The history of the creation of the popular series "Twin Peaks"

On April 8, 1990, viewers got acquainted with the TV series "Twin Peaks" and its main character - the brilliant and eccentric special agent of the FBI Dale Cooper, played by Kyle McLachlan, who later received an "Emmy" for this role.

Thanks to his unfailing politeness, unconventional but successful investigative methods, obsessive love of cherry pie and "damn good" coffee, and a habit of dictating messages to his invisible secretary Diana, Agent Cooper quickly became one of the most beloved TV detectives.

In exclusive BBC archive interviews, the creators of the series talked about its unique atmosphere and unusual main character.

Screenwriter Mark Frost told the BBC Late Show that the character was partially inspired by series co-writer and director David Lynch.

"I tried to create this character on the image of David to a certain extent," said Frost. "A lot of his quirks and attention to detail, which David has so much of, came to the surface with this character."

Spooky, cinematic and often confusing, Twin Peaks was unlike anything else on television at the time.

It takes place in the picturesque town of the same name, where FBI agent Dale Cooper tries to help the local police investigate the murder of high school student Laura Palmer, played by Sheryl Lee. As Cooper searches for the killer, the city gradually reveals its dark secrets - crime, deeply hidden traumas and supernatural phenomena.

Prior to that, Frost was a writer for the groundbreaking NBC television series Hill Street Blues, about an overworked police station. So Frost and Lynch wanted to raise that bar even higher with Twin Peaks.

Hill Street Blues turned the idea of ​​a cop show on its head at the beginning of the decade, and we had a chance to do something similar with Twin Peaks. I think this genre has become stale in the last few years and the classics of this genre are getting a bit tired. Perhaps there is a way to incorporate new ideas and a new approach into evening series? That is how "Twin Peaks" appeared, - said Frost.

Lynch, who was then well-known as a film director, saw the possibilities in the long format of the series.

"The best thing about television is that it gives you the chance to tell a long story, and I really like that," Lynch said on the BBC's Late Show. "That's the main reason for doing the series - the idea that you can experience this world, get to know these characters and unravel these problems over the course of weeks."

This series cannot be attributed to any one genre - it is both a police detective and a mysterious melodrama with elements of horror, surrealism and comedy.

Lynch brought a striking visual aesthetic and dreamy atmosphere to it, which was beautifully complemented by Angelo Badalamenti's score.

"Dale Cooper is David"

Like his main character Cooper, Lynch himself was prone to unconventional approaches. The series often went from the mundane to the outright weird within a single scene, and characters like a troubled young biker or a corrupt businessman turned out to be far stranger and more ambiguous than they first appeared.

Lynch's penchant for long shots added a sense of anxious anticipation to scenes set in an ordinary small American town - such as a cafeteria, a high school or a house in the suburbs.

"One of the things that is unmistakable about David's work," said Frost, "is his ability to transcend traditional narrative."

"Very often in movies and on television, emotion is used not to convey the actual emotion, but to weave it into the plot. They say: "There is grief, we understand it, let's move on." Instead, David is amazing at working with emotions and letting them be as real as possible, and many people find that very uncomfortable. That's why for me David's style is actually very real and very realistic," explains the screenwriter.

Although Twin Peaks originally only ran for two seasons, it had a huge impact on the series that came after it. Echoes of its surreal nature, alternate realities, idiosyncratic characters and use of dreams can be seen in everything from The X-Files, Lost and Fargo to The Leftovers and The Sopranos.

It gained a legion of loyal fans, thanks to which the series was first made into a movie in 1992, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and then in 2017, a third season was filmed.

And at the center of all this is agent Dale Cooper with his enthusiasm and eccentricity, a reflection of David Lynch himself.

As Kyle McLachlan told the Guardian in 2020: “I added a lot of David's traits when I played him – whether it was in the pronunciation or the individual phrases that David says. Indeed, Dale Cooper is David, not me."