17 thoughts on “The ReStrangening

  1. Nigel

    Close Encounters Of The Stranger Kind. I loved the first series and I’m looking forward to the next, but it’s funny to think how backward-looking it is, heavy on nostalgia for the doorstoppers of Stephen King and films of Stephen Spielberg. But a TV series like this wouldn’t be possible without Twin Peaks breaking all the ground it did, and the new series of Twin Peaks is just so fearlessly modern and not that interested in looking back or recreating the past except to build on it, going all-out art-house in one episode while still sustaining a (sort of) comprehensible narrative. David Lynch is seventy. Feck your ageism. Lovely poster, though. I was a kid on a bike on a road looking up at weird cloud formations. Instead of fighting evil though i usually just went home for my tea.

        1. Nigel

          Rereading it, I probably should have just gone a head and formatted it like a Badatmemes comment. Line breaks are my friend!

      1. Rich Uncle Skeleton

        It’s David Lynch not having to answer to anybody and doing whatever the hell he wants. Which I think is a good thing. But it’s not like the old series. Which is also a good thing. Even though the old series is also a good thing.

      2. Nigel

        If you like Lynch and Twin Peaks it’s literally the best thing ever, but it’s reeeeal arty in places. You can’t just jump in without having seen the series and Fire Walk With Me at some point unless you enjoy being totally disoriented and confused, albeit brilliantly so., If you have seen them it’s still disorienting and confusing, but you can decode enough of it to get a sense of what’s going on. What it retains is that mixture of comedy, horror and WTF, sometimes all three at the same time, and a weird, convoluted story. I can’t believe a mainstream TV channel commissioned a full series of this. Kyle McLachlan in particular is absolutely killing it.

        1. Nigel

          Fire Walk With Me is not an easy watch, by the way, if you haven’t seen it. It got critically slated when it came out, but now, far removed from the hype and expectations (and disappointments) of the original show, it’s probably the strongest part of the whole Twin Peaks project. But the Laura Palmer parts are a raw, brutal and ugly depiction of sexual abuse and mental disintegration. It’s fairly harrowing viewing.

          By comparison, Stranger Things is pure cosy comfort viewing.

      1. Holden MaGroin

        No. It’s derivative and lazy in someways. But it banks on the whole nostalgia thing I suppose.

    1. Christopher

      Once I got past the amazing opening titles and the novelty of the faithful rip off, I mean HOMAGE to every 80s horror/sci-fi film I was left with very little other than an excuse to laugh at Winona Ryder’s set chewing some very dull characters (I’m struggling to remember any of the rest of the cast) and a really paper thin “plot”. The backlash to season 2 is is going to be massive when the people who liked season 1 figure that out.

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