Is there anything creepier than the image of the longhaired, denim-on-denim-clad, crazy-eyed, teeth baring Killer BOB crouching behind the bed or climbing over the couch in David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks”? Perhaps the theme music from “Jaws”? The freaks from the new “American Horror Story” trailers? The supernatural dolls in this weekend’s hit “Annabelle”?
Please. Nothing is creepier than BOB.
Whether BOB returns or not, prepare to anxiously bite your nails with “Twin Peaks” once again, courtesy of the show’s creators — David Lynch and Mark Frost — and the Showtime network. That’s right, “Twin Peaks” is back.
After releasing a cryptic double tweet Friday, significant in timing and content for the show’s fans, Mr. Lynch and Mr. Frost said in a Showtime statement Monday: “The mysterious and special world of Twin Peaks is pulling us back. We’re very excited. May the forest be with you.”
The show first aired in 1990, with the pilot gathering 34.6 million viewers and setting out to answer the question: Who killed Laura Palmer, the blond sweetheart of a small, strange town in Washington State? It was canceled after ratings for the second season disappointed.
In 2016, 25 years after the show’s conclusion, “Twin Peaks” will be revived for its third season.
It won’t be a remake, the creators say. But everything else, including potential casting, is behind a veil of mystery, appropriate only for the ultimate whodunit series. (Kyle MacLachlan has hinted on Twitter that he would return to the show.)
The collective reaction to the news was excitement and anticipation, less skepticism. Agent Dale Cooper, played in the show by Mr. MacLachlan, was quoted widely over the past few days, perhaps more widely than any politician or celebrity. And because even “Twin Peaks” can’t escape the 21st century, Agent Cooper’s signature phrase became a hashtag: #damngoodcoffee.
Many recalled how the show was different from anything they had seen before.
It was “the show that brought weirdness to TV,” writes Sarah Crompton at The Telegraph. “In 1990, the first series felt like a revelation and quite often like a trip,” says Ms. Crompton. “It was so damn peculiar, with its curious mixture of brutal murder, swooning visuals, quirky characters and soap opera plotting.”
It was a show that kept you on pins and needles from week to week. I did not watch “Twin Peaks” when it first aired, but my parents vividly recall waiting every week for the show — something just as excruciating as waiting for the next “Game of Thrones” episode is for me. (“I was counting minutes between one episode and next,” my dad told me.)
At Mashable, Josh Dickey says “Twin Peaks” is “an aesthetic, an environment, a state of mind.” Instead of easy answers, “the show brought a delicious dose of unease to the TV screen.”
The show garnered a cultish following over the years, inspiring spinoff books, countless Halloween costumes and a festival of its own. After the news of the reboot broke, sales for the annual Twin Peaks Fest, organized by and for loyal fans since 1993, skyrocketed, Rob Lindley, the festival’s organizer told Op-Talk.
“This is the greatest gift David Lynch and Mark Frost could have given us,” Mr. Lindley said. “We’ve been begging for it for 25 years. Some miracles do come true.”
Very few reacted with the disdain of the Hollywood blogger Jeffrey Wells: “David Lynch is basically admitting he’s run out of ideas that have something to do with the here-and-now … right?” Mr. Wells writes. “The original Twin Peaks series went on too long as it was.”
But many critics say that the show was a trailblazer, a precursor to the contemporary era of highly polished television.
James Poniewozik at Time writes: “When Twin Peaks premiered in 1990, it blew up our notions of what TV could and could not do: it established that TV could be idiosyncratic, could be ambitious, could be art, even, and — at least for a while — could be wildly, commercially successful.”
This legacy was part of the decision to restart the show.
Gary Levine, the executive vice president for original programming at Showtime, told Quartz that the decision was a “no brainer”: “Twin Peaks always did and always will define cool, and that was just too tempting to turn away from.”
But there’s a flip side to the show’s powerful influence on television today. Because “Twin Peaks” paved the way for shows such as “True Detective,” the industry landscape is different.
TV doesn’t need “Twin Peaks” anymore, says Mr. Poniewozik. “Now, there’s less riding on a new Twin Peaks: it can succeed or fail on its own, and TV as an art form will carry on.”
“But I beg you: let yourself get excited,” writes Mr. Poniewozik. And if you think only those who were old enough to watch the show when it first aired will get excited, you are very wrong.
Mr. Lindley told Op-Talk that he has seen a new crop of fans in last years: “25 and under,” he described them. They are attracted by the same qualities that viewers were 25 years ago — the great writing, casting, the relatability of a small town that hides its secrets. “Netflix helps,” Mr. Lindley added.
Writing for BoingBoing, Leigh Alexander disagrees about the show’s appeal to the younger generation. “American audiences are no longer sympathetic to small-town police in this way, and certainly not to fast-talking feds,” Ms. Alexander says.
What makes the show appealing to millennials, Ms. Alexander writes, is rebellion: “There is a certain pleasure in having access to a shared experience that’s resistant to relatability. Let’s be real: Twin Peaks is not an intrinsically inviting program. A modern viewer has to have made the willful and determined decision to watch it.”
For me, that decision is easy. To jump on the bandwagon and quote Agent Cooper: “Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it. Don’t wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men’s store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot black coffee.”
Or an episode or two of “Twin Peaks.”