TV Views - Twin Peaks revisited

I STILL remember watching Twin Peaks when I was in university. It was a huge global TV event back then, when ‘being connected’ meant having a telephone in your home.
It was a time when there were only three TV channels. Not sure which one carried the show, but I could remember being riveted by the storyline, which revolved around a question: “Who killed Laura Palmer?”
I also remember the hauntingly romantic yet ominious opening score, a brilliant guitar-driven piece by Angelo Badalamenti.
The series was created by Mark Frost and David Lynch, with the latter being the prime moving force as its director.
Set in a fictional town called Twin Peaks, the series follows an investigation by coffee-and-cherry pie-loving FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) into the murder of homecoming queen Palmer (Sheryl Lee).
Cooper has to sift through many suspects, each with some connection to the murdered girl, and each with his or her own secrets to hide.
One of the most interesting characters was a cross-dressing undercover agent played by David Duchovny, who later found international stardom playing FBI Agent Fox Mulder in the hit TV series, The X-Files.
Twin Peaks also boasted one of the most mysterious villains of all time – Killer Bob – who leaves us wondering whether he is a figment of someone’s imagination, or is actually a demonic entity.
The series combined drama with surreal elements like talking in reverse, a dwarf in a red suit, cryptic giants, and getting transported to strange places, among others.
Though many remember the eight episodes in season one as being brilliant, season two (which ran for 21 episodes) was a letdown, with the plot heading in far too many directions.
Declining ratings soon forced the series to be cancelled in 1991.
A subsequent Lynch-directed feature film, Twin Peaks: Walk Fire with Me, which was meant to serve as the prequel to the series, also tanked.
Still, the allure of Twin Peaks has withstood the test of time, and recently, the town was revisited in a new limited series, Twin Peaks: The Return.
Set in the present day, The Return picks up 25 years after the events of the second season, in which Agent Cooper was left trapped in the Black Lodge.
This 18-episode series first premiered in the US in May, and has since aired eight episodes of the show.
Twin Peaks: The Return will premiere on Fox (Astro channel 722) here this Sunday with a special catch-up marathon of all first eight episodes back-to-back starting at 1.30pm.
Subsequent episodes of The Return will then be screened on the same day as in the US every Monday starting on July 10 at 9pm.
As a limited series, Twin Peaks: The Return could either be a success like the recent The X-Files (a series that has been compared to Twin Peaks in the past), or a big failure like Heroes Reborn.
Still, it is good to see the return of key characters from the original show, especially MacLachlan’s Cooper.
While it may no longer have the same ‘global event’ feel as the original series, Twin Peaks: The Return has so far garnered good reviews in the US and may be worth a watch.