Inspirations: Part 3
This is the latest in a series of posts that discuss the correlations between popular works of fiction and the sources which inspired those works.
Twin Peaks
As I was watching Twin Peaks one recent day, I found myself thinking that this early 1990’s TV series about an FBI agent who investigates paranormal incidents and strange murder that turns out to involve magic and Supernatural forces a show set in rural Washington state of all things and that this with a haunting ethereal introductory theme song to top it all off just might have influenced the hit TV show The X-Files.
The X-Files is a show which launched just a few years after Twin Peaks concluded; a show featuring a pair of paranormal investigators from the FBI, who spend their time checking out crime scenes, often in rural Washington State (at least in the early seasons); a show that also featured a haunting ethereal theme song to top it off.
I was contemplating these similarities to myself as I watched an episode of Twin Peaks, when all of a sudden I saw that this one particular episode in Season 2 guest starred a very young actor by the name of… wait for it… David Duchovny! Duchovny, as we all know, later went on to play Agent Fox Mulder in The X-Files for many years, alongside Gillian Anderson.
So I think it’s safe to say that there’s a pretty direct correlation of inspiration!
I saw Duchovny’s name in the opening title credits, and quickly drafted the above with dictation software. As I continued watching, the script built up to Duchovny’s appearance. The main character (Kyle McLaughlin as Agent Dale Cooper) built him up as this brilliant visiting agent… so imagine the surprise when Duchovny walked in dressed in drag, with a long wig and garish red lipstick.
His character later made an appearance in a man’s suit.
Soap Operas
Twin Peaks, in turn, is clearly inspired by soap operas.
The script openly mocks daytime soap operas such as “Days of Our Lives,” and yet the show mimics them, too. The tangled love lives of the various Twin Peaks characters; their plotting and scheming and double-crossing; their not being sure which rather irritating side character is the father of a particular baby; their descents into persistent vegetative states or demonic possession only to be returned to their normal selves in later episodes: all of these themes are clearly intended to evoke the story lines of popular daytime soap operas. In case the viewer had any doubts about it, David Lynch repeatedly shows his characters watching snippets of a fictitious parody soap opera on their own televisions; and while they watch, the Twin Peaks characters cheer for various characters in the parody TV show, in ways that emphasize each character’s own inner dialogue.
Because Twin Peaks is not altogether innocent of being a bit of a soap opera itself, these parody moments are like the show taking a moment to look in a carnival mirror and poke fun at itself in a distorted view.
To cap it all off, we have to return once again to that haunting theme music, with its synthesizer strings and chords that emphasize the major 9; and the emotional crescendo of the dramatic piano piece that plays during the end credits and at other times of emotional drama throughout the series. It’s too dramatic, and too reminiscent of soap opera theme music, for that to be incidental.
