Peaks opens on a placid note: long shots of mountainous Pacific northwest are displayed before us as credits move to Angelo Badalamenti's ethereal score.
Pete Martell sets out on his early morning fishing routine, only to be disrupted by the presence of a dead body, stripped and wrapped in crude plastic. Sheriff Harry Truman is summoned to the scene, and quickly confirms the deceased as high school girl Laura Palmer; it is this death which is at the heart of David Lynch's quirky, compelling story.
The pilot episode, coming in at about ninety minutes, lets the story thread breathe for a time to get acquainted with a menagerie of co-stars. Shady Peaks residents include Catherine Martell, the greedy, calculating sister of a deceased factory owner, and shark-like businessman Ben Horne, owner of the Great Northern Hotel.
Quickly one gets the sense of larger, darker machinations surrounding the tragic demise of Laura, and in the meantime, the FBI prevails. Agent Dale Cooper (magnetically characterized by Kyle MacLachlan) is sent to investigate the mysterious death, and with the use of his correspondence with an off-screen "Diane," and a score of bizarre dreams, begins to unravel secrets of the town.
Motifs of the melodramatic and absurd, characteristically Lynch, manifest scene by scene, establishing tone and a rhythmic pattern of humor and morbidity. Once you're through the introduction, there is no turning back. You're now officially in time with the world of Twin Peaks.
