twin peaks

I saw David Lynch and Mark Frost's game changing TV show when it first aired on British terrestrial TV back in 1990. It was seen as very strange and experimental at the time, but rewatching the original run now it has been rendered normal by the many shows that were inspired by it, or imitated it. When the third season aired I wasn't sure what to expect. After all, it is quite weird to feel nostalgic about a show with such troubling subject matter. The Return was many things all at once (brilliant, boring, tense, self-indulgent, visionary, irritating, thought-provoking, funny, horrific), one thing that it wasn't was similar to anything else on TV. It doesn't feel like a sequel but rather a reworking of the old material into a new iteration of the story, a new Twin Peaks for our times. There is a preponderance of imagery relating to screens (our lives are entirely mediated through screens). There is some suggestion that part of the story takes place in a different timeline from the original  show. It also holds a mirror up to a fractured and sick society which is a far cry from the original, which at least had some wholesomeness in it's world. The creators have been mindful of Heraclitus's famous quote about never being able to step into the same river twice and this is a good thing. Frost and Lynch re-wrote the rules with The Return and I think that film and TV will be playing catch up for some time.