Black coffee and cherry pie may appear to be two unrelated foodstuffs to many, myself included up until this weekend.
But for fans of the television classic Twin Peaks, they denote the favorite pick-me-ups of Special Agent Dale Cooper who was last seen in the Red Room at the Black Lodge in the final episode of the series which aired in 1991.
Some 26 years later, the show is back and as recognizably undecipherable as it ever was.
The return of the show, directed by David Lynch, is an interesting choice from the Showtime network. While surreal crime/horror offerings along the lines of American Horror Story have done well with younger audiences recently, the slower moving format of Twin Peaks may go down awkwardly with a generation accustomed to frantically second-screening.
That said, there’s still a loyal cult following of the original iterations as Sunday’s premiere showed.
The beginning of the show, featuring the famous title sequence, saw the highest peak in mentions as viewers got excited to settle into the new season. “Can’t wait” and the fact that people had waited over 25 years were among the trending words and phrases in the first five minutes of air time.
Reviewing the first two hours of Twin Peaks madness, the Guardian’s Mark Lawson claims “Anyone coming fresh to the cult is likely to have been utterly bewildered.”
While other reviewers described it as “familiarly inscrutable.” The slow pace of Twin Peaks, and its abundance of mismatching puzzle pieces, is not for everyone it seems.
The antithesis of instant gratification
@Badnecklace offers wise words on the new season.
Her advice certainly wasn’t heeded by @orlar35.
Nor was it by the 73 people who tweeted the words “bored” or “boring” in their commentary in the 12 hours following the show’s start at 9pm ET.
@MsHappyDieHappy was unimpressed with those who chose to live tweet the show as if it were a more family-friendly and easier-to-decipher Doctor Who episode.
Twin Peaks is not necessarily a social friendly show – something that younger viewers may find frustrating. But does one have to have been a fan of the previous seasons to understand or enjoy the current one?