Amidst the stagnation of this season's abysmal selection of new shows, I implore you to journey back nearly two decades with me to find the retrospective light at the end of the television tunnel. David Lynch, surrealist director of cinematic gems "Blue Velvet" (1986) and "Mulholland Drive" (2001), forged a new path for television in 1990 when he collaborated with then-relatively obscure screenwriter Mark Frost to produce "Twin Peaks." It was the first time a famed director had crossed the threshold from filmmaker to television producer.
In recent years, with networks like Showtime, HBO and AMC incorporating A-list film stars into their casts, it has become almost expected that talented film actors and actresses will make the crossover into a television series at least once or twice in their career. "United States of Tara," created by Diablo Cody of "Juno" (2007) and produced by Steven Spielberg, as well as "Boardwalk Empire," directed by Martin Scorsese, have further blurred the line between movie and soap. Laura Linney's serial dramedy, "The Big C," has served as a tribute and culminating tour de force of the well-respected actress' incredible versatility.
There is a historic bias that television serves the masses who cannot digest the complexity of true cinema. In some respects, this holds true. ESPN might not incite discussions of character motivation nor would "As the World Turns" inspire entire novels of mise-en-scene analysis these are examples of pure televised escapism. Yet the episodic format of the majority of shows provides a format that a feature-length film simply cannot sustain. Due to their sheer running time, television programs have the power to gnaw slowly at societal taboos. They are able to push story lines in ways that have the capability of molding a cultural zeitgeist, simply by virtue of the vast diversity of any show's audience in comparison with a feature film, be it widely distributed or independent.
Back to "Twin Peaks," the mother, the Mecca, the maker of all shows to come after it. Lynch's venture into the boob tube produced a quirky, engaging mystery show, set in the rural town Twin Peaks, Wash. An idiosyncratic detective, Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is sent to Twin Peaks on a mission to uncover the truth about high school student Laura Palmer's murder. Palmer is revealed to have been involved in a multi-layered conspiracy surrounding several townsfolk, an ominous hotel and a darkly magical forest on the outskirts of town. The beauty of the show, however, lies not in the increasingly metaphysical thriller, but in the brilliant writing and feature film-grade cinematography. Each hour-long episode seems like a short film. Watched individually or in sequence, the stories hold their own as portraits of the townspeople and their complex relationships.
This is my plea: for every "Bones" fan to recognize their cultural roots and for those who turn up their nose at television to understand its power for complex storytelling.
