Summary: In April 1990, television viewers were welcomed into the distinctive and eerie town of Twin Peaks. The show, created by auteur David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Eraserhead) and Mark Frost (Hill Street Blues, Fantastic Four) immediately captivated fans with its mysterious plot line, centered on the murder of a young woman named Laura Palmer. While its first season was a hit for ABC, after its plotline got increasingly bizarre, the show was cancelled in its second season. But Twin Peaks has lived on -- not only in the cult canon, but through its innovative cinematic aura, bizarre kitschy vibe, and serialized approach. Its impact can be seen on shows like The X-Files, LOST, and even shows like The Sopranos, or this year's The Leftovers. Equally fundamental to setting the tone of the show was its original soundtrack and theme song, composed by Angelo Badalamenti. The show's original music -- which quickly shifted from charming and innocent to sinister and menacing -- was released on an internationally successful album, and its theme song picked up a Grammy Award for "Best Pop Instrumental Performance" in 1991. Recently, after a few mysterious tweets from Lynch and Frost, it was announced that Twin Peaks will return with nine new episodes (written and directed by Frost and Lynch) on Showtime in 2016 -- 25 years after it left. Few details are known about the new episodes yet, including whether the show's iconic theme will be returning as well. In a conversation with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, Andy Greenwald, a staff writer for Grantland, discusses the Twin Peaks' return, how the show was unique, and whether the original music will find a place in the new version of the show Interview Highlights Andy Greenwald, on why people are excited about the return of Twin Peaks: Twin Peaks was sort of the urtext for obsessive fandom of this TV generation. It was by far the most visually creative, most strange, most bizarre, most musically interesting program of its time and it ended very unsatisfactorily for people. Unlike many other shows that have been rebooted in the short-term for cash grabs, this is something that people are pretty invested in and excited about. On Twin Peaks' distinctive theme music: I think that even as we come to the tail end of what some people have called the "Golden Age of Television" in the last ten years, original soundtracks, original scores have really not been a priority. There is a rapid turnover, a lot of demand and people have been putting their limited budgets in different directions. There are certainly a lot of TV shows that have incredible songs placed in them… but in terms of original, rich scores that really add to the experience and deepen the experience very few shows have approached the level that Twin Peaks achieved with the score by Angelo Badalamenti. On whether Twin Peaks will use its original music in its 2016 revival: I’m convinced that they will. The most important thing to remember is that after 25 years old grudges have been forgotten, high expectations weirdly have been minimized, enough time has passed. This has just purely been happiness, no real doubt, no real fear and one of the reasons for that is that unlike the original TV series this will be a limited series – nine episodes – all of which will be directed by David Lynch, written by Lynch and Mark Frost. With many of the cast members either many have passed away, many of them have aged out of the type of roles we are used to seeing them in, the music will be one of the most important ways to maintain continuity between the original series and the new version.
