Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 5, 1991 TAG: 9103050165
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Told that he is talking as loudly as he did on the show, Lynch shouts, "ARE YOU KIDDING? I CAN'T EVEN HEAR MYSELF!"
Everything about filmmaker Lynch, whose movies include "Blue Velvet" and "Dune," is at least a little bit mysterious, so perhaps it's fitting that immediately after its most recent appearance on ABC, on Feb. 16, the little Northwest town of Twin Peaks suddenly vanished from the face of TV.
ABC yanked the show and has yet to announce when it will return. Six new episodes for this season remain to be seen, the last one directed by Lynch himself.
The network gave Lynch and co-producer Mark Frost one day's notice of the suspension. Worse, they didn't give "Twin Peaks" fans any notice at all. That's why Lynch and Frost are on the speaker phone. They want to encourage the party faithful to write to ABC and complain, so that "Twin Peaks" will be brought back pronto.
Not only brought back, but brought back on a weeknight, which is where it started. ABC was airing it Thursday nights until it got the lame idea to move it to Saturdays, the lowest viewing night of the week. That started the ratings slide.
"Our gung-ho viewers just could not stay home on Saturday night," Lynch says. "We need a huge write-in campaign so that ABC will feel massive pressure to give us a good night, a weeknight."
Lynch says the show's ratings slumped in part because it was off the air for so many weeks after Christmas. Networks normally air reruns during these weeks but since "Twin Peaks" is a serial, rerunning episodes out of order would be confusing. And "Twin Peaks" is confusing enough as it is.
"That was the critical moment where we lost it, that long hiatus," Lynch says.
Some people feel, however, that the quality of "Twin Peaks" deteriorated after the series answered one of the most-asked questions of 1990, "Who killed Laura Palmer?" It was the death of the cheerleader with the lively diary that began the show last April and wasn't resolved until November.
"We were fishing a little after Laura," Lynch concedes. "But I think we're doing OK now." Frost says, "Laura was a hard act to follow, but in the last few weeks, I think we did some of our best episodes."
Lynch is particularly enthused about an episode directed by actress Diane Keaton that aired on Feb. 9. Keaton also directed a much-praised episode of "China Beach," another ambitious series that ABC moved to Saturday nights and then abruptly yanked. It, too, awaits a return date.
"I love that show!" shouts Lynch when asked about Keaton's "Peaks" episode. "It was very stylized but absolutely great! We have a lot of terrific directors. They have a freedom with this that they're not going to get anywhere else in television, and they run with it like crazy."
Lynch's call for a viewer uprising was answered before it was sounded. Almost immediately after published reports of ABC's decision to remove the show, calls and letters began arriving at ABC offices in Los Angeles and New York.
In Washington, two avid "Peaks" freaks have founded a grassroots protest group called COOP, for Citizens Opposing the Offing of Peaks. Already the organizers have answered requests to start COOP chapters in other cities.
Lynch is asked if, when all is said and done, mainstream network TV may just not be the right place for a show as rampagingly weird as "Twin Peaks" is.
"But ABC and the other networks have been saying that television needs more interesting things," he says. "They're losing viewers each year to the cables. If you have the right show and the right night, the combo can be magical.
"We didn't have that magical a combo this year, and that hurt us bad."
Considering all on TV that is humdrum, routine, predictable and dull, room ought to be found for a "Twin Peaks" now and then. Like Lynch, "Twin Peaks" fans would much prefer it be now rather than then. Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB