Yeah, Lynch left to do "Wild at Heart" at the same time Frost left to do "Storyville." Hearing about the way these two wrote, though--Lynch apparently "doesn't know how to type," so he'd lie on Frost's couch and they'd talk through everything as Frost wrote--it's like the two really had one unified vision for the show. If Lynch left, I think Frost could have swung it for a while. But nobody outside the pair of them had a clear idea of what the show was, which is very unusual for TV. In television and film, though people often identify a work with a particular director or a particular writer, it is usually not so clearly obviously the case that the authorship of a show belongs to just two people. Having discussed the many, many reasons why Twin Peaks failed before (mainly regarding the structure of the storyline) I think ultimately it was Lynch and Frost's inability to continue with the same intensity that was the death knell of the series.
What comes through so clearly, though, for everyone involved, is the sense of betrayal and bitterness when things fell apart--not about the cancellation, but the quality of the show in the second season. All of them felt that in the first season they were working on something amazing, the fulfilment of all their dreams as an artist, and then in season two they were working on crap. Everybody sort of gave up on it all at once. And it's hard to imagine a way that Twin Peaks could have sustained itself for longer. Most shows have room for a couple of dud episodes a season, which are going to happen anyway, no matter how hard you try. This one didn't. So as soon as duds started happening, all the people working on the show just threw in the towel.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-01-04 06:49 pm (UTC)What comes through so clearly, though, for everyone involved, is the sense of betrayal and bitterness when things fell apart--not about the cancellation, but the quality of the show in the second season. All of them felt that in the first season they were working on something amazing, the fulfilment of all their dreams as an artist, and then in season two they were working on crap. Everybody sort of gave up on it all at once. And it's hard to imagine a way that Twin Peaks could have sustained itself for longer. Most shows have room for a couple of dud episodes a season, which are going to happen anyway, no matter how hard you try. This one didn't. So as soon as duds started happening, all the people working on the show just threw in the towel.