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TV Media Weekly | June 17 - 23, 2017 By Jacqueline Spendlove TV Media I f your brain hurts a little after watching the first few epi- sodes of the highly anticipat- ed "Twin Peaks" revival, don't worry — you're not alone. And if you've seen the original series, or if you're at all familiar with creator/director David Lynch and his work, you likely weren't expecting anything else. When it comes to "Twin Peaks," unset- tling weirdness is par for the course. The new limited series is not a reboot of the original, but a con- tinuation of the story that mad- deningly left us with many a cliff- hanger and loose end 26 years ago. Developed by Lynch and co- creator Mark Frost over three years, the 18-episode run pre- miered last month to a devoted audience of fervent Lynchites. A new episode of the surreal mur- der mystery airs Sunday, June 18, on Showtime. Nowadays, in what's becom- ing known as a golden age of television, filmmakers are turning more and more to TV to tell sto- ries that 10 or 20 years ago would have been strictly big- screen fare. Thanks to cable net- works such as HBO, AMC and, yes, Showtime, we're getting a much broader offering of pro- gramming, the likes of which wouldn't fly on the Big Four net- works. Lynch broke the mold more than 25 years ago with "Twin Peaks," which aired on ABC in 1990-91. It bore a cinematic style that was unlike anything that most people had seen on TV be- fore, and the show gained a fer- vent cult following. It's widely credited with forever changing the medium and the way we watch TV; countless shows have been influenced by "Twin Peaks" and Lynch's surrealist, sometimes head-scratching style. True to Lynch's notoriously tight-lipped form, very little was known about the revival going in, just as very little was known about the original. "'Twin Peaks' is a mystery that holds other mys- teries," was the director's enig- matic response to Entertainment Weekly when asked to sum up his creation in a sentence. (Oh, that clears things up!) Showtime president David Nevins offered a scrap more at the Television Crit- ics Association press tour when he revealed that "the core of [the revival] is Agent Cooper's odys- sey back to Twin Peaks." Lynch directed every episode of the new series, and most of the original cast returned as well. Kyle MacLachlan ("Sex and the City") slides back into his leading role as FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, a role that earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Ac- tor — Television Series Drama, as well as two Emmy nominations. Madchen Amick ("Sleepwalk- ers," 1992), Michael Horse ("North of 60"), David Duchovny ("The X-Files") and Kimmy Rob- ertson ("The Louie Show") are also among the long list of re- turning cast members reprising their original roles. New cast members (of which there are literally dozens) include Jim Belushi ("According to Jim"), Cornelia Guest ("I Know Who Killed Me," 2007), Matthew Lil- lard ("The Bridge"), Laura Dern ("Jurassic Park," 1993), Naomi Watts ("King Kong," 2005), Mi- chael Cera ("Superbad," 2007) ... the list goes on and on. The full cast boasts a whopping 217 ac- tors; it speaks to the incredible phenomenon of the original se- ries that basically half of Holly- wood (and Eddie Vedder) wanted to be a part of the revival, even in just a tiny capacity. "I would hear stories from them about how they were heav- ily influenced by 'Twin Peaks,' and so they wanted to be part of the new series, even if it was just one day of shooting," Ma- cLachlan told EW. "For others, it was about working with David because he is so phenomenal. It just kept growing." As fans of the original "Twin Peaks" know, the series is a mur- der mystery, beginning with the discovery of town darling Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee, "Backbeat," 1994), found dead on the river- bank and wrapped in plastic. In the finale, while in the extradi- mensional (or whatever) Black Lodge, Cooper encounters the weirdly speaking spirit of Laura, who cryptically tells him, "I'll see you again in 25 years," before striking an equally weird pose. Well, it's 25 (OK, 26) years lat- er, and the new "Peaks" opens on an older Agent Cooper, still in the lodge, still shrouded in dreamlike ambiguity. And, lo and behold, there's murder afoot once more. In Buckhorn, S.D., the decapitated head of a local li- brarian is discovered on the headless body of an unknown man. Also in Buckhorn: Cooper's long-haired, leather-clad and de- cidedly sinister doppelganger is quite clearly up to no good. I'll respect Lynch's reticence at leave it at that, but there's a lot to unpack in the first episode alone. Twenty-six years hasn't di- luted any of the show's inherent Lynchiness, and the limited series is chock-a-block with the direc- tor's now-recognizable cinema- tography, uncanny tone, dark psychodrama and offbeat humor, but, with Showtime as his vehicle instead of ABC, Lynch is now working within even broader pa- rameters. If you haven't seen the original, I highly recommend do- ing so before delving into the re- vival. "Twin Peaks" is often men- tioned among the greatest TV dramas of all time and, like it or hate it, an awful lot of great se- ries that followed owe major credit to its influence. The revived "Twin Peaks" continues its limit- ed run with a new episode airing Sunday, June 18, on Showtime. Cornelia Guest in a scene from "Twin Peaks" 'Twin Peaks' revival is a satisfying continuation 2 | Cover story A/Grindstone Charlie's B/Norris Insurance 1 x 4"

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