Please post your thoughts, comments, reviews and questions here. I am planning to watch the pilot episode tomorrow. But feel free to discuss whatever you like regarding this show. I am curious to know how people feel about its being inspired by
Twin Peaks...
While watching the first episode of M. Night Shyamalan's Wayward Pines, I noticed a few similar themes the series had to Twin Peaks. During our viewing of Twin Peaks, the motif of food was embedded throughout many of the seasons. In the episode we watched of Wayward Pines, I noticed that food was emphasized throughout the episode. For example, the main character, Ethan Burke (played by Matt Dillon), asked the bartender for a cheeseburger with extra blood. A few minutes later, while Burke was talking to an investigator, he was shown eating an ice cream cone in a professional setting. This reminded me of Agent Cooper eating donuts while investigating the death of Laura Palmer. Similarly to Twin Peaks, food is fetishized and plays an important role in the series. (Sophia Uhl)
ReplyDeleteAfter only seeing the first episode of Wayward Pines, it’s easy to see how Twin Peaks has had an influence on both the show’s writing and production. Like Twin Peaks, Wayward Pines has a surreal vibe to it. Everything from the people to the town itself is definitely eerie. Most shots in the first episode are dark and dreary, just like in Twin Peaks. It’s clear to the viewer right away that this town is not a good place to be. Nothing seems right. The shot towards the end of the episode of the fence surrounding the entire town is just crazy. Ethan quickly realizes that he’s in for something more than he bargained for, if he hadn’t already accepted that fact. Like Twin Peaks, Wayward Pines gives the viewer a constant sense of uneasiness and a feeling that nothing is the way it seems to be. Nothing can be trusted and I’m sure the show has many unforeseen twists and turns that’ll keep the viewer, and Ethan, on edge even more. I really liked this episode and am looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.
ReplyDeleteAfter seeing the first episode of Wayward Pines, I can say with certainty that I will finish up the first season before season 2 begins I really enjoyed the mystery of the story. I don't really see how it's like Twin Peaks aside from the town being secluded. The people in the town don't seem as crazy as the people in Twin Peaks and the people in Wayward Pines have a reason for acting the way they do, they're trying to break Ethan's mind, to make him believe that he's going crazy. The people in Twin Peaks are, in contrast, just plain crazy. Wayward Pines is also based on a series of books, while Twin Peaks is from the mind of David Lynch and isn't based on another type of media. I think the mystery of the show is what makes it interesting, especially, the final shot with the fence, leaving us wondering what's behind it and why the sign says that anyone who goes passed the fence will be killed and won't be safe. I look forward to seeing the rest of the series and seeing what is uncovered as it goes on.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the first episode of this show, I did not pickup on it much similarities to Twin Peaks, with the exception that the town seems weary and not the most desirable place to be, which is the case with Twin Peaks. After watching the pilot episode of Twin Peaks, you knew what the main story line would be (who killed Laura Palmer). Unless I missed it with Wayward Pines, I am not sure what the main story line is after watching the first episode.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that Wayward Pines could possibly have been inspired by Twin Peaks, however I don't believe the styles really compare. First of all, Twin Peaks surreal and post-modern nature is what helped make it an original cult classic. Wayward Pines, however, being adapted from a book series, is not really evident of this odd hybrid of genres that Twin Peaks is - it is exclusively a thriller. The characters are majorly different, and I do not really empathize with any of the characters because they have no humor at all! Everything in Wayward Pines is highly dramatized without the balance of humor as Twin Peaks had. The two stories are only comparable, in my view, in the setting and environment of the American North West landscape, with mountains and rain and gloom. After viewing both the entire series of Twin Peaks and the whole first season of Wayward Pines, I don't believe WP has any amount of character development comparable to TP; Ethan Burke doesn't even change a lot as a main protagonist, he simple is the same investigator he began as in Wayward Pines for the whole season. Wayward Pines' second season is set to come out in May, so I am excited to see if they are able to recover from the horrid season 1 finale. It is ostensible that setting of Twin Peaks could have inspired the setting of Wayward Pines, but after knowing the extreme differences in tone, aesthetics, cinematography, character development, symbolic objects and language, as well as the presence of mysticism, I don't really believe the two series are very comparable at all.
ReplyDeleteThere are some possible similarities between Twin Peaks and Wayward Pines. However I felt like latter show shared even more similarities with the TV show Lost (2004-2010), especially between the behavior of the townspeople being somewhat identical to that of the Others and Ethan being like the plane crash survivors that have basically new clue what is going on. The one similarity I found to Twin Peaks was using food as a fetish, which conveys the bizarreness of the town and its inhabitants.
ReplyDelete"I didn’t really many similarities between Wayward Pines and Twin Peaks other than the fact that both towns may have been haunted or had some sort of magic attached to them. In Twin Peaks, the magic came from the woods and (up to the episode in the 2nd season that I got to) only affected one or two people. I felt that David Lynch was able to create odd characters that didn’t try too hard to be different. Wayward Pines tried really hard and I felt it failed. The dialogue felt generic and I wasn’t interested by any of the characters. With this pilot, I wouldn’t have felt moved to see how the series would continue if the kicker is that Mat Dillon can’t leave town,. I’m very surprised that it got renewed for another season."-Connor Hynes
ReplyDeleteWhat Wayward Pines and Twin Peaks have is common is, their both seemingly quiet towns. However, there heinous acts being committed right underneath peoples noses. Both Wayward Pines and Twin Peaks try to represent utopias, however the viewer can tell that this far from the truth.
ReplyDeleteBoth shows leave you feeling disturbed and they both make you question humanity as a whole.
From the minute the program started, I instantly thought that Wayward Pines was a modern version of Twin Peaks. Although nothing could possibly match the eerie town of Twin Peaks with the array of strange characters, Wayward Pines comes close to it. I was unaware that Wayward Pines was a book series before reading one of my classmates posts, so that kind of takes away from the originality of the show. But still, I enjoyed it none the less.
ReplyDeleteMy first impression of Wayward Pines was that it had a surprising cast. I felt like the similarities between this show and Twin Peaks is there if you're looking for it, but as some people have mentioned Twin Peaks had more of surreal mysticism to it while Wayward Pines seemed to be a little bit more grounded in reality. I hadn't known that Wayward Pines was adapted from a book series, so I think that when it comes to adaptions maybe they couldn't pay as much homage to Lynch's work as that would like to within Wayward Pines. The themes of isolation and everything not being as it seems are clearly prevalent in both though.
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