#but yeah I love the Force. I love Star Wars and it's unclear unpredictable magic

[spell-cleaver]

One thing I've always wondered is how Vader didn't sense either Luke (or Leia's for that matter) force presence on the first death star. I guess he was super caught up in with the whole "I sense the old coot who cut off my limbs amd left me to burn" thing, but I like to think obi-wan was masking the pair by just being obnoxiously loud with the force (the force equivalent of him walking into a room with multiple air horns and a boom box blasting away)

Wow, I had THOUGHTS about this one.

Honestly? I'm not a fan of the assumption in a lot of fic and by fans that it's super easy to passively sense someone in the Force. I have used it myself, of course, but I say from experience it restricts writing a lot while... not actually having a ton of backing in the films? (I'm referring to the films here, not to any other media, just because when I want to analyse lore, I only take them as canon; when I'm just looking for cool worldbuilding for a fic, though, anything goes.)

It's not just Leia that Vader doesn't sense on the Death Star. He doesn't sense Luke either, even though Luke is right there screaming when Vader kills Obi-Wan. It's more of an issue with Leia ofc because he literally used the mind probe on her but only finds that "her resistance... is considerable". An easy answer is that I headcanon Leia is a naturally good shielder, which is why she was never found on the Death Star and also why all of the Jedi in ROTS were surprised there were two babies - Leia had been naturally shielding herself, so they just sensed Luke.

But if we go more in-depth into the films' representations of the Force, Vader only senses Luke when he's actively chasing him as a pilot; he comments that "The Force is strong with this one" only when Luke is using the Force to aim and fire his shot. For me, this implies that you can only sense other Force users powerfully or distinctly when they're actively using the Force. I know why fic prefers not to go that way - I for one have used the "Vader senses Luke immediately" plot to get Luke captured many a time - but it's a fun thing to consider. Also, the Force is a soft magic system. It does functionally whatever the story needs it to.* Which is why Vader can sense Luke approaching Endor in ROTJ when Palpatine couldn't, but he had to be told by an officer when Luke's ship was approaching Cloud City in ESB.** There are many examples where a Force user just didn't sense someone else. Luke not sensing Yoda in ESB, Obi-Wan not sensing Dooku's presence on Geonosis, the Jedi non sensing Maul in TPM, the Jedi not sensing Palpatine for the whole prequel trilogy.

You could argue that those examples are of trained Force wielders shielding themselves, but I would argue that Qui-Gon can't sense Anakin in TPM. He doesn't show interest in Anakin until after they've left Watto's shop and Anakin starts talking to him. Anakin is the literal son of the Force and the most powerful Force wielder ever, but Qui-Gon was talking to Watto for a while without batting an eyelash at the small supernova in his shop. He didn't start to suspect until he heard about his racing, his instincts, spoke to him to notice his insights. Then still he spoke to Shmi about him to confirm his suspicions that "he can see things before they happen", watched him while he flew, and took a midichlorian count. I think the Force might well have been nudging Qui-Gon to look at Anakin, to suspect something, but I don't think he sensed Anakin himself as Force sensitive - at least, not immediately. Which is how I think you can explain all the instances of people going "I felt his presence." They were either using the Force, or familiar as Force sensitives to the person sensing them, or the Force wielder in general had an instinct that there was something special about this person, I should pay attention...

This has been a long ramble, but the short answer is: I headcanon Leia as naturally good at shielding. I think it fills multiple Star Wars plot holes.***

But I think it's also worth interrogating the fact that fandom seems to approach and conceptualise of the Force as a hard magic system, with clearly defined rules, rather than the soft magic system it is.**** Anything goes in Star Wars! It can be annoying if the writing doesn't sell it well enough, but I really love that aspect of the worldbuilding. And considering that the Force is a big fat plot device as well as giving people magical instincts for things that are Plot Relevant and things that aren't, I think it's a lot more interesting to consider that the Force isn't a superpower that lets you sense everything. Vader didn't detect Leia simply because he didn't. Sometimes they fail to do that. And it allows you to show growth in character and situation when that fact changes. Vader doesn't sense Luke in ANH until he's Plot Relevant to Vader's personal story. He doesn't sense Luke until he's fighting him in ESB. But in ROTJ, once they're both invested in their relationship and fated to meet, they're drawn together like stars caught in a mutual orbit.

That's the explanation I prefer. Because although it's less consistent, it's not unbelievable. It leaves uncertainty, mysticism, the chance for exploration in the galaxy. And most importantly, it tells a damn good story. Which, while this may not be true of people who love collecting lore and figuring the galaxy out, is ultimately what I'm here for.

*This is why so many random new powers can get added and explored in later movies and such, and also why I don't really get het up about it when they do add them. It just depends how you incorporate that new power. Usually, if a villain suddenly has a new power no one knew about (like Palpatine's lightning in ROTJ) it just ups the stakes, while if a hero suddenly has a new power it can feel like it cheapens their victory, like they haven't earned it; a deus ex machina. So messing about with Force powers is fine, it just depends how you incorporate them in the story.

**Admittedly this can be explained by the bond being formed when Luke learned the truth, but you know what I mean.

***I was only talking about the movies here, but there's also that moment in the Kenobi series where she's captured by Inquisitors and still no one notices she's Force sensitive??? There's just a lot of moments like this littered all over Star Wars, so this headcanon covers a lot of them.

****I kept using the terms hard/soft magic system without really explaining it here, but here's some good videos to dig into it: Soft Magic Systems | Hard Magic Systems

[aceofwands]

it wants to give us the exciting parts and the emotional pay off without actually doing any of the work, is the best way I can think to explain it Ria hateblogs Discovery: Episode 7 “[Poorly Written Time Travel] Magic to Make[s] the Sanest [Wo]Man Go Mad”

liveblogged to @kendradaynes

we had entirely 'last time on Discovery' before the intro credits, like not even a teaser ...

kendradaynes... That's an unusual choice

aceofwands I thought so too!

it was just Mudd being left behind on the Klingon ship. probs cause Mudd is gonna show up (we saw in the teaser last week). seems an odd choice too, like it was only a couple episodes ago, we haven't forgotten what they did???

close up of Michael's face, giving a personal log

oh lord

already paused it to write an awful line of dialogue down: "despite my fears, I seem to have found my place on this discovery"

discovery of WHAT

the dialogue is so bad Shin, so bad

kendradaynes..... What? That is...That makes angsty teenage fic seem well written

aceofwands: she's talking about the ship's settled into routine ... which ... what? aren't they in the middle of a war?!!!!!!!!

and about how she's made a friend in Tilly, and how she's taken comfort in her work

and how "this ship has become the most important weapon in the Federation's arsenal"

and I can't even

it doesn't even feel like they're at war! the way they go around on this shiny ship and talk about how it's settled into routine?????? 

kendradaynes... I want to send them all of DS9 s7 and Voyager's Year of Hell 2 parter and maybe Enterprise season 3 to show WHY THAT WOULDN'T WORK

aceofwands: Stamet's wacky drive piloting ability has "Given him access not just to unseen parts of space but his personality as well" and like ... that's a worry! WHY IS NO ONE WORRIED ABOUT THIS

kendradaynes THAT IS NOT A GOOD THING GET THAT MAN TO A PSYCHOLOGIST

aceofwands I keep pausing this ONE PERSONAL LOG

she confesses she finds some members of the crew more interesting than others (lol what others, they feel even more like background characters than any of the other shows somehow???) and it's her talking to Voq-Tyler

(people online have been debating how it's too obvious that he's Voq, but I don't have any faith in these writers not doing the really fucking obvious)

"Lt Tyler has suffered so much and still maintains such dignity and kindness" I really really hope he actually is Voq like wow I want them to be this bad at writing (and nothing I've seen so far makes me think they're any good at it)

“I fear my personal history interferes with my ability to forge relationships. I am among the others yet also apart." I can't get over this, it's like bad self-insert fan fic (I'm not even 5 mins in lol, I'd better let her finish her stupid log and stop pausing it lol)

oh lord, she's facing one of her greatest challenges so far ... they're having a party

they're ... playing ... beer ... pong ... on Star Trek

this is like a gross noisy college frat party ... on Star Trek ...

why is Michael not wearing casual clothes ...

kendradaynes... #weneedtheorville

aceofwands Orville's party in Pria had more dignity??? which y'know, the show is full of dick jokes

oh it's okay though, Tyler is giving a speech

wait did he just point to a guy who's "sacrificed for us" who had some sort of disability? I went back - there's a guy sitting on what I think is supposed to be a futuristic wheelchair I guess?

how did we get from It's Only a Paper Moon to this?

kendradaynes There are also... Very few disabling things that can't be at least partially cured by the 23rd century

aceofwands yeeeeah my thoughts exactly. but it was unclear and part of a dramatic speech so

Tilly left Michael and Tyler alone together at the party, but they were asked to report to the bridge

I still don’t know why everyone loves Tilly ... she doesn't seem like a cadet, unless you count the AOS crew as cadets ... again, everyone's too 2017

ummmmmmm. so Michael and Tyler were walking along the corridor. when she bumped into Stamets and knocked a container of whatsits over. and he hugged her and asked why she's apologising for a random moment that makes life so gloriously unpredictable and WHY IS NO ONE CONCERNED FOR HIM

kendradaynes... That makes sense. He sounds high

aceofwands ohthe Doctor has just shown up in this conversation out of nowhere. "I deeply apologise for my partner, lately he's been acting ... different"

WHY ARE YOU HERE IN THIS RANDOM CORRIDOR DOC! YOU WEREN'T WALKING BESIDES STAMETS??? WHY DID YOU TURN UP JUST TO BE PART OF THIS CONVERSATION

(I keep pausing it, I'm only 7 mins in, I might uh ... stop pausing it and try to keep up lol)

kendradaynes There are so many plot holes in this show

aceofwands they made a cybernetic augment for his arm?? 

then they asked what the deal between Michael and Tyler is ... and I just ... why is this show ... so ... clumsy? there is no nuance, no subtlety, it’s like they have to hit us over the head with everything like MICHAEL AND TYLER LIKE EACH OTHER OKAY AUDIENCE, DO YOU GET IT?

kendradaynes Honestly it feels like 18 year old self-insert fanfiction

aceofwands cut to the bridge. Saru and Lorca found an unidentified signal ... its some sort of biological space organism

which Michael knows a lot about

kendradaynes Of course. Because she knows everything

aceofwands protocol requires them to take care of it, because it's endangered, which is nice because actual Star Trek things

and um what

kendradaynes I hate her, jsyk

aceofwands they just beamed it into the cargo bay???????????????????

IT LIVES IN SPACE

IN VACUUM

HOW WOULD IT SURVIVE IN ATMOSPHERE AND GRAVITY???

kendradaynes welp that thing would be dead

aceofwands OMG IT HAS A DEMOGORGON FACE 

 some dude in a helmet hitched a ride inside its mouth and used it to get on board

its killed a bunch of people, but Michael escaped

oh its Mudd, to no one's surprise

kendradaynes Of course. Because self insert

aceofwands "did you really think you could leave me in a Klingon prison and suffer no repercussions?"

what have they done to his character

good fucking grief

kendradaynes*sigh*

aceofwands he's come here to find out why the Discovery is special, and is talking about how he's gonna sell it to the Klingons, but "not this time". so Mudd's causing a time travel loop. exploding their ship. the Discovery is blowing up. but now it's back to the party

this sucks

usually I LOVE time loop episodes

they're usually so fun! but this show is boring and dumb

oh man ... if you're gonna repeat scenes ... THIS IS THE BEST YOU'VE GOT???? them walking along a corridor talking

OH LOL it's Stamets. he's the only one who recognises the time loop. and everyone thinks he's crazy! "I need all of you blasted people to start listening"

why is this episode not about Stamets talking to someone?

why wouldn’t they listen to him???

Michael's all "oooooh how did Stamets know what it was going to be???"

.....had to pause it. Michael requested being in charge of the operation. Lorca: "I don't give a damn, I just want it done". then Tyler requested being in charge for security. and Lorca: "I still don't give a damn"

this. is. not. Star. Trek.

seriously

when there was a time loop on Next Gen and they started realising they HELD A FUCKING STAFF MEETING! and they realised through the poker game, which was clever! and everything about that was more fun and impressive than this shit has been in the first 15 mins!

the spore drive just activated, and they're all like 'why is this happening?". but obvs Mudd's in engineering

Tyler and Michael are threatening him with phasers, but haven't shot him on sight. oh they finally did. but there was a forcefield. Mudd's trying to figure out how the drive works. 

Michael: "You are mad."

Mudd: "No, I'm Mudd."

WHY

I wish the idiots who wrote this garbage would get stuck in a time loop and forced to watch this awful episode over and over until they figured out how to stop it from being so bad

then he yelled at them to tell him how to work it AND STAMETS WAS BEHIND HIM AND SHOT HIM IN THE BACK. and said: "As days go, this was a weird one" which is hilarious

except that I'm not even 20 mins in and somehow bored?

how can they make time loops boring?

they keep saying different things???? in the scenes????

is it a time loop or isn't it?

do they know or don't they?

this doesn't make sense!

kendradaynes That's... not how a timeloop works. It only changes when they realise it

aceofwands yeah it's clearly trying to jump to the parts later on, cause Stamets implies that they've looped many times already. but instead - as usual - it just comes across as .. confused? muddled? like it's not really a time loop because they clearly know it's a loop enough to change what they say, but not enough to realise they're looping???

kendradaynes Yeah that's not how time loops are meant to work and I'm mildly vexed

aceofwands Mudd has got Lorca to come down with him "I really can't take it from the top again Lorca"

ummmm Mudd's talking about how he's explained this to Lorca before, but needs his help to access part of the ship ... if he's aware they're looping then ... why is he so bad at ... I don't even know .... [I stopped being able to explain everything wrong with this episode’s plot around this point]

this episode is a primer in How Not To Write Time Travel

Stamets is explaining how he thinks he's outside of the loop: "it's getting really hard to keep it straight" lol

he needs Michael to talk to Tyler but they're about to loop, and Stamets wants her to tell him something so she'll trust him straight away next loop. and she did??? and he made a sad face and said he was sorry

don't make me have feelings with your decent acting Anthony Rapp

but also do they not have protocols for time travel or like anything else to share???

"now is usually around the time he kills the Captain" - can we stay in that when we fix the loop lol

"you kill a Starfleet captain they lock you up for ever" ummm do they really

LOL WE'RE GETTING ALL THE LOOPS WHERE MUDD KILLS LORCA AND IT'S ACTUALLY REALLY SATISFYING WATCHING HIM DIE

HE'S EATING A SANDWICH AND HAD LORCA BEAMED TO SPACE

53 TIMES LOL

AHAHAHAHAHAHHAA

OKAY

ACTUALLY HILARIOUS PART

loop back to the party: Michael and Tilly talking. Stamets appears, taps Tilly, "I just spotted the hottest guy over there and apparently, he's in a band! Have fun!" (she was explaining earlier how she used to be into soldiers but is lately into musicians, cause that's what passes for character development on this awful show)

genuinely made me laugh

Michael's secret is that she's never been in love ... which we knew from the way she acted earlier in the episode??? not even a secret

HIS DIALOGUE IS DIFFERENT

THIS ISN'T HOW TIME LOOPS WORK

oh that was enough for Stamets to prove he was telling the truth ... and she now has to talk to Tyler about mudd?? idk it's super unclear why this is happening or what they're hoping to achieve ?????

honestly this episode is a terrible muddled mess

...................had to pause it again

to explain this scene

I'm leaving out so much and you're probably confused (I'm watching it and I'm confused)

she blew her chance to talk to Tyler because she likes him, which Stamets points out, and she says she's out of her element, so he says 'dance with me, for science, so I can see what I'm working with ... 'and like .... helping Michael talk to the guy she likes .... .... so they can save the ship from a time loop ... is the worst idea for a Star Trek episode I've ever heard. and I've watched Threshold

stupid space lizards make more sense than this plot

she's wondering how people make connections

and Stamets is explaining how Dr Culber and he got together

because the Doc was humming terrible opera

I ... I ... this

I can't Shin

you'll have to watch this dumb show with me if you want to make sense of it

I have to go back and attempt

no I'll just type out this conversation

see if it makes any sense to you

kendradaynes This sounds like it's impossible to make sense of even while watching

aceofwands 

"Hugh and I fell in love after I told him to get lost." 

"That doesn't make any sense." 

"Love isn't logical." (they're slow dancing while this happens) 

"I was in a wonderful cafe on Alpha Centauri when three seats down comes this hideous humming. Have you ever heard someone try to hum Casselian opera?" 

"I can't say that I have." 

"Well I told him to stifle it or sit somewhere else. Instead, he sat right next to me. And he's been there ever since." [Michael looks as confused as I am] 

"After such a rude exchange. Why would he do that?"  

"I told him how I really felt. And he did the same. And we liked that about each other." 

"I'm good at honesty." 

"Never hide who you really are. That's the way relationships work."

... ............... I have no words for how little this scene makes sense. that is not how relationships work???? that is a terrible way for them to get together???? and most importantly WHY ARE THEY SLOW DANCING (hint because they realised having them stand around the corridors was fucking boring probably)

kendradaynes THAT IS NOT HOW RELATIONSHIPS WORK

aceofwands I KNOW RIGHT

THEY'RE OUT OF TIME ALREADY? NO WAY IT HAS BEEN HALF AN HOUR

lol Michael is pulling Tyler away to dance in this time loop, the lighting is very purple with lots of close ups of their hands on each other

had to pause it again I am dying of bad laughter at the nonsense

they're dancing and it's kinda sweet and they've got an almost hint at a sexy vibe .... and then Burnham goes "So I hear you were locked up in a Klingon prison cell with Harry Mudd"

whyyyy are they not having a staff meeting about this?

I mean I know Lorca is a jerk and all. but this approach makes ZERO SENSE! she's telling him the whole truth, while they dance ... Stamets is watching and looking bemused .... 

Tyler is like "why would he think I'd trust you?"

"Because I like you. And he thinks you like me too."

and he's like 'oh ... tonight's gotten weird but also very interesting'

WHY DO NONE OF THEM ACT LIKE REAL PEOPLE?

like ... how is it that Shakespearean, larger than life characters in previous series somehow feel more real and genuine????? these people just SOUND LIKE THEY'RE IN A TV SHOW????? like it sounds like TV dialogue!

I can't explain it

"if time really is repeating, this won't matter" and he kisses her. of course. 

maybe less dancing more saving the ship?

they're talking while dancing "he used to brag about robbing a Betazoid bank" 

!"a non equilibrial matter state" - a time crystal, which she learned about at the Vulcan science academy. which they haven't been able to perfect, but a 4 dimensional being must have perfected it, according to Burnham

good thing she knew all of this ??????????

IT'S SO BADLY WRITTEN SHIN

WHAT THE FUCK

there's no figuring anything out!

they just already know!!!!!! 

cut back to the bridge, wondering where Michael and Tyler are. Mudd appears, playing music

hahahahaha the computer addressed him as Captain Mudd: "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually tired of gloating"

he's found a weaponised dark matter ball in Lorca's stash of dangerous shit. and he's blabbing on about it "and if any of you were planning on being heroes - including you, random communications officer man" LOL (the guy just ran up to try to stop him) "you'll find there's very little I don't know."

Tyler and Michael burst out onto the bridge for some reason ????

tried to shoot Mudd, the forcefield is still there ... he chucked the dark matter at Tyler .... who dissolved .... 

Mudd: "well that was new"

why would they listen to him? Michael you KNOW IT'S A TIME LOOP

STAMETS WHAT ARE YOU DOING

WHAT

THE

FUCK

he told him to stop, because he can't watch Mudd kill any more people

I PAUSED IT UNTIL I STOPPED FEELING CONFUSED BUT I DON'T THINK I WILL EVER STOP BEING CONFUSED

why

would

he

tell

Mudd

what kind of plan .... 

why did ....

why

why

why

kendradaynes Is your brain broken?

aceofwands yes

Stamets gave himself to Mudd????? even though he knew it was a time loop?why would he do that?

Michael has figured out the space whale has a ship in its belly .... with Mudd's crystal energy source in it ..... 

how .... does Michael know about Stella ???? I can't explain this episode to you any more Shin ... you'd have to watch this nonsense for yourself

she has come to sacrifice herself .... because the Klingons want her more than the ship

"you'll get a lot for this ship, but what would I be worth to them?"

"what's in it for you?" "Lt Tyler" "Lt Tyler is dead" "Not for long" ... and then she ATE A DARK MATTER BALL .... to force him to reset the timeline .... 

NO

NO NO NO NO

HOW DOES STAMETS KNOW

WE DIDN'T SEE HIM AGAIN AFTER HE WENT OFF WITH MUDD

SO HOW DID HE KNOW TO TELL MICHAEL HER OWN PLAN

or are we supposed to believe she remembers?

this episode MAKES NO SENSE

has Stamets finally told the Captain? why is he on the bridge

yes ... she did tell them .... everyone there knows and Mudd's confused

Lorca greeted him "Captain Mudd, your chair" - offers his chair

he realised Stamets was "passing on notes"

"don't try to con a con man" "I'm not, I'm negotiating with a business man"

"why would a Federation Captain do that?" "I will not have a repeat of the Boran [sp?] [his past ship]"

this episode is complete rubbish

he's leading Michael and Stamets off to the transporter room to meet the Klingons

lol Stamets has found out about his wife Stella. they found out he's been running from Stella, not to her lol

this episode would have been clever if the time loop wasn't so poorly done!

they rewired the captain's chair to send the message to Stella and her father .... who's come to get him lol

why ... why are they even doing this? they're so obsessed with making a new Star Trek series, why keep bringing in old characters for no reason?

Michael and Tyler waiting for a turbolift, Stamets told them both that in a previous timeline they danced .... they're super awkward

OH LORD

"What I'm feeling is complicated, and strange" "It's okay, I'm not going anywhere”

STOP TELLING US YOUR FEELINGS MICHAEL

I actually think they're really cute? I would usually like so many of these characters! but wow the plots are so. bad.

and it's so clumsy!

holy crap that was bad

oh lord, Saru in the next ep, they're on a planet, there are Klingons and the Admrial being tortured

wow. that's over. and took me ages to watch because I had to stop it so often lol

I have watched a lot of time travel episodes in my decades as a Trekkie (and on other sci fi shows) and that has got to be worst I’ve ever seen! It was SO confusingly done!

they just have no internal consistency!

you have Mudd getting revenge and Stamets working against him ... really really poorly ... 

and all of their solutions to the problems just made no sense???

Stamets giving himself up to Mudd???

and then the final solution of them all working together ... it wasn't like in the Next Gen episode I keep thinking of, where they eventually realise they're looping and find the message in Data and it feels like they worked together to solve it

it feels like this show ... cuts corners

it wants to give us the exciting parts and the emotional pay off without actually doing any of the work, is the best way I can think to explain it

it was ... choppy and confused

that sums the show up to be honest.

they went on and on about how they’re telling a big serialised story, but it isn’t even? we’ve had these weird interlude episodes with Sarek and now Mudd where stuff just happens just because? and they keep TELLING us they’re fighting a war but it doesn’t feel like they’re in one! 

if they’re going to do serialised season long arcs then they need to do way way better, like I just binge watched 9 episodes of Stranger Things yesterday! I know what a good serial narrative looks like and this is not it!

and if they’re going to do episodic then they need to do way way better

the plot of this was just confused nonsense that was weirdly focused around Michael and Tyler’s relationship more than anything else ... it just feels like they’re mashing a bunch of random rubbish together and hoping it works, rather than like a carefully crafted story on either an episodic OR a serial level!

and now I’m just thinking about how much I want to go watch some fun time loop episodes - like man, give me SG1 stuck in a time loop doing stupid shit any day, at least that was fun AND made sense

[tinymixtapes]

Feature: Avant-Garde Escape Strategies

[A Bewick’s wren perches motionlessly on a thin branch.] In 2017, Twin Peaks is an invigorated brand. It has awoken as if to a new life, walks and breathes more freely. It is viewed on laptops, tablets, phones, and smart televisions connected to Netflix, and it will soon be viewed on SHOWTIME. But how will Twin Peaks be viewed in the year 2117? On what devices? Will it be viewed at all, or will its exact content be experienced in some truncated, more immediate form, facilitated by body-altering technologies yet to be discovered? Who are the people who download Twin Peaks to their brains in the future? Where do they live? These are the kinds of questions SHOWTIME will have to answer in order to ensure the continued relevance of the reawakened, newly optimistic, and hungry Twin Peaks brand. Maybe those viewer-subjects live in a huddled condition, in what philosopher Peter Sloterdijk calls “ecological stress communes,” pressed inland and away from cultural centers now remembered and revered like ancestors, jostled about by resource scarcity, plagued by ridiculous fantasies of aliens and sea people punctuated by actual disaster, war, and collapse. Or maybe these troubles loom on their horizon. In the face of these real nightmares, do they dream of ending up in a place like Twin Peaks, of grappling with its fake demons? Maybe future Twin Peaks viewers see in it a refreshingly provincial vision of encompassing crisis. A town where a yellow light still means “slow down” resonates abstractly with them. They are absorbed by the dark forces stirred out of the brown-gray American forest, by the murder of the cocaine-addicted homecoming queen and secret prostitute. Maybe, naive to the reality of their own circumstances, they feel like Dale Cooper chasing after those elusive and idealized spirits. The X-Files at least has something like a vision of the future, where Twin Peaks only has a vision of the past, and a pretty abstruse one at that. The forces that will carry The X-Files and Twin Peaks together into the cruel future are similar, but not the same. The X-Files, in its simulation of a crackpot investigation motivated less by superstition than clandestine knowledge and bizarre technology, at least has something like a vision of the future, where Twin Peaks only has a vision of the past, and a pretty abstruse one at that. If, disingenuously, The X-Files sought to domesticate the demons split open by modern techniques of investigation, Twin Peaks was overcome by its monsters, disenchanted and reduced to an incomprehensible aesthetic litany. Where The X-Files resolved about a mystery per episode, Twin Peaks lacked satisfying answers. And while we don’t know how Twin Peaks will be viewed in the future, SHOWTIME is wise to bet on disenchantment, on unanswered questioning and the melting of things into dark, muddy pictures. --- [Three white plumes ascend from the smokestacks ahead.] You wake up from an unclear dream in the late afternoon. The year is 2011 or 2012. Your room is dark and warm. Your laptop is next to you, partly covered by sheets. Disoriented, you rub gunk out of your eyes. You were up late browsing Tumblr again. Your laptop screen opens upon your unrefreshed dashboard, where you had fallen asleep to a looping GIF of Laura Palmer’s freeze-framed VHS smile from “Pilot (Northwest Passage).” You “like” the post. Co-created by David Lynch, a pioneer of American avant-garde cinema known for such films as Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive, the show mixes Lynch’s unique brand of surrealism with a dated form of the primetime drama in a way that you’ve enjoyed since you were introduced to the show by friends on the internet. One of the many reasons you love Twin Peaks is that its characters feel like people you know in real life, even though everything else in the show feels very unfamiliar. Twin Peaks makes you nostalgic for a time you don’t remember and a place that doesn’t exist. Animation: Korey Daunhauer Twin Peaks makes you nostalgic for a time you don’t remember and a place that doesn’t exist. Before you knew who David Lynch was, you had seen Laura Palmer wrapped in plastic, an icon of ossified innocence. It would take Lynch and Mark Frost a while to notice, or to do anything about, the fact that Twin Peaks had taken about 20 years to strike the nerve it was always supposed to hit, the one in you. Maybe they were too cynical, too forward-thinking. They thought your parents would be like this. Or, more likely, the conversation they staged between the avant-garde and its supposed opposite traumatically fell through, revealing, eventually, the uncanny mixture obscured by those labels, which they never knew how to control. It took a while to work itself out. By eventually thickening the show with supernatural diversions and visually peculiar dream sequences, ultimately leaving many of its mysteries unsolved, Lynch and Frost created the perpetual conditions for a scrupulous, even paranoid viewing of Twin Peaks. The question is how the show’s visual language, founded upon a mostly-arbitrary complexity inherited equally from Lynch’s experimentalism and from the genre within which it is put to work, means anything at all after the fact of its disenchantment — aestheticized, separated from the ostensible movement toward resolution. Or, as Anamanaguchi’s Peter Berkman put it in a reply to a comment on one of his Facebook status updates, “the question is how that grammar has changed now that we can pause and dissect individual frames in and out of context.” You close your eyes, take a deep breath, and keep scrolling Tumblr. --- [Sparks fly from the grinding wheel as you move in for a closer look.] INT. GREAT NORTHERN HOTEL DINING AREA - MORNING Sunlight pours into the room from the right. DALE COOPER sips coffee, his tape recorder placed neatly in front of him on the table. COOPER Diane, the time is 8:05 A.M., I’m at the Great Northern Hotel. I’ve just awoke from a terrible and convoluted dream. I’m not sure how much of it was significant to the inquiry into Laura Palmer’s death and how much of it was fabricated by BOB for the purpose of diverting it; to be honest, I’m not even sure if BOB or the Black Lodge are real anymore. I don’t know if I care or if the outcome of the investigation is important to me. I feel terrible. I lied awake in bed for a few hours. I feel like I’m living in someone else’s bizarre fantasy. (He pauses.) I mean, I guess her dad did it? I live at this hotel now. BOBBY BRIGGS enters from the GREAT NORTHERN HOTEL LOBBY holding a football. BOBBY Hey, Coop! Catch! BOBBY throws COOPER the football. COOPER fails to catch the football and it hits his tape recorder, sending it flying into the mug of coffee. COOPER B-Bobby! I — AUDREY HORNE enters from the GREAT NORTHERN HOTEL LOBBY smoking a cigarette, holding an iPhone. AUDREY (puffing cigarette) “When the masses think, the intellectual dies.” –Antonio Negri --- [A massive log looms atop a dolly.] Was Twin Peaks an attempt to make the masses think, to think with the masses and to kill the intellectual, or to think of the masses? To create an intellectual picture of their supposed fears and superstitions, their vices and neuroses? First, there’s Cooper and his obsession with an idea of homespun authenticity, one of the show’s biggest memes. There’s also Harry S. Truman, the sheriff, well-intentioned and pragmatic; Bobby Briggs, the football star, surly and unpredictable; the show’s various tokens of the bumbling serendipity of small-town America (Andy the cop, Pete the loyal husband); and the town’s enigmas and obsessives (James the boyishly gilded biker, Leland Palmer, Lawrence the shrink, and Harold the shut-in). Then, there’s a group of female characters, beginning with Laura and growing to include Shelly Johnson, Donna Hayward, Audrey Horne, Norma Jennings, Josie Packard, Lucy Moran, and Catherine Martell, who are depicted at best as seriously or repeatedly traumatized and, at worst, as stupid or possessed by some unknown whim, complicit in their own undoing. Where the town of Twin Peaks is bottomless in its dark mythology, it is flat in other ways. The image of community in Twin Peaks is convincing, actually, because it is not realistic. It is a vision of the countryside native to the city and is nonetheless awkward in representing both. FBI agents and industrialists, the show’s main representatives of the latter, view the fixed category of “provincial values” with lust or disdain. The working assumption is that the city is a place that mystery and magic have abandoned in favor of particular backwaters. That urban coexistence is antithetical to wonder. Moby’s “Go,” the popular rave-inspired electronica single based on a sample of Angelo Badalamenti’s theme music for Twin Peaks, is both clearer about who it is talking to and more successful in its attempt to practice an inclusive form of mastery over its created public than the show itself. As I drive east on Phoenix’s Loop 202 away from the setting sun, “Go (Woodtick Mix)” fades into “Go (Soundtrack Mix),” a line of a hundred cars curving delicately to the returning, quantized “yeahs.” --- [A waterfall crashes.] Everybody needs an escape from the avant-garde. To think all of the time is difficult, and it seems better that one find some place of negotiation, where many people think more and few people think less. As an escape strategy, Twin Peaks faltered in its weirdness, its stubborn maintenance of a position among the few. It was, moreover, unrealistic in its concept of the many. Gesturing toward the avant-garde, it failed there most spectacularly; no matter the depth of the perennial ebb and flow of interest in Lynch’s work, it will always make complete sense to me that Fire Walk With Me was booed at Cannes. If Lynch’s murderous backwater is perfectly fitted to the fetishes and anxieties of today’s teenagers, it is only because they have many of the same fetishes and anxieties as their parents, who watched with baited breath until the questions and clues lost their impact. Lynch’s vision of provincial intrigue said more about the values and aesthetics of America’s cities than its towns, and it appeals to we who carry with us everywhere a version of what Lynch saw in the city. If Lynch’s murderous backwater is perfectly fitted to the fetishes and anxieties of today’s teenagers, it is only because they have many of the same fetishes and anxieties as their parents, who watched with baited breath until the questions and clues lost their impact. Today, Twin Peaks exists against the backdrop of a nostalgia cult. Millennials, lacking spiritual unity and drawn to promises of darkness, are fascinated. Resuscitated by the esoteric magic of the brandscape, will Twin Peaks really walk and breathe more freely, as if awoken to a new life, and find something like that original sense of purpose? Or will it lose its way again in the smoke and mirrors of a shoddily constructed model of the public? --- On this auspicious morning for Twin Peaks, you languish in your room, thinking of the past. Of dead memes, content dampened and wrapped in plastic. Sometimes you wish you could immaterialize, becoming the unfeeling aggregate of your social footprint. You dream of disappearing into a fog of blogwave, street style, spicy memes, or Twin Peaks. Other times, you feel surprisingly up to the task of remaining an aggregate of relations. Your mental image of your environment sometimes appears in the form of a monster you are working to vanquish. With an intoxicated discomfort like nausea, you realize that Laura never lived in a world, had a future. That the real mysteries were yours. --- [You approach a wooden sign on the right side of the road.] http://j.mp/2pXgudV