TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/052190/0521250.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.4 KB | 164 lines

                ['                                                            VIDEO, Page 86

A Sleeper with a Dream


After the eerie Twin Peaks, TV may never be the same again

By RICHARD ZOGLIN -- With reporting by Cristina Garcia and
Denise Worrell/Los Angeles


    Anyone who is still stuck on the question of who killed
Laura Palmer is hopelessly out of date. There are so many
other, newer conundrums in the secret-infested town of Twin
Peaks. Like who is the one-armed man and how did he really lose
his arm? What was the relationship between Laura and the creepy
psychiatrist, Dr. Jacoby? What has Hank Jennings got on Josie
Packard?

    Most of all, what is ABC going to do with TV's most talked
about new show of the season? Will sagging ratings finally bury
Laura Palmer? And whatever the immediate fate of David Lynch's
eerie soap opera, will TV ever be the same again?

    Twin Peaks fever has been hard to ignore, even if you are
not a viewer. Fans break appointments and rush home for each
Thursday-night episode, then talk about little else at the
office water cooler the next morning. Magazines print charts
detailing the convoluted relationships among the show's
three-dozen-plus characters. Quirky scenes and dialogue have
entered TV's collective memory bank, like Lucy's spread of
doughnuts for Sheriff Truman and his deputies: "A policeman's
dream." At George Washington University, students launched
Thursday-night pie-eating rituals: everybody digs in as soon
as FBI agent Cooper bites into a slice of cherry or
huckleberry. Fans are trading theories about Laura's killer
(the Log Lady? the sheriff?), while a European video  version
of the pilot identifies the killer as a drifter named Robert.
Don't be so sure, say the show's creators; in the U.S. the
culprit could be different.

    The frenzy among Peaks watchers, and media coverage of the
show, grew so fast that only the pros noticed the ratings were
slipping badly. The two-hour pilot drew a 33% share of the
viewing audience and ranked No. 5 for the week. The regular
episodes, positioned in the difficult time period opposite
Cheers on Thursday nights, have dropped to 18%. Obviously, a
large chunk of Middle America has paid its visit to Twin Peaks
and decided to move on.

    ABC executives are keeping mum on whether the show will
return next fall (a decision will be announced next Monday,
when the fall schedule is unveiled). But recent signs are
hopeful. Ratings for the past two weeks seem to have
stabilized, and the show has settled in the middle of the
Nielsen pack. Moreover, the audience includes a high proportion
of young, upscale viewers, those most desired by advertisers.


    So Twin Peaks can be counted a success -- and not just
d'estime. The show has proved that original, challenging and
idiosyncratic fare can be done for TV, even within rigid
network confines, and that people will tune in. Twin Peaks is,
in fact, the culmination of a surprisingly fruitful season for
offbeat, formula-breaking shows. ABC's Elvis, though a failure
in the ratings, deconstructed the rock king's life into fresh,
evocative snippets of biodrama. Fox's The Simpsons put an
off-kilter, animated spin on TV's portrayal of the family,
while Fox's The Outsiders, at least in its early episodes,
brought filmic texture and subtlety to a potentially cliched
drama of small-town adolescence.

    Nothing quite prepared viewers, however, for the
mind-altering pilot of Twin Peaks, or the now famous dream
sequence that ended the third show. In that bizarre scene,
Special Agent Cooper envisioned himself in a room with a Laura
Palmer look-alike and an ethereal midget, who made enigmatic
comments ("That gum you like is going to come back in style")
in weirdly distorted language, then started to dance. The
series lost much of its surrealistic intensity after that
episode (the only one, besides the pilot, directed by Lynch).
But it still has more richness and resonance than any other
show on TV. New characters keep entering, old ones reveal
greater depths, and Angelo Badalamenti's hypnotic music seems
to charge every moment with electricity. Repeat viewings reveal
how well thought out the series is. The dream sequence, for
example, was explicitly foreshadowed a week earlier in Laura's
tape-recorded message to Dr. Jacoby.

    That such a "difficult" show could achieve prime-time
success is testimony to changing times in network TV. A decade
ago, when the networks accounted for 90% of TV viewing, a
series needed mass-audience numbers to survive. Today, with the
networks attracting less than two-thirds of the audience, an
18% or 19% share is a passing grade. A show of limited appeal
like Twin Peaks can make it; the art-house audience has become
a marketing niche.

    Will Twin Peaks inspire the networks to seek other
adventurous fare? It is too soon to tell. A growing number of
filmmakers like John Sayles (Shannon's Deal) and Steven
Spielberg (Tiny Toon Adventures) are dabbling in TV, and others
could join them if the creative climate continues to improve.
The 100-plus series being considered by the networks for next
fall include several unusual items, among them Steven Bochco's
musical police show, Cop Rock. All, of course, were put in
motion before Twin Peaks debuted. But the final choices may be
influenced by the lesson of Twin Peaks: taking risks can
sometimes pay off. Says Peaks co-creator Mark Frost: "Playing
safe is a policy that has not worked."

    ABC is reaping the benefits of its gamble. Programming chief
Robert Iger fought to air the show over the reservations of
other top executives. The result has been a public relations
bonanza for ABC, which is being widely hailed as TV's most
innovative network. "This is not a scheme to try new things on
TV," says Iger modestly. "It's just a program that we liked
very much. We still like it."

    Director Lynch has been happily watching Peaks mania spread
while finishing work on his forthcoming feature film, Wild at
Heart, which will be screened at the Cannes Film Festival this
week. "It's been a real thrill to watch the show," he says.
"The commercials are even thrilling. I like to see who's been
advertising on it. Like Mitsubishi and McDonald's. Big
companies." The otherworldly director of Eraserhead and Blue
Velvet is even talking Nielsen speak like a veteran. "I'll
admit that we got a little bit depressed when each week the
numbers fell off," he says. "But the show has found its
audience now. It looks like it's leveling off and everything's
fine."

    Lynch and Frost are talking with ABC about how the series
will develop if it returns. (One network meeting featured
coffee and doughnuts served by Kimmy Robertson, the actress who
plays Lucy.) The show will probably be less serialized, says
Iger, with episodes more self-contained. Lynch says he wants
to remain involved, co-writing and possibly directing some
segments if he has time. "I'm torn," he says, "because I want
to be able to make features, but I love Twin Peaks."

    Just how much ABC loves it will become apparent in the
upcoming announcement. Meanwhile, Peaks fans are salivating for
the season finale, which will air on Wednesday, May 23. No,
don't expect an answer to the "Who killed Laura?" mystery. But
the show's creators promise at least seven other cliffhangers
to pique interest for the fall. A network programmer's dream.