing now"), ie. without the knowledge of a classmate's work. The resulting effort would be not unlike chaos we've witnessed in the official S3: some of it good, some of it bad, some of it even brilliant, but on the whole, not a work where the original creators had a good number of years to come up with a compact, thought-out narrative that would respect what came before and lift in on the whole new quality level. A lot of the "unconnected" feeling comes not only from the script, I gather, but from the way Lynch decided to pull off the third season in, that is by keeping everything under maximum secrecy and maintaining conditions in which the actors didn't have a clue about the bigger picture, and not one actor (including MacLachlan, who in recent interviews seems a tad surprised with what ended up on the screen at the end of the day) knew just what in the Sam hill it is he/she's supposed to be a part of. Hell, even now, months after the show concluded, they still collectively choose their words when it comes to describing the evolution and intentions of the production. One would think at least some of it (how they've come to shape this exact story, what went on during the endless production process, what was left out and what shoved in on behalf of "outside" circumstances and what on behalf of preexisiting storytellers' intentions), would find its way onto the BluRay special features, but no - another missed opportunity. I hope at least a book detailing it all (like Brad Dukes' Reflections) materializes at some point.
Which brings me to NormoftheAndes' response: I hope what I just wrote makes it clear I was not trolling. I'm sorry if my cynical comment offended you in any way as that was not my intention. I'm not hiding the new season of my beloved show has left me disappointed, perhaps even profoundly, and I'm at a point where listening to fans trying to make sense of it all makes me tired and depressed, yet I'm unable to look away and part from it all, not just yet, anyhow. For what it's worth, I always try to avoid argumentation ad hominem during my ramblings here, and it never crossed my mind to label the show's creators as dishonest, ill-intentioned, senile etc. (though I'll admit Lynch trashing S2 just prior to the S3 premiere didn't make me any greater fan of his, to put it extremely politely) - I truly think what they gave us comes from their genuine creative process where they followed their muse and who they are as creators at the moment. It just wasn't (good enough) for me. I'd never go as far as some of the disappointed ones (Gabriel, sylvia_north ...) did, that is chucking out all my TP stuff, as TP's been an integral part of my life, of me, even, for too long. If a continuation of it ever happens (you make a good point with Lynch's comments about a "bronze" and "golden age"), I'll certainly give it a whirl, although I realize a return to the original creative recipe (a pinch of Engels & Peyton, for instance) is a pipe dream.
P.S.: Sorry for any grammatical errors, English is not my first language, and I have to work with what I have.
Last edited by
Agent Earle on Fri May 18, 2018 1:39 am, edited 3 times in total.