Diane… #1: Pilot, part one
May 26th, 2016
Welcome to Diane… A new Twin Peaks podcast which goes deep into the woods.
Every week we will be exploring an episode of Twin Peaks to decode its magical undercurrents and symbolic grammars scene-by-scene. Whether you’ve been thinking about the body on the beach for the last quarter-century, or are new to the show, join us as we break our souls trying to work out just what the Hell is going on.
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In this first episode Adam, Rosie and Bob bid you Welcome to Twin Peaks, a small, strange town in the American North West. They look at the first half of the original Twin Peaks pilot esode entitled Northwest Passage. They discuss sculptures made of oil, the tree giant’s corpse, and Homecoming.
We’re a new podcast so if you like it, please think about sharing the link to this episode far and wide – all word of mouth signal-boosting is very welcome and gratefully received.
You can also follow Diane… on Twitter and Tumblr. We’ll be adding new channels in the coming weeks – if there’s one you think we should try, please let us know in the comments below!
More soon…
May 26th, 2016 at 11:19 pm
Dammit I’m still behind on “Silence!” and now there’s this beautiful thing to follow.
Will my suffering never cease!?
May 27th, 2016 at 9:55 am
No, not if we can help it.
May 27th, 2016 at 12:11 pm
Delicious, sweet garmonbozia
May 27th, 2016 at 12:37 pm
BOB(sy).
Oh no..
May 27th, 2016 at 2:27 pm
Was the scary thing how attractive David Duchovny is as a women?
May 28th, 2016 at 5:10 am
Fantastic. It’s weird to hear your description of the pilot, which I feel like I remember well, but you draw attention to details that maybe I didn’t catch or simply don’t remember, making the podcast itself feel “exotic familiar.”
I’m glad to learn the population sign was an ABC mandate; the 50,000 figure never made any sense to me either.
May 28th, 2016 at 8:46 am
Hmm. Been meaning to watch Twin Peaks for the first time, and following along with a podcast might be the kick I need. Do you have a policy on spoilers for future episodes? (sorry if you address this in the first few minutes of the show, not listened yet as haven’t seen the pilot.)
May 28th, 2016 at 12:37 pm
Thank you Cass, very pleased you enjoyed it! Hope you’ll join us in the rewatch.
50,000 seems especially mental when you consider that there are a total of 3 police officers keeping the peace, one of whom is Andy.
May 28th, 2016 at 2:01 pm
^This
May 30th, 2016 at 11:07 am
Really liked this, plus it’s a good excuse to watch Twin Peaks again!
Felt incredibly emotional even just thinking about Laura’s mum’s grief while listening to this! The Twin Peaks hooks are obviously in deep.
May 31st, 2016 at 8:17 am
it’s all veru emosh
May 31st, 2016 at 8:33 am
Nick, we’re trying not to spoil, but sometimes when we talk around an issue you might feel us… er… pushing in a certain direction. We’ll never directly state forthcoming plot beats, however.
Definitely don’t listen until you’ve seen the episode under discussion.
Now get watching. It is best telly.
May 31st, 2016 at 9:46 am
Wonderful podcast, contra Paul the strong urge to watch the entire series again elicited is very inconvenient: 0/10.
Setting myself up for evisceration here, but given the consensus regarding certain… fallow periods in the show, would teamDiane advocate any episodes being designated Skippable? I spent a good chuck of season 2 armed with synopses and the fast-forward button.
May 31st, 2016 at 11:25 am
Glad you enjoyed James, sorry you’re stuck with us now! :) Re: season 2 my thinking with is that we can consider plotlines like Little Nicky, MT Wents, etc, from the perspective of “how could this be made good/more TwinPeaksy?” Does mean that we’ll have to go through that awful car side-quest with JH but at least we’ll all be suffering together?
May 31st, 2016 at 12:46 pm
I expected no less, and look forward to your enlivening the material. More generally, I do think viewing guides would be a valuable resource for this and other long-running shows, especially in our current climate of short-runs and focused narratives. “You can skip this one”; “there are a total of three minutes relevant to the main mystery: fast-forward to [XX:XX] and [XX:XX]“
June 3rd, 2016 at 9:32 am
Currently an hour into the first episode of ‘Diane’ and it’s bloody marvellous. Thank you very much to everyone involved.
Re: a human reaction from a policeman not being seen in tv before. I’d disagree with this and point to the fact that co-creator Mark Frost worked on Hill Street Blues which very much informs some of the more human moments of Twin Peaks. The majesty of Twin Peaks for me is the synthesis between all its creators (actors included), and problems occur when one of those elements goes missing for a while (Lynch being distracted by making Wild at Heart during the middle of the second season for instance). In this respect the show very much reflects the environment it covers, starting with the absence of Laura Palmer.
June 3rd, 2016 at 6:39 pm
Yes, great point! I was reading about Frost bringing emosh to HSB just the other day.
I guess what Bob’s thoughts boils down to is that you don’t see it much on TV, and not with that level of vulnerability. As a side-note, it all comes back to the heightened emotional pitch that runs throughout the episode.
What’s lovely is that Frost is probably part of the reason we see emoting cops at all.
June 3rd, 2016 at 6:46 pm
Oh, and thanks so much for listening, Carey.
The production and the world of show do intersect on some odd ways.
June 23rd, 2016 at 3:30 pm
Partway through this, and two points of possible interest to the podcasters: that enormous tree corpse is STILL THERE – I visited and had my photo taken lying under it in 2014. And the Double R diner isn’t a different set in the pilot vs the other eps: it’s a real diner in the pilot and a set in the series (this is the case with most of the recurring interiors, actually). The IRL diner had long since been damaged by fire & rebuilt differently by the time I visited, but has since been restored to its ’80s mode to serve as a location again for the new shoots.
June 23rd, 2016 at 7:49 pm
Did you go to the RR?
June 24th, 2016 at 12:23 am
It was Twede’s Cafe now, but I did have a slice of freshly-made cherry pie there.
June 24th, 2016 at 3:49 pm
Hah, awesome!