Das Geheimnis von Twin Peaks (Twin Peaks)

Vorlage:Infobox Television episode "Pilot" (also known as "Northwest Passage") is the premiere episode of the mystery television series Twin Peaks which premiered on the ABC Network on April 8, 1990. It was written by series creators Mark Frost and David Lynch, and directed by Lynch. "Pilot" follows the characters of Dale Cooper and Harry S. Truman on the case of the death of popular high school student Laura Palmer, with Cooper thinking the murder has connections to a murder case that occurred a year earlier. In addition to setting the tone for the show, the episode sets up several character and story arcs and marked the appearance of several recurring characters. The episode received a strong Nielsen household rating compared to other season one episodes and was well-received by fans and critics alike.

Plot overview

The small northwest town of Twin Peaks, Washington is shaken when the body of Laura Palmer, is discovered washed up on a riverbank, wrapped in plastic. FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is called in when Ronnette Pulaski, who attended the same high school as Palmer, is found wandering on a bridge before lapsing into a coma. Cooper believes there is a connection between Palmer's death and the death of another girl named Theresa Banks that happened a year earlier. Cooper discovers a small piece of paper with the letter "R" on it shoved under Laura's fingernail. He tells Sheriff Harry S. Truman that under Banks's nail he found a "T". Meanwhile, the Palmer family and friends struggle to come to terms with her death, and wonder how it might have come about.

Believing that this is the same killer who struck the previous year, Cooper starts an official investigation. Meanwhile, the rebellious Audrey Horne ruins a business deal for her father Benjamin Horne (Richard Beymer); Sheriff Truman arrests Palmer's boyfriend Bobby Briggs, who is secretly seeing a married woman named Shelly; Palmer's best friend Donna Hayward and Palmer's secret boyfriend James Hurley discover a mutual attraction; and Laura's mother is terrified by a vision.

Production

Conception and writing

David Lynch and Mark Frost pitched the idea to ABC during the time of Writers Guild of America, East strike in 1988 in a ten-minute meeting with the network's drama head, Chad Hoffman, with nothing more than this image and a concept. According to the director, the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer was initially going to be in the foreground, but would recede gradually as viewers got to know the other townsfolk and the problems they were having. Lynch and Frost wanted to mix a police investigation with a soap opera.

ABC liked the idea, and asked Lynch and Frost to write a screenplay for the pilot episode. Frost wrote more verbal characters, like Benjamin Horne, while Lynch was responsible for Agent Dale Cooper. According to the director, "He says a lot of the things I say". Originally, the show was entitled Northwest Passage and set in North Dakota, but the fact that a town called Northwest Passage really exists prompted a revision in the script. They filmed the pilot for $1.8 million with an agreement with ABC that they would shoot an additional "ending" to it so that it could be sold directly to video in Europe as a feature if the TV show was not picked up. However, even though ABC's Bob Iger liked the pilot, he had a tough time persuading the rest of the network brass. Iger suggested showing it to a more diverse, younger group, who liked it, and the executive subsequently convinced ABC to buy seven episodes at $1.1 million apiece. Some executives figured that the show would never get on the air, believing it would meet negative reviews from viewers and critics alike. However, Iger planned to schedule it for the spring. The final showdown occurred during a bi-coastal conference call between Iger and a room full of New York executives; Iger won, and Twin Peaks was on the air.

Improvised elements

Lynch, the co-writer of the episode as seen in 2007

At several points during the filming of the pilot episode, David Lynch improvised by incorporating on-set accidents into the story. The most notable of these occurred when set decorator Frank Silva was accidentally filmed in a mirror during Sarah Palmer's vision at the end of the pilot. When Lynch saw Silva's face, he liked it so much he kept it in the show, and cast Silva as Killer BOB, the mysterious tormentor of Laura Palmer.

During the filming of the scene in which Dale Cooper first examines Laura's body, a malfunctioning fluorescent light above the table flickered constantly, but Lynch decided not to replace it, since he liked the disconcerting effect that it created. Also, during the take, one of the minor actors misheard a line and, thinking he was being asked his name, he told Cooper his real name instead of saying his line, briefly throwing everyone off balance. Lynch was reportedly pleased with the lifelike, unscripted moment in dialogue, and kept the mistake in the final cut.

Release

Ratings and awards

The two-hour pilot was the highest-rated movie for the 1989–1990 season with a 22 rating and was viewed by 33% of the audience. In Los Angeles, Twin Peaks became the seventh most-watched show of the week earning 29% of viewers, while the most-watched show being Married... With Children whom gathered 34% of viewers. The following episode, "Traces to Nowhere" would start with a significant drop in ratings. Various medias such as The New York Times and local radio stations announced that the show had managed to grow a cult following. According to a local radio station, many viewers were "offended with some of the sexual overtones or the eating sequence".

In the 1990 Emmy Awards, the pilot episode was nominated for six awards, including "Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series" for David Lynch, "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" for Kyle MacLachlan as Dale Cooper, and "Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series" for Mark Frost and Lynch. The pilot won two awards, Patricia Norris won the "Outstanding Costume Design for a Series" and Duwayne Dunham won the "Outstanding Editing for a Series - Single Camera Production". According to the Internet Movie Database, the pilot received a Peabody Award in 1990.

Critical reception

Before the two-hour pilot premiered on TV, a screening was held at the Museum of Broadcasting in Hollywood. Media analyst and advertising executive Paul Schulman said, "I don't think it has a chance of succeeding. It is not commercial, it is radically different from what we as viewers are accustomed to seeing, there's no one in the show to root for." Initially, the show's Thursday night time slot was not a good one for soap operas as both Dynasty and its short-lived spin-off The Colbys did poorly. Twin Peaks was also up against the hugely successful sitcom, Cheers. Initially, the show received a positive response from TV critics. Tom Shales, in the Washington Post, wrote, "Twin Peaks disorients you in ways that small-screen productions seldom attempt. It's a pleasurable sensation, the floor dropping out and leaving one dangling." In the New York Times, John J. O'Connor wrote, "Twin Peaks is not a sendup of the form. Mr. Lynch clearly savors the standard ingredients...but then the director adds his own peculiar touches, small passing details that suddenly, and often hilariously, thrust the commonplace out of kilter."

Many critics saw the pilot as "the movie that will change TV" history, according to Diana White from the Boston Globe. Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly was overall positive towards the episode, giving it a A+. While liking the story, and calling Lynch's directing beautiful, he said it "not a chance in hell" the show could become a rating hit. Because of its "unsettling" story. David Zurawik from Eugene Register-Guard compared the pilot to the work of Alfred Hitchcock. He further stated that the filming of the episode was as close "as prime-time television" could get "to art". Jen Chaney from The Washington Post called the pilot "one of the most finely crafted series kick-offs in broadcast history".

Home video release

Due to rights issues, the American pilot was not released for the United States home video market until 2007. The European pilot was released on VHS and laser disc years earlier. Both versions of the pilot are included in the Twin Peaks: Definitive Gold Box Edition DVD set, released in the US on 30 October 2007. An alternate version of the pilot was aired in Europe as a stand-alone television movie. This version is identical to the United States-aired version up until the last several scenes, when the killer of Laura Palmer is revealed. Lynch was so pleased with the footage shot for the European ending that he later incorporated some of it into Cooper's dream sequences that aired in subsequent episodes.

External links

Wikiquote: Twin Peaks Season 1 – Zitate

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