Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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JackwithOneEye
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

Post by JackwithOneEye »

I watched Twin Peaks in 90-91 on ABC.

i was in 7th grade, and my memory is that there were virtually no viewers left who wanted to watch ep 28/29 when it aired as a 2 hr movie.
i remember writing a letter to Bob Iger asking him not to cancel it, that I typed up on like an Apple IIe or something. There was fan club called COOP and a physical newsletter called The Twin Peaks Gazette that I subscribed to, which encouraged you to write letters to ABC.

I seem to remember there was one girl in my social studies class who was interested in TP during the Palmer mystery, who I tried to get to write a letter, but I think she mighta bailed towards the end.

It was off the air already for a month or so by the time ep 28/29 came around, ABC had moved it from saturday back to thursday in the spring (around ep24 maybe), and then just took it off altogether. I do remember ABC airing ad's that promised answers to things like what the white lodge was, and stuff like that. they tried to make an advertising campaign work around the Windom Earle storyline, but at least in the community I was around at the time, Beverly Hills 90210 was the show everyone wanted to talk about, which was airing on Thursday night at the time.
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Jonah
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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Mr. Reindeer wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:33 pm Jonah— Came across this old post and thought of you. ;)

https://alttvtwinpeaks.com/ep25/1991040 ... ks)-150277
Image
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Jonah
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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Mr. Reindeer wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 3:40 pm Here’s one example: https://alttvtwinpeaks.com/ep28/1991061 ... one-148437

I’ll say that this wasn’t necessarily emblematic of the overall immediate reaction (which seems to be positive-ish). But it’s crazy to me that this was anyone’s takeaway from E29.
Jonah wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 3:59 pm I wonder if that person would later be one of the ones complaining about LOST or GOT.

In the midst of his complaints, I did pick out some interesting tidbits, though. So they knew a movie was forthcoming but the show was cancelled? Interesting. Another reason people were probably geared up early on to expect FWWM to directly follow on from that cliffhanger.

Does he/she make a good point about Bob no longer needing a host yet taking over Coop? Or is that coming from nowhere? I'm not sure if the show spelled out that he no longer needed a host unless it was the ending of Episode 27 that implied that.

Interesting too that people apparently predicted what the last shot of the series would be.
Reading through this comment again, I realised they had been waiting a couple of months for the finale - which ABC aired in the summer - and probably weeks and weeks between certain episodes, and ABC probably heavily billed this as conclusion, a finale that would answer all questions. They said they didn't expect all the loose ends to be tied up but ABC probably did bill it in a way that made people think it would be a more conclusive ending.

I wonder if this person ever changed their opinion. My own thoughts on Part 18 of The Return were initially quite negative. I later revised them but left the original comment up to show how an episode, particularly a final episode of something, can lead to such strong feelings and sometimes initial very negative feelings. I believe my initial reaction to the end of LOST was also a bit more negative - I cried when Jack closed his eyes but felt the church scene was too cheesy, thoughts I no longer feel. But my opinion on Part 18 (not 17) was very negative.

So this person could very well have changed their mind on rewatch not long later - and maybe considers Episode 29 a masterpiece by now. Or at least no longer hates it.

I also wonder how many people in the Profoundly Disappointed Support Group on here have either come around on The Return or at least no longer feel very critical of it. (Edit - started a poll: http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 86#p126686) I was someone who always fell between both camps, a mixture of disappointment (but never profoundly disappointed) and a longing for the original 90's series, and trying to appreciate The Return (which I called "The David Lynch Variety Show") for what it was. I still feel the same way, my appreciate for The Return has grown/is growing, but I still vastly prefer the original series, but try to appreciate the newer show for the parts I think are brilliant.
Last edited by Jonah on Sat May 01, 2021 12:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Jonah
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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Here's my original thoughts about Part 18 (which I had updated with a comment - a retraction of sorts loL! - after rewatching a couple of years later:
http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... RS#p107305

It's pretty much as negative, if not moreso than the old post on Episode 29. I began with "Ugh. It was just awful. Single-handedly the worst episode of any TV show I've ever seen. The worst finale ever." !!

I softened a good bit on rewatches:

http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... RS#p117774

http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... RS#p121131

(This probably all fits better in the Usenet Archive thread but the discussion about these old posts started here.)
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Apart from forcing them to reveal the killer, did the network/studio really have much negative influence on them?

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Apart from forcing them to reveal the killer, did the network/studio really have much negative influence on them? Or could Lynch and Frost pretty much do what they wanted?

There tends to be a consensus that ABC had a pretty big negative influence over Lynch and Frost and that the best episodes of the original series of Twin Peaks are a great example of art being created under negative influence or restraints, whereas with The Return Lynch and Frost had complete free reign and artistic freedom.

But I've also heard that, because Lynch and Frost owned the rights to the show, they could pretty much do what they wanted with the original series.

I don't mean to dismiss the fact that they were forced to reveal the killer in Season 2 as a minor thing because obviously it's a major thing and I understand the concept of giving up the golden goose. Having said that, were they actually forced to do it or was it just heavily suggested? And also I'm of the opinion had they not revealed the killer, the audience would have tuned out anyway, maybe even moreso.

Aside from that one issue, was there much network/studio interference, a lot of notes, telling them to pull back on certain weirdness, etc?

I understand that because they were on prime time network television they had to abide by certain rules that every other show had to as well - no nudity, no cursing, perhaps less violence.

Are those the two main issues - the reveal of the killer and standard network censorship - that the original series faced or were there more issues?

As for The Return, apart from the initial dispute over the budget and length, were there any notes/creative pressure or influence from Showtime, limits on violence etc., or were they actually given free reign?

I think Lynch and Frost had a lot of free reign on both series, more on the revival obviously, but from what I can see they had a lot of free reign on the original series, even more than other shows of the day, apart from the issues mentioned above.
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Re: Apart from forcing them to reveal the killer, did the network/studio really have much negative influence on them?

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

They could do whatever they wanted, as far as I’ve ever read. The network could give censor notes (they didn’t like the “little Elvis” line, which was how Elvis reportedly referred to his penis, so the writers added the little doll to make it silly/weird and the network was OK with it). The story I remember reading is that Frost ultimately sided with the network against Lynch in supporting the killer reveal, and later expressed regret (such as in the intro to the 2011 edition of TSDoLP, where he says, “We allowed their fears to become our fears” or something like that). It would have been interesting if they’d flat out refused. I wonder if ABC could have forced their hands by threatening cancelation or something.

I think the general consensus is that whatever narrative issues existed with the show weren’t really ABC’s fault for the most part, killer reveal aside. They were however clearly responsible for the multiple awful time slots.
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Re: Apart from forcing them to reveal the killer, did the network/studio really have much negative influence on them?

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That's true - the awful time slots, plus the ultimate cancellation. ABC sucks for that and for forcing their hand on the killer reveal, but seems like they (surprisingly for the time) gave them a lot of freedom otherwise. It's weird that they ultimately cancelled it in the end, rather than giving it one more shot - for Season 3 - considering they seemed relatively open-minded otherwise. I know it was a business decision and ratings were down, but I still - as I said in the other thread - think they could have turned the ship around, at least for awhile. They had a hot property on their hands, a bit of tweaking, a steadier timeslot, stronger commitment from Lynch and Frost, and Season 3 could have been a surprise hit!

The Elvis thing is funny and a small thing, plus it gave that little figure which I think makes it funnier.

The killer reveal, though.... While it does suck that ABC forced it if that's what they didn't want to do, I can't imagine the show without it. Episode 14 is one of the very best episodes of the show. The last 20 minutes or so of that episode has the best scenes in Lynch's work - not just the Maddy sequence, but the closing scene in the roadhouse. It's all sublime. I can't imagine missing out on that. Also, while I do like the idea of an unsolved murder mystery in the background of a show, I think it's only something that sounds good as a concept - and the Laura Palmer thing was just too big to go unsolved imo.

I don't think revealing the killer was what killed the show. I think the reveal would always give the show a bit of a hit because it was built so much around it (her picture in the closing credits and the promos/marketing even when the show tried to delve into other areas). But not revealing it would have turned viewers increasingly off. At most, I think they could have gotten away with only for the rest of that season, with a reveal needed by the end.

I think what killed the show as not having a strong enough second story to instantly jump into and it's also weird it took them so long to work up to that, given that they already had Windom Earle being mentioned. They just needed to dive into it quicker. Also, the choice to make the show super light and sitcomy and ridiculous was and remains a very odd one, to go from that darkness to that level of lightness/silliness was jarring. I always thought they did this as they wanted to move away from the darkness in case it was putting viewers off, but they were always going to bring it back to a darkish/thriller plot with the Earle character anyway (maybe not as dark as Episode 29, but the original scripts were still thriller/horror-ish). So it seems odd they went so silly in those middle episodes - it almost seems like the writers were having fun with being ridiculous or trying to sabotage the show. (But Lynch and Frost seemed okay with that! More on that in a bit.)

Also, another weird thing - apart from the Earle storyline, they seemed to have a perfect story to dive right into at the end of Episode 16 - Bob is on the loose and going to possess someone else. That could have been really compelling, seeing him jump to another couple of hosts, kept the murder mystery alive but changed it to a "Who is Bob?" type of thing, making all the non-Leland characters suspects again, and giving us suspense, maybe even another murder or two. Even if they were ultimately building to the Cooper possession reveal, that would have been a better way to get there. The fact that they set this up then dropped it almost entirely until Episodes 27-29 is strange. That subplot without even the Earle one would have been exciting TV. Add both of them (but make Earle less cartoonish) and you've got two very compelling storylines that could easily rival the Laura Palmer one! Instead, they threw all of that away and dovetailed into a series of bizarre, inconsequential, and downright childish and silly plotlines which surely was even more effort in some ways to come up with than just following what they'd already set up. I'll never understand that choice.

I think Lynch and Frost have to shoulder a lot of the blame (and I don't see this being discussed enough frankly) for stepping away from the project, not being more hands on until it was too late (though, as I've said, I believe they would have stepped back up in Season 3 as they were very upset the show was going to be cancelled). I'll always wonder why they were so quick to kind of wander away from the show, leave it in other's hands, especially Frost. I know about Storyville, and I know maybe he thought it would be cancelled anyway and needed to work on other projects while he got the chance, but Peaks was a major worldwide hit, it seems weird how quickly they wandered away from it/left it in other's hands. Lynch even said he liked Episode 22! So it's not like they weren't aware of the quality of the mid-Season 2 slump, they seemed fine with it.

I understand that Lynch wasn't really the right personality type to be a very hands on showrunner and I know he still called in with input (such as the Josie drawer pull suggestion), that he had other artistic interests, but I'm still surprised he and Frost seemed okay with the weaker episodes. If they'd had been even slightly more hands on and suggested those plotlines above rather than the weaker episodes, the show might have been saved for another season or two. I think there still would have been a large portion of people who tuned out after the Laura Palmer reveal, but not nearly as many - I think a decent amount would have stuck with the show. Then in the next season, the Cooper possessed storyline and maybe another murder mystery would have given people a reason to watch. I'm not sure beyond that.
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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I was reading about China Beach. Apparently, it was never a ratings hit (don't know the numbers, but they must have been lower than Peaks if it was never a hit as TP was initially) but because it was a critical darling/award winner, ABC kept it going for 4 seasons amounting to a total of 61 episodes. Perhaps if TP had stayed a critical darling too they might have kept it going but it did win awards so I'm still surprised (as I've said numerous times) they didn't give it another season or two, at least one more.
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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Jonah wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 3:02 pm I was reading about China Beach. Apparently, it was never a ratings hit (don't know the numbers, but they must have been lower than Peaks if it was never a hit as TP was initially) but because it was a critical darling/award winner, ABC kept it going for 4 seasons amounting to a total of 61 episodes. Perhaps if TP had stayed a critical darling too they might have kept it going but it did win awards so I'm still surprised (as I've said numerous times) they didn't give it another season or two, at least one more.
China Beach carried quite a bit of prestige, was always up for multiple awards, and Bob Iger’s mom really loved the show. I think anyone who has seen the last season of CB (which was the lead-in to TP on Saturday) would agree it was every bit as inventive and challenging - perhaps even moreso! - than TP s2. It did not survive the Saturday move either.

The Saturday move is a cruel “what if.” Maybe TP would have survived a week night slot, or maybe there would have been more fan backlash with a bigger audience? Really tough to say. There were obviously still millions tuning in, devoted to the product, but the drop off and declining viewer engagement speaks for itself. This is merely my educated guess, but ratings aside, TP was a property ABC just didn’t want to deal with another year.
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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Brad D wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 6:36 pm
Jonah wrote: Wed May 12, 2021 3:02 pm I was reading about China Beach. Apparently, it was never a ratings hit (don't know the numbers, but they must have been lower than Peaks if it was never a hit as TP was initially) but because it was a critical darling/award winner, ABC kept it going for 4 seasons amounting to a total of 61 episodes. Perhaps if TP had stayed a critical darling too they might have kept it going but it did win awards so I'm still surprised (as I've said numerous times) they didn't give it another season or two, at least one more.
China Beach carried quite a bit of prestige, was always up for multiple awards, and Bob Iger’s mom really loved the show. I think anyone who has seen the last season of CB (which was the lead-in to TP on Saturday) would agree it was every bit as inventive and challenging - perhaps even moreso! - than TP s2. It did not survive the Saturday move either.

The Saturday move is a cruel “what if.” Maybe TP would have survived a week night slot, or maybe there would have been more fan backlash with a bigger audience? Really tough to say. There were obviously still millions tuning in, devoted to the product, but the drop off and declining viewer engagement speaks for itself. This is merely my educated guess, but ratings aside, TP was a property ABC just didn’t want to deal with another year.
I only started rewatching it, having not really seen it since I was a kid. Also been watching Wings and some Northern Exposure (both of which I've seen the full way through as an adult, though it's been several years with NE). Love early 90's shows. I don't know much about the later seasons of China Beach, only that they started showing future timelines. Did the Gulf War affect its ratings too - was it shuffled around on the schedule and pre-empted like TP was? I know that, according to Wikipedia, the last few episodes of the final season didn't air until summer 1991, like the last two episodes of TP, but I think that was more because it was cancelled, wonder if the Gulf War led to ABC finally pulling the plug and affected both shows/ratings, even if they had been planning to cancel CE for awhile. Still surprised they made such a definitive move on TP only after 2 (or 1.5) seasons.

Some interesting comments from Iger about the move to Saturday night, that some reddit commentators point out the flaws in the rationale. He also discusses his reasoning behind wanting a resoltuon to the Laura Palmer mystery, saying he felt viewers were frustrated and so was he, but is no longer convinced he made the right decision and that Lynch was proabably right. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comm ... ynch_from/
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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Jonah, if memory serves correct, CB was on hiatus for six months, and kind of aired that last season in two big chunks. If you love early 90s tv, the fourth season is just incredible. Acting, writing, direction, and the historical significance to Vietnam is just a tour de force like no other.

The third season has some incredible moments, but almost burned itself out w 22 eps, much like TP. Making an ambitious show to cover that many hours is a recipe for disaster. A 13 ep season of TP might have given the original run more juice... but would you chance it, never getting the s2 finale?
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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Just hypothetically, I wonder if had the show not revealed the killer when it did, would Peaks have gotten repetitive and predictable with a new "Did character (x) kill Laura?" arc every couple of episodes..?

I don't think the fact that they revealed it was the problem, more so the rushed nature of eps 14-16 (specifically episode 16), and the abrupt way episode 17 shies away from the fallout.
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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TheArm wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2009 4:00 am I've never quite understood this and wondered if anyone had any insight. I always feel like a lot of time and energy in the TP fan community is spent on pinpointing all of the creative failures in Season 2 that led to its cancellation, and I've never really felt it's quite fair to the writers/producers. While I will happily admit that the show hits major creative problems midway through the second season (Evelyn, Lana, Little Nicky, Super Nadine goes back to high school, Crazy Ben reenacts the Civil War, the Pine Weasel, splitting up Cooper & Audrey, etc.), I also don't think TP's second season is so godawful that it warranted being cancelled, especially since I think they managed to course-correct by the end of the season.

....

Its first season couldn't have been more successful and it ended with heaps of accolades, a slew of Emmy nominations (after only 8 episodes), and was an international cult phenomenon. And yet just as the first season was ending and ABC announced its renewal, they also announced at the same time that they were moving the show to Saturdays, a move that even at the time I felt was a fairly obvious plot to kill it. Given its serial nature and how very complicated it was, clearly it was a show that needed nurturing, and it felt like ABC gave up on the show at the height of its success.

----
Another weird thing about ABC cancelling the show so relatively quickly and not giving it at least one more season to pick up, it just occurred to me that it won Golden Globes in its second season. Not only was it nominated for lots of Emmys in its first season, but it actually won Best Television Drama at the Globes in 1991 (plus actor and actress wins too) mere months before ABC cancelled it. Given its ratings hadn't slipped that badly (they were down a lot but 7.4 - 10 million people were still tuning in on average) and all these accolades, it still puzzles me, despite all we've discussed in this thread.

Season 2, despite its stumbles, was an award winner just like Season 1. So the above post is correct - it really still was at the height of its success in many ways, even if the ratings were down and there was still some backlash, it wasn't at the very bottom of its run by any means, it had just won Best Television Drama four months before cancellation, still very much a new show only on the air for a year, with a bad run of episodes behind it but still very much successful with the possibility of greater success (in my opinion) when ABC hastily (again, in my opinion) cancelled it prematurely. We tend to think it was at the end of its run and the critical reviews and ratings were so poor there was no choice to cancel it, but that's not true - it had just had a bit of a bad run it had already pulled out of. I'm still really surprised the Golden Globe win came in the second year, I think I had thought it was during the first season. Brad mentioned above that part of the reason ABC kept China Beach on the air (apart from Bob Iger's mother loving it) was because it was an awards darling, but looking back, so was Twin Peaks. I think Iger even said later he regretted cancelling it (he definitely said he regretted forcing Lynch to reveal the killer, though I think that was necessary). So yeah, just me saying what I keep saying in this thread - I just continued to be surprised they didn't give it a Season 3 back then, given the accolades at least.
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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Wasn't the Golden Globe win for the first season, though? I'm quite certain it was. The Globes air at the beginning of a year, and so an award in 1991 would be for a season in 1990. I know Twin Peaks began its second season in 1990, but the Globe was almost certainly for the first season, also 1990. The Globes in 1990 would have been honoring programs from 1989, which is why Peaks wasn't nominated for anything in 1990. There's no way to spin Season 2 other than as a failure at the time it aired, critically, publicly, etc...which is unfortunately why there was no third season.
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Re: Why exactly did ABC treat the show so badly?

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Well, I don't think there's any need to spin it as anything, but I still think the show was a success. Even the bad critical reviews didn't really start until FWWM. The Globes were in January, the show won Best Drama only four months before it was cancelled, whether the awards were for the first or second season doesn't matter in that ABC still had an award-winning show on their hands that had just bagged one of the biggest awards at the Globes.

The reviews for the first several episodes were good, the ratings were down but they only started going down gradually, and only after the six-week break after Episode 23 aired (they didn't go down that much during the notorious weak stretch). Point being, the show was still relatively new, had bagged a lot of awards, but was cancelled due to a rough stretch. Even before then, ABC had shifted it to Saturday, then pre-empted it a lot due to coverage of the Gulf War, so it still begs the question the thread poses - why did ABC treat the show so badly? And cancel it so quickly? I don't think we can peg it just due to the murder being solved (which Iger later admitted was a mistake) or the weak stretch of episodes.

I still think there was enough juice there for another few seasons, one more at the very least. And ABC had kept China Beach going. Considering TP had just bagged Best Drama (even if it was technically for the first season, they bagged the award in 1991 meaning it was for that year, when a third season would have aired), I think they could have given Frost/Lynch (who were both willing to get back on board, as evinced by their Coop interview) another chance, given them a better timeslot, insisted maybe on a new mystery, and heavily billed the show as an award-winner.

Point being - with a little bit of work, they could have potentially turned it into a hit again - and if it hadn't worked, they could have at least tried, when they've been known to keep other shows with less ratings and less success afloat until they took off. I mean, TP was huge, incredibly huge, it was a global hit before the backlash, but I think it could still have been turned around. The real backlash only settled with FWWM (I know there was some before this, the audience was tired of no reveal, etc., but it wasn't that extreme yet, and people were still tuning in - even during the weak stretch!).

Anyway, I've said all this before so I'm just repeating myself now. I just think ABC pulled the gun too quick and treated the show fairly shoddily from the start, and I think Frost said they never liked it or believe in it enough to begin with - I think he said they were "uncomfortable" with it?
Last edited by Jonah on Mon May 24, 2021 11:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
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