Twin Peaks Week: Day 2- The Lost Legacy

As I watched season one I was struck by how similar and how much Lost owes to Twin Peaks. This is not groundbreaking stuff, many TV scholars are quick to credit Peaks for creating a world in which X Files and Buffy would excel, thus paving the way for current shows like Heroes and Lost. However upon closer inspection of season one I must say that the Lost parallels really hit me. Here are 4 that jumped out at me the most.

Secrets
Both shows take their own sweet time in answering questions. For those of you that can remember, Peaks faced much of the same outrage from fans that Lost does now, over the fact that it wasn't until mid season 2 that the murder of Laura Palmer was solved. Then there were all the dangling plot lines such as Cooper's past, the Indian glyphs, the aliens in the woods just to name a few. For every one question answered many more were created...sound familiar.

Reality Bites?
Both shows play quite openly with the reality the characters and as such the audience are experiencing. Characters see things they shouldn't be seeing, visions if you will, and of course they keep it themselves which then makes the audience question its place in the show. Take Laura's cousin Maddie who in the first ep of season two see's a blood soaked carpet and really is that it much different from Kate seeing a horse she encountered before the plane crash.

Pacing
It's amazing sometimes to think that while Lost has been on the air for almost 3 full seasons, the characters have only lived on the island for some 80 odd days. Well the Oceanic 815 folks got nothing on the people of Twin Peaks. Much like a daily soap opera, some days on Twin Peaks seemed to last multiple eps. In fact season one seems to only stretch out to maybe a week.

Bad Boys Who Aren't Really Bad
On Lost, Sawyer is a guy who's done some horrible horrible things in his life but as an audience we want him to be good in fact we even believe it despite everything we've seen. This is not your typical character but it was one that Twin Peaks played to perfection. Bobby Briggs is introduced in season 1 as the coke dealing star quarterback who cheated on Laura Palmer and seems to be an ass in general. As the first season progressed we saw just how vulnerable this bad boy was as he broke down during a session with Dr. Jacoby. By the time the second season rolls about he's almost a reluctant hero. Take the even more extreme example of Leo Johnson. In season one Leo is evil as evil is but after he become a bit...well...challenged you actually find yourself pulling for the guy.