Will Laura Palmer's Killer Please Rise?

So, we only watched one "Twin Peaks" episode to start with. It's the two hour (or ninety minute, as we saw it) pilot movie.So, as I said in my previous post, I saw "Twin Peaks" when it was still new (though the first season I saw in reruns leading up to the second season premiere), and considered myself a fan. But I was reintroduced to the show a few years ago at college, when an acquaintance of mine (I don't know if I dare call him "friend," since we don't keep in touch, but he came pretty close to being a friend) made a suggestion that anyone who was interested come to his apartment every Monday night and watch "Twin Peaks" as a group. I remembered the show with fondness, so I came every week, even dragging my would-be girlfriend a couple of times.

Matt, our weekly host, had something better than the VHS tapes of the show (or even the non-existent DVDs, at that time). No, he had the ORIGINAL AIRINGS of the show, taped off of ABC television, with, get this, the original commercials still intact. And week after week, we'd watch the show, and delight in the dated car and beer commercials, the previews for long-forgotten movies, soft drinks that have gone away, and ad for other ABC shows, including the promos for "Cop Rock," which had us all laughing.

I got more pleasure than should be possible from watching these commercials that were vaguely--or vividly--familiar. And nearly every week we'd see one of those classic ABC anti-drug commercials (the most famous being "this is your brain on drugs" and "parents who use drugs have children who use drugs"), and we'd chant in unison, "You, alright! I learned it by watching you!"

Matt had a written-out schedule of how we'd get through them all before graduation, including watching the "Saturday Night Live" parody when it was appropriate. We tried to stick to the schedule, but due to holidays and conflicts, we never did get through the series. Unless I stopped coming, and they continued without me.

Now there's an upsetting thought.

Tyranist and I watched the pilot, shot on location, and with a slightly different look than the regular series. The body of beauty queen and town's favourite daughter, Laura Palmer, is found wrapped in plastic on the shore, and we meet a cavalcade of colourful Twin Peaks residents. Special Agent Dale Cooper arrives to investigate, and the weirdness commences. But it's a very welcoming weirdness, at least to me.Oh, I do have to mention one complaint tyranist had. The sign at the outskirts of town says Twin Peaks has a population of over fifty thousand, yet it seems like a town the size he grew up in, which had WAAAAY less people than that. I told him there was a large indigenous population that we never see, but he was right: Twin Peaks seems to be one of those towns where everybody knows everybody else (and is sleeping with them), with only three or four streets.

But to be fair, Sunnydale, California, has an airport, a dock, a train station, a college, a beach, a mall, and a makeout spot with a Satanic temple underneath it. But with only one main street with, say, seven businesses on it. So ah well.

Tyranist and I plan on watching at least one episode a week until death separates us. We'll see how things actually work out soon.

Rish "Wrapped-In-Plastic" Outfield