In 1990, Mark Frost and David Lynch created a show for ABC that would become one of the quintessential cult classics: Twin Peaks. Although it was canceled due to flagging ratings after just two seasons, faithful fans were finally rewarded with this year’s premiere of Twin Peaks: The Return on Showtime, an 18-part continuation of the storyline set 25 years later.
With the two-part finale airing this Sunday, Sept. 3, B&C worked with Canvs, the emotion analytics company, to see how viewers have responded to the show’s resurrection this summer. In total, there have been 75,494 Emotional Reactions (ERs), with a large chunk of them (20,192) around the season premiere on May 21.
As you’d expect, love has been the dominant emotion, occurring in over a quarter (25.3%) of all ERs. Messages expressing excitement and talking about the show’s craziness have also driven the conversation. One interesting thing to note is the appearance of ERs mentioning/conveying “weird” — this reaction doesn’t bubble up in overall TV conversation much, so to see it here, representing 3.2% of ERs, is a testament to the show’s, well, weirdness.
Furthermore, the most popular topic of conversation (aside from mentions of the show’s title) is David Lynch himself. Frequently, Canvs sees the characters from a given show top the topics list, but in this case it takes six spots to get to that (“cooper” below is referencing FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, the main character).
Tons of the remarks praise Lynch, but many others express outright shock and awe at his latest creation.
Honestly thank god for David lynch
— Lo Lostar (@lbrehm41) May 22, 2017
Wowy wow wow wow. That was some fine tv, Mr. Lynch. #TwinPeaks
— Josh Mekeal (@pissedlibrarian) June 26, 2017
WTF DAVID LYNCH #twinpeaks ?!?!?
— Dennis Brekke (@dbrekke) June 26, 2017
Lynch has me shook #TwinPeaksTheReturn
— chris (@hatinacage) August 28, 2017
In fact, when isolating all “crazy” ERs, Lynch is the second most-used term. And the same goes for all “weird” ERs — Lynch dominates in those conversations.
That was weird even for David Lynch. #TwinPeaks
— Joan Myers (@MissMerrivale) June 26, 2017
Never change, David Lynch. You ridiculously weird human. #TwinPeaks#TwinPeaks2017#TwinPeaksTheReturn
— Kai MacMahon (@kaimac) June 26, 2017
For a show so often beloved because of its weirdness and mysterious cliffhangers, only time will tell if the finale will finally bring closure — or if it will leave fans hanging once again.
I hope the #TwinPeaks finale is as good as the soul crushing, horrifying catharsis of finding out who Laura's killer was.
— Bobby (@EndlessBummr) August 29, 2017
