You must change your life.
–Rilke
I want to change my life.
–Audrey Horne
I am really enjoying my re-viewing of Twin Peaks, though I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be able to get all the way through it before it goes off Netflix at the end of this month.
Even Season 2? Season 3 is the best thing I’ve ever seen on TV.
I’ve only made it through episode 5 so far. I don’t think I’ll get through season 2, especially as I’ll have company next week and probably won’t see any at all. So 3 is not really in the picture at the moment, though I do want to see it again. I’m picking up some interesting threads now: “Laura said her mother is sort of spooky.” But as you may remember I wasn’t all that keen on 3.
You should buy it. Apparently, you will want to see it again every so often.
Although, then it might be like the beach.
AMDG
Well, I can’t find where Rob mentioned Cold Comfort Farm, so I will just comment here where it has no business. Not like I ever let that bother me.
At first, I didn’t think I was going to like it because it was too consciously amusing or something, but then I really started to enjoy it. In a way, it reminded me of Emma.
AMDG
You may be thinking of a discussion on Facebook with someone who as far as I know doesn’t read this blog. I was a little surprised that he was saying CCF was a parody or satire of Austen, because what I remember of the tv adaptations was more a satire of the romanticization of rural England. But I haven’t read the book.
Re Twin Peaks, yes, I’ve thought about buying it, actually. But as you say it might be like the beach, or the Fawlty Towers dvds.
Season two was good up until L.P.’s murder was solved, then it went downhill (which is not to say that it didn’t have some good moments). I wasn’t completely sold on season three as a whole, but I loved parts of it, and will probably watch it again at some point.
I’ve never read CCF, only seen the movie. Like Mac, my recollection is that it’s not parodying Austen, but a certain type of English rural novel that was popular at the time. I do need to read the book, as I liked the movie a lot.
Just finished watching the US series Murder One, from 1995. It holds up very well — was the first scripted primetime show besides TP. It follows one murder investigation for the length of the entire season (23 episodes) from the point of view of the defense team. Viewers were unaccustomed to that, and so at a certain point the show began to use longish recaps at the beginning of each episode to fill new viewers in who were joining midstream (I FF’d through these).
The acting is all pretty strong, but Stanley Tucci is a standout as one of the prime suspects. The lead actor, Daniel Benzali, whom I hadn’t seen before, is also very good.
It seems to be a pretty nearly universal opinion that season 2 went off the rails. I think I read that Lynch did not want the revelation but was pressured to do it by the network, and was not much involved after that.
Never heard of Murder One (that I recall). It might be a candidate for my wife and me to watch. We have gotten into this bad habit of watching something every night, and are stuck in a groove of mostly British crime dramas. For some weeks now it’s been Silent Witness, a series that’s been going since 1996 (!). Up there with Midsomer Murders in longevity. I wouldn’t give it much more than a passing grade overall, but some episodes are excellent. And sometimes they take on current socio-political concerns in ways that really deal with the complexity rather than just being preachy. Last night, for instance, the story involved pedophilia and child abuse and a sometimes over-zealous social worker. The writing very effectively dramatized, and did not attempt to resolve in a simplistic way the problem of knowing when to and when not to separate a child from its family.
I remember now who it was. I gather it is supposed to be a parody of Hardy, and Elliot, et. al. There is just a resemblance in the character of the heroines that I see.
AMDG
Yes, even though I haven’t read Hardy, that was who I thought of, just on the basis of reputation.
According to wikipedia Hardy may have been an indirect target of CCF but the more direct one is a group of novels popular in England in the 20’s by female authors such as Mary Webb and Sheila Kaye-Smith. One critic apparently called these books “loam and lovechild” fiction, while Joan Sutherland referred to them as “soil and gloom romances.” Seems almost as if these writers took some cues from Hardy, gave them a bit of a feminist spin, and turned that into a formula, which became quite popular. The only title of this genre with which I am familiar is Precious Bane, which is by Webb, although I do see that another book of hers, Gone to Earth, was successfully filmed in 1950 by Powell and Pressburger, which is interesting.
I’d never even heard of any of these. It’s always a risk with satire that people won’t recognize what’s being satirized, and CCF seems to have outlived its targets.
I wonder if any of the jibe was directed at Lawrence. It’s been a really long time since I read him, but I think his picture of rural life was not exactly romantic–more about primal instincts, dark knowledge of the blood, and that sort of thing.
Good point about Lawrence — hadn’t thought of that.
I guess it says something about the quality of CCF that’s it’s still very funny even if you don’t know what’s specifically being parodied.
Yes, it does. I think it’s unlikely that the person who saw it as making fun of Austen knows these obscure writers. “I saw something nasty in the woodshed” (one of the few things I remember from the series) needs no foil to be funny (at least as delivered).
The Church of the Quivering Brethren!
Oh yeah!
It’s possible that Lawrence is mentioned in the book, but I don’t have it with me.
There is a character in the book who writes about the Bronte sisters stealing their brother’s work.
AMDG
That would make an interesting anti-feminist conspiracy theory.
Light On Dark Water 
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