67) Pilot – AKA Northwest Passage (Twin Peaks)

Twin Peaks is weird in the way that Salvador Dali was weird. And, much like Dali himself, it constantly wavered between stupidly goofy and uniquely brilliant. The pilot very much fell on the brilliant side of the line. David Lynch constantly kept the feel of a somewhat traditional small town, while making sure that it felt as isolated and alien to the viewers as he could manage. In case you’ve never seen anything by David Lynch, weird and alien are absolutely within his wheelhouse.

This image from his film Eraserhead submitted without comment.

SUMMARY

The pilot is really the most “in control” the show ever managed to be. It’s all done as a set-up, posing the question for the rest of the series, “who killed Laura Palmer?” The beginning of the show is the finding of the body of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), wrapped in a plastic sheet. The FBI…