Quirky Is as Quirky Does

As incredible as this seems, it was 20 years ago today that Twin Peaks, the often-bizarro ABC-TV series built around an ongoing investigation into the murder of small-town homecoming queen Laura Palmer,

debuted in the United States. Much of the exterior footage for that David Lynch- and Mark Frost-created psychological thriller was shot around the Washington state towns of North Bend and Snoqualmie, which quickly became meccas for viewers hoping to get a taste of the “real” town of Twin Peaks. (Even I once drove east from Seattle to North Bend, just to sample some coffee and a serving of FBI agent Dale Cooper’s favorite dessert, cherry pie, at a local diner.)

The series Twin Peaks continued only through June 10, 1991, with a subsequent film adaptation--Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me--released in 1992. But the show’s cultural impact much exceeded the limits of its original broadcast. I still can’t watch a young woman tie a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue without thinking of the seductive Sherilyn Fenn performing that same trick on the series ...

There have been times over the last decade when I’ve considered buying or renting the DVD set of Twin Peaks, but I’m not sure I could recapture the feeling I first had in watching it. The show was a true phenomenon in its time.

READ MORE: “She’s Dead--Wrapped in Plastic” (Edward Copeland on Film); “Still Wrapped in Plastic: Twin Peaks Turns 20,” by John Powers (NPR); “Twin Peaks: How Laura Palmer’s Death Marked the Rebirth of TV Drama,” by Andrew Anthony (The Observer); Twin Peaks Episode Index (Edward Copeland on Film); “Why Gilmore Girls Was Secretly a Twin Peaks Tribute Show,” by Elisabeth Donnelly (Flavorwire).