After
years of waiting, we will finally get new episodes of Twin Peaks in May. Considering the real thing is almost here, you
would think most fans will just sit tight rather than starting a Twin Peaks knock-off. Nevertheless, at
least two pilots transparently “inspired” by the David Lynch cult fave screened
during the various television showcases at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
By
far, the best pilot following in the Twin
Peaks tradition was When the Street
Lights Go On, presented as part of the Independent Pilot Showcase. During
the course of episode 1 (or is it episode 0?) a popular high school student and
one of her teachers are murdered at a particularly compromising moment. Oh, the
scandal. What really distinguishes Street
Lights are the spot-on early 1980s production details, including the era
appropriate soundtrack. It is also nice to see the brooding teen lead is
actually played by a teenager—the nineteen-year-old Max Burkholder, who could
easily pass for sixteen.
Streets Lights might be hoping
viewers will be asking “who killed Chrissy Monroe,” but there will be no
question who murdered Cecily’s parents in Shit
Kids—assuming she and her meathead boyfriend ever get the job done. In
fact, we might assume fools’ luck will protect her admittedly annoying and
utterly clueless ‘rents, establishing a certain absurdist pattern for the
prospective show. Whether S-Word Kids can
sustain itself will or won’t be answered over time, but its eighteen minutes
were the highlight of the Independent Pilot showcase. Grace Van Dien (daughter
of Casper) makes a hot mess of a femme fatale and series writer-director Kyle
Dunnigan scores consistent laughs as her painfully square (and completely
un-self-aware) father.
Over
in the Midnight Episodic Showcase, Pineapple
was also trying to channel Twin Peaks,
but less successfully. Most of the first chunk screened during the festival
focused on the guilt resulting from the sexual assault of a miner’s young
daughter and the resentment of the company’s decision to close the mine.
However, it is hard to blame them, since it seems some sort of predatory
monster lives in the shaft. Frankly, Pineapple
is even murkier looking and slower paced than Street Lights, which does not exactly leave viewers eager for more.
In
contrast, Snatchers (the other part
of Midnight Showcase, trailer here) is all energy and attitude, with more than a
bit of gore splattered on top. Shallow, approval-seeking Sara Steinberg finally
gives it up to her oafish on-again-off-again boyfriend Skyler, but rather
alarmingly wakes up the next morning mega-preggers. Presumably, he picked up
something nasty while on Spring Break in Mexico. Understandably freaked, Steinberg
turns to Hayley Chamberlain, the childhood friend she had been “ghosting” in
her time of crisis. Of course, it is even worse than Steinberg realizes. She is
actually carrying twins—and what little monsters they are. As a further
complication, one of them still isn’t ready to leave her.
In
all honesty, Mary Nepi’s Steinberg is royally unsympathetic, but she is
surrounded by a sharp, peppy cast, including Gabrielle Elyse as Chamberlain and
J.J. Nolan as her former teen-mother Kate. It would also be nice is Nick Gomez
could survive the first episode as Officer Ruiz, but it would be unwise to get
too attached to him or anyone else in Snatchers.
Regardless, the mayhem is nutty in the right ways and the dialogue cuts just as
much as the parasite’s claws.
