The Pilot No single opening credit sequence in television history has quite had the profound effect on viewers that Twin Peaks did. This intro, for all intents and purposes, was akin to that of a soap opera, where we are first offered a glimpse of the show's titular mill town and its quaint locales set to composer Angelo Badalamenti's ethereal score. This is, of course, a smart ruse as creators David Lynch and Mark Frost lead us merrily skipping into a town reeling from the murder of its very own girl next door, Laura Palmer. This is a place where anybody is a suspect and everyone has a secret to hide. Unraveling this mystery and wading through some striking visions the pilot introduces us to FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle Maclachlan), who is our eyes and ears throughout the mystery. Lynch wanted to create TV's first soap opera cum murder mystery crossover and with this pilot he succeeded in bringing us something so unique that studios are still baffled as to how it can be relaunched in some way. What Did It Change? Twin Peaks was not afraid to wreak merry havoc with narrative techniques; it made it acceptable to have your noodle warped, frustrated and given a full workout from the comfort of your sofa on a Thursday night. But, put quite simply, despite it's short-lived time on screens - the show ran for only two seasons - Twin Peaks made it okay for a TV show to be just a little bit strange. Legacy Following this pilot, the Pandora's Box of weird was well and truly opened bringing forth off the wall wonders such as The X-Files, Harper's Island, Happy Town and The Killing. Better than this, though, Twin Peaks' floating narrative switches from the real to surreal directly influenced the likes of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad.
Shaun is a former contributor for a number of Future Publishing titles and more recently worked as a staffer at Imagine Publishing.
He can now be found banking in the daytime and writing a variety of articles for What Culture, namely around his favourite topics of film, retro gaming, music, TV and, when he's feeling clever, literature.
