twin peaks: pilot episode

Title: Pilot, or Northwest Passage

Original airing date: April 8th, 1990

Director: David Lynch

Every time I start another round of watching Twin Peaks, I never seem to make it all the way to the end. This isn't some protest of the second half of Season Two, which was a huge disappointment to a lot of people, but more like something that just always happens when you rewatch a show that's this intense. As it turns out, I've only seen the series in its entirety twice, but I've seen most episodes in Season One 5-6 times. I think I've probably watched the Pilot episode at least 7-8 times by now, because I'll always try to introduce the show to friends and of course you have to start at the beginning! How far we get usually tapers off somewhere around the middle of Season Two, or sometimes even before then. 

But since my parents brought me my Gold Box Edition on their recent visit and since my capacity for streaming online tv shows is limited here, I'm rewatching the whole damn thing this time. Also, I often find myself wanting to include some screencap in blog posts or on tumblr, but finding the right ones online can be really tiresome. Thus, I'm creating my own screencap archive to make things easier for me (and hopefully others out there). 

But enough talk, let's get on with it, shall we? 

The log lady introductions were added later on when the series came out on video, I believe. Some of them are more abstract than others, but this one is a good ol' fashioned intro to the entire series. 

Yes, those are saws making more saws. By the first few notes of the theme song I could already feel waves of nostalgia rolling over me. Thank you Angelo Badalamenti for your fine, haunting work.

Pete Martell looked instantly familiar to me but it wasn't until some episodes into the show that I realized he is the same man who played Henry from Eraserhead. He has the first line of dialogue in the show, which perhaps not surprisingly is about fishing, a concept that Lynch talks about in depth in Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. 

The camera angle when Pete happens about Laura's body always gives me the same chills that I get from the upward shot of the ceiling fan/stairs in the Palmer house. 

From this shot on I knew that Twin Peaks was forever going to be a source of style-inspiration for me.

By the time Bobby puts on a song that would never be on any jukebox I've ever come across, I knew that this show was entering some other dimension. 

The introduction to Agent Cooper is so perfect in every way that it's hard to write about it without gushing like a schoolgirl, so I am going to refrain until another time.

Despite being really creepy and unnerving to watch alone in the dark, the humorous side of Twin Peaks is always spot on in the weirdest way possible. But the cop jokes are really great and I will laugh at pretty much anything that comes out of Agent Cooper's mouth that passes for sarcasm.

The pacing of the Pilot is fairly slow, but so much happens in the last few minutes that it's hard to talk about all of it. There's the gloved hand in Mrs. Palmer's vision, Catherine Martell on the phone with Benjamin Horne, and one of the weirdest prison scenes to grace the silver screen. The snarls emitted from Bobby and Mike seem to foreshadow the noises that will come from another BOB, but maybe this is reading too much into it. 

And every time I finish watching the Pilot episode, I always think the same thing: how was this aired on network television? In my mind, Twin Peaks is like the Nirvana of television. In the late 80s you had all of this overdone and glitzy/glamy entertainment, and then along comes Twin Peaks with its fantastically strange and sobering take on Americana. Oh, and I guess they have that flannel bit in common too. But unlike Nirvana, Twin Peaks doesn't use angst when challenging you to widen your beliefs. It's simply an invitation to see the oldest of battles, that between good and evil, and all of the complexities in between.