Today’s Guest: David Bushman and Arthur Smith, co-authors Twin Peaks FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About A Place Both Wonderful and Strange; curators, Paley Center for Media
Watch this exclusive Mr. Media interview with David Bushman and Arthur Smith by clicking on the video player above!
Mr. Media is recorded live before a studio audience full of mystery buffs who think that solving who killed Laura Palmer and J.R. Ewing is more important than enjoying an hour of popcorn TV… in the NEW new media capital of the world… St. Petersburg, Florida!
Can I be honest?
I don’t think anyone has really asked a lot of questions about the TV series “Twin Peaks” since the theatrical sequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me flopped at the movies in 1992.
There. I’m glad I got that off my chest.
DAVID BUSHMAN podcast excerpt: “Netflix has exposed a whole new generation of viewers to ‘Twin Peaks.’ I have a daughter who us 23; she knows ‘Twin Peaks”’; her friends know Twin Peaks. One of the great things about Twin Peaks, what is so rare in television, is it raised a lot of questions without spelling out the answers for you.”
But that said, my wife and I were big fans of the original run of the TV show on ABC in 1990 and forced ourselves to watch the entire second season, even though it wasn’t very good, to be honest. And we skipped Fire Walk with Me altogether.
And yet – having actually trekked to the rural area of Washington State where the show was filmed, stayed a couple of nights at “The Great Northern” (a.k.a., the iconic Salish Lodge & Spa) and visited the astonishing Snoqualmie Falls behind it, we are more than a little curious about the show’s impending return with new episodes on Showtime in early 2017.
ARTHUR SMITH podcast excerpt: “You can read ‘Twin Peaks FAQ’ and the information about how the show was created and produced. I grew up being an obsessive fan of a lot of things. I would always love any supplementary material that would deepen my engagement with the thing itself. ‘The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z’ came out in the 1980s. They took all the characters that you know and, in an encyclopedia format, broke down their biographies, what their abilities were, what their personality was like. As a fan, it’s kind of thrilling to see them distilled.”
Assuming we aren’t the only ones holding out hope of a return to form by the David Lynch and Mark Frost series, I invited David Bushman and Arthur Smith to the show today to talk about their comprehensive new book, Twin Peaks FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About a Place Both Wonderful and Strange.
Key interview moments:
• 4:20 David Bushman explains the enduring appeal of “Twin Peaks,” a show that has been off the air for decades and is making a comeback;
• 16:30 Why write an FAQ about “Twin Peaks”? For Bushman, part of the allure is his respect for director David Lynch;
• 27:40 Arthur Smith compares the appeal of an FAQ book to an encyclopedia such as “The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.”.
Twin Peaks FAQ Twitter • Goodreads
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