How David Lynch changed television forever – and for the better

In films like “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Dr.,” Lynch has proven himself quite adept at creating scenarios that pose maddening, compelling, and unsettling questions, questions that often have no easy answers if they have answers at all. Arguably, what makes questions like “Who killed Laura Palmer?” Disturbing is the fact that answers are almost impossible. But while viewers were initially impressed and drawn to “Twin Peaks,” ratings waned so much that ABC executives, including future Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger, demanded that Lynch and his writing team get to the point and actually talk to viewers. who killed the young woman in a crucial episode of the second season that aired in November of 1990. Although there were still many committed fans, the show’s ratings never reached the same high level as Iger (then ABC Entertainment president) canceled the show after its second season.

Even at the beginning, Twin Peaks was a creative earthquake in Hollywood. Although the ratings never reached the level of the premiere, it was clear that a broader audience was willing to enjoy strange, disgusting, and obscure material on network television (as well as in the burgeoning landscape of cable and pay television). It’s often easy to tell how successful a single piece of art is these days, especially because it often inspires would-be pretenders, copycat shows and films that seem too lazy to act. But in the case of “Twin Peaks,” some of the shows that took primary inspiration from its deliberately ambiguous style and blend of genres are among the best of their kind and took years to come together. Sometimes, the connections are obvious; A show like Fox’s “The X-Files” may be largely procedural, but Fox Mulder felt cut from the same cloth as Dale Cooper, especially in his deadpan style and desire to get to the truth no matter what. (And like “Twin Peaks,” “The “Lost,” it was like JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Carlton Cuse. to push Paying tribute to Lynch’s work week after week, especially after the introduction of the mysterious DHARMA Initiative in Season 2, is one of the many new questions viewers have had to ponder.

But the influence extends beyond sci-fi shows. Kids in the 2000s could enjoy Disney’s animated series “Gravity Falls,” which was a high-octane, fast-paced mix of goofy humor, familial strife and the wacky weirdness of the Pacific Northwest that culminated in a battle between good And evil. , the latter symbolized by a strange yellow triangle and a chatterbox of sorts, an image that would have felt right at home in Twin Peaks’ mysterious Black Lodge. Series creator Alex Hirsch has never been shy Recognition Reference point too. Even the mid-2000s procedural comedy “Psych” was produced by fans of the show, so much so that the season five episode, “Dual Spires,” served as a deliberate homage, featuring several cast members as guests.