Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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harmolodic wrote:Brad--as a former English professor and a current publisher, I just want to say--your book is superb. I think I read somewhere that you self-published; if that's the case, it's one of the best self-published titles I've ever seen. Not only is the writing quality excellent, but the editing, design, layout, binding, and printing are top-notch. A true landmark in the publishing history of Twin Peaks scholarship.

And now that I know I can get the Kindle edition as well, I'll be double dipping!
Wow! Thanks! Yeah, it is a self-publication. A tiny handful of people helped me pull it off, aside from the interview participants. I really appreciate your kind words! It was a true labor of love.
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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Ross wrote:The most interesting thing about all of it is that the turn against the show by many critics and viewers is not where, or because of what people would think today. Most of the arguments today are that the series resolved the killer too soon, and this coupled with Lynch's absence, killed the show. And while perhaps arguments about actual quality can be made based on these today, they are not what actually happened back then. In fact, much of the backlash started with the two LYNCH DIRECTED episodes that stated season two.
Exactly. I actually recently showed my own father the clip of the waiter/giant from the start of season 2, and even watching a 7-minute clip on YouTube he lost patience and couldn't make it through! I actually find that part hilarious & absorbing but later parts of the episode due feel a bit mired in exposition. It's an interesting thought experiment to consider how season 2 would have been received if Steven Spielberg actually directed the premiere (as was in the cards). Not necessarily in terms of quality, just how people took it. Or would he have gotten mired in the backlash as well? It definitely seems like no other episode was as crucial to the fate of Twin Peaks (except, I guess, the pilot in a positive way).
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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I think season two should have commenced with a regular length episode. Nothing really happened to justify it as a feature.
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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Ross wrote:Once people thought answers weren't on the way, they stopped caring.
This is another thing I've always wondered...why not just announce that the killer will be revealed on Nov. 10? At least then viewers can't complain the journey has no destination. I guess I understand the initial reservation, however risky - you don't want to inadvertently encourage the audience to tune out for six weeks (i.e. nothing big will be revealed until then) but once ratings were falling and critics were grumbling, wouldn't it have been wise to counteract the CW?

From what I understand, at the end of October the upcoming reveal was advertised but I wonder if prepping people a few weeks earlier would have been wise. Or perhaps the writing was already on the wall.
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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LostInTheMovies wrote:
Ross wrote:Once people thought answers weren't on the way, they stopped caring.
This is another thing I've always wondered...why not just announce that the killer will be revealed on Nov. 10? At least then viewers can't complain the journey has no destination. I guess I understand the initial reservation, however risky - you don't want to inadvertently encourage the audience to tune out for six weeks (i.e. nothing big will be revealed until then) but once ratings were falling and critics were grumbling, wouldn't it have been wise to counteract the CW?

From what I understand, at the end of October the upcoming reveal was advertised but I wonder if prepping people a few weeks earlier would have been wise. Or perhaps the writing was already on the wall.
I'd have to go back and read some of the newspaper clippings I have (I collected everything TP at the time), but I seem to remember that it WAS at least hinted at the season's beginning that the killer would be revealed sometime mid-season.
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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Anyone have the Monica Collins TV Guide article that was published around the time of the Laura resolution? I'd love to read it.

On another note, while looking for that I stumbled across the alt.tv.twin-peaks archives. I knew they were out there and had stumbled across some of them occasionally but had kind of forgotten about them. Gonna have to dive into these especially since I'm so fascinated by contemporaneous reaction to the show.
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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Ross wrote:I'd have to go back and read some of the newspaper clippings I have (I collected everything TP at the time), but I seem to remember that it WAS at least hinted at the season's beginning that the killer would be revealed sometime mid-season.
And yet people kept complaining the show was going nowhere - weird. I guess it was "Boy Who Cried Wolf?" syndrome and they simply didn't believe?
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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LostInTheMovies wrote:The next two, the Cooper autobiography (My Life, My Tapes by Scott Frost again) and the Access Guide to Twin Peaks (apparently written by a guy who wrote Access Guides to real places), are mentioned as future projects in that Behind-the-Scenes book from December '90. According to Amazon they were not published until the show was pretty much done: the bio in early May and the guide in early June, when all that remained to air was the two final episodes, shelved during sweeps and packaged together as a Monday movie-of-the-week in mid-June. So it seems fair to say they missed their intended purpose of shoring up the show's popularity at the end of a rough season. I'm not sure if they were widely reviewed (the series was no longer really considered news, unlike when the Diary was released) or how they sold - if the enthusiasm of remaining Peaks fans was enough to make them profitable. Anyone who was a fan at the time have a take on that?

Anyway, I've been really getting into the spin-off stuff lately. I haven't read the Access Guide yet but have it on hand and will soon. My feeling is that, if I'm making my way through Twin Peaks "in order" I'd pause for both the Diary & the tapes after the premiere (thiugh the Diary came out before, I think the first flashback to Laura's murder makes a good segue, better than Cooper being shot anyway). And I'd prefer to read the autobiography and the guide after the Josie drawer pull episode, as I think both books make a good segue into the more energetic and tightly-wound final episodes (Annie, Windom's Lodge plan, and the Miss Twin Peaks contest all emerge, if I'm not mistaken, in the next couple episode). Reading books about Coop's backstory and a comprehensive sense of the TP community seems perfect at this point, even if they actually came out just before the series climax.
Reading the Autobiography in between ep 23 (drawer pull ep.) & 24 is what I would suggest as well. Actually TP easily splits into four parts for me; Season 1, eps 8 thru 16 (End of Laura story), eps 17 thru 23 (up to the hiatus), and eps 24 thru 29 (final six). And the autobiography actually DID come out around that time. I have the USA Today article on the shows' return from hiatus (on March 28, 91) for the last six eps. And it includes a (very good) review for the Autobiography which it says "will be released early next week" (so beginning of April).
Reading it after ep 21 (Windom's first appearance) works as well.
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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Ross wrote:And the autobiography actually DID come out around that time. I have the USA Today article on the shows' return from hiatus (on March 28, 91) for the last six eps. And it includes a (very good) review for the Autobiography which it says "will be released early next week" (so beginning of April).
That makes so much more sense to me...I was wondering why I would come out so late in the season. Yet all I could find was the Amazon edition which placed it on May 1 (probably the paperback edition? or just someone misdating it?).
Ross wrote:Actually TP easily splits into four parts for me; Season 1, eps 8 thru 16 (End of Laura story), eps 17 thru 23 (up to the hiatus), and eps 24 thru 29 (final six).
Loved seeing the "welcome back to Twin Peaks"-type bumper at the beginning of episode 24 on the blu-ray!

I see the breakdown much the same. I'm planning an eventual post - tentatively scheduled for the 25th anniversary next year - in which I offer up my thoughts on the whole Twin Peaks saga alongside some context. I plan to take it section-by-section in exactly the way you split it, except I'll also discuss the pilot, the season two premiere, and the finale in isolation as well (as well as the deleted scenes, the published miscellany, the Log Lady intros, and of course FWWM).

I haven't figured out yet if I want to isolate the finale as a 2-parter or just the Lynch episode. Obviously Lynch's entry pretty much stands on its own today as the finishing touch on the series but - even though I'm not really a big fan of the Miss Twin Peaks episode (even LOVING that Windom Earle-black teeth moment early on) - I think #28 creates an interesting lead-in to #29, both narratively (sort of like #6 leads in to #7) but also thematically. There are a lot of elements, like the Twin Peaks ladies dancing while "wrapped in plastic" (raincoats, of course), and the Log Lady literally disappearing from the shot only to be "replaced" by Windom Earle in drag, which feel almost like (unintentional?) meta-commentary on some of the missteps the show had made after resolving the Laura mystery. It provides an appropriate build-up to #29's crescendo in which the teleplay and Lynch's direction virtually lay waste the town. Also, the final montage of #27 certainly feels like the end of "something."

So I'll probably break down my analysis like so, with the main parts of the narrative in caps (yeah, at this point I consider The Missing Pieces a major part of the overall narrative!). I also think this makes a fairly nifty viewing order for returning Twin Peaks fans. I'd tentatively offer it to newbies as well but advising them to watch deleted scenes before the feature has proven, ahem, controversial so maybe I should keep that opinion to myself for a while (oops too late! ;) ). Obviously my overview will not be entirely chronological, in terms of creation anyway:

Atmospherics (just such a great entry into the world of Twin Peaks...)

Log Lady intros (w/ particular focus on the first)

THE PILOT

SEASON ONE (with emphasis on two arcs: 1-3, as Coop settles into the town and Laura is buried & 4-7 as several investigations, amateur and professional alike, kick into gear)

SEASON TWO PREMIERE

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer

(maybe the Diane tapes)

SEASON TWO: EP. 9-16 (with emphasis on two arcs: 9-12, as the two branches of the Laura mystery are intercut with the Audrey-One Eyed Jacks storyline, and 13-16 in which virtually all the narrative emphasis is put upon the resolution of the Laura mystery; I'd considered placing #15 & #16 with the subsequent episodes since even though they deal with the outcome of the Laura investigation they feel like the beginning of a general retreat which takes full-force in #17...but on re-watching them recently I think for all their flaws, they still feel very much of a piece with the rest of the Laura/Leland arc; ep. 16 in particular has threads and questions which will be picked up in FWWM even if I think the episode sometimes mishandles them)

SEASON TWO: EP. 17-23 (I've seen people place ep. 23 with the final group of episodes; it does introduce Wheeler and set up Annie and it is the first post-Evelyn episode, but because of Josie's story it feels like the conclusion of the mid-season arc to me, not the start of something new)

The Autobiography of Dale Cooper

(maybe the Access Guide)

SEASON TWO EP. 24-27 (I've also seen people claim ep. 25 is where it REALLY picks up since Coop gets suited up again and Lynch returns as Gordon Cole - plus ep. 24 has the infamous Pine Weasel riot; but 24 also just feels so much fresher to me than the previous episode, and we do meet Annie and get the Log Lady & Maj. Briggs to make some real progress on the Lodge lore for the first time)

THE TWO-PART FINALE (for reasons explained above, though I may change my mind on this)

THE MISSING PIECES (if considered as an actual part of the whole Twin Peaks narrative structure, they ONLY make sense to me here, which both serves as a nice segue between the thematic & stylistic worlds of the show and preserves FWWM as the proper conclusion of the story)

FIRE WALK WITH ME (with emphasis on the 2 parts: the first 40 minutes as our last abandonment of intermediaries in Laura's story, and then the Laura Palmer story as the culmination of what Twin Peaks has been building toward, even when it tries to run in the other direction)

Between Two Worlds

Atmospherics (because, why not? everything in Twin Peaks is cyclical anyway and everyone who finishes watching it always wants to start over at the beginning...)
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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LostInTheMovies wrote:SEASON TWO: EP. 17-23 (I've seen people place ep. 23 with the final group of episodes; it does introduce Wheeler and set up Annie and it is the first post-Evelyn episode, but because of Josie's story it feels like the conclusion of the mid-season arc to me, not the start of something new)
Plus the fact that the hiatus happened here. For those of us who watched during that initial run, there will always be a split here. With those final six eps as a new batch.
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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Ross wrote:
LostInTheMovies wrote:SEASON TWO: EP. 17-23 (I've seen people place ep. 23 with the final group of episodes; it does introduce Wheeler and set up Annie and it is the first post-Evelyn episode, but because of Josie's story it feels like the conclusion of the mid-season arc to me, not the start of something new)
Plus the fact that the hiatus happened here. For those of us who watched during that initial run, there will always be a split here. With those final six eps as a new batch.
Yeah, I've been wondering about that. It feels like a proper place to pause and reboot yet wasn't it just when the network rather arbitrarily decided not to carry the show anymore (until they backed down and let this season finish)? It seems weirdly appropriate (for quality, not just narrative, reasons IMO) that this is where the break took place yet perhaps it's just coincidence.

Also, I know Lynch & Frost were supposedly not too involved at mid-season, but does anyone know precisely when they came back? I know Lynch was not completely MIA during this time (since Brad's book revealed he had an argument with Harley Peyton over the Todd Holland episode - speaking of which, questions within questions, was Catherine Martell not supposed to have that scene with Ben Horne? It's one of my favorite parts of that episode - and also we know he suggested the drawer-pull idea). But did he & Frost really re-intervene around ep. 24? Or was it earlier/later?
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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Ha, more like four of the final six, Ross. Like Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football, it got pulled again and off the air for a month and a half.
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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Audrey Horne wrote:Ha, more like four of the final six, Ross. Like Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football, it got pulled again and off the air for a month and a half.
Yes- this is very true, Audrey. It was so frustrating! :(
Those final six still go together in my mind though.
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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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Re: Interview with Brad Dukes, author of Reflections

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If memory serves correct, Episode 23 was filmed early January 1991 and the series was done filming by mid-March. I don't think (aside from the holidays) there was ever a big break in filming and whether or not they aired, the remaining episodes were still going to be filmed. The ratings bottomed out and the airing hiatus was announced at the end of February... so they were pretty close to the production filming line anyway.
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