Next Time on Invitation to Love… Twin Peaks and its Soap-opera Dynasties

When the body of Laura Palmer, wrapped in plastic, washes ashore in the sleepy Northwestern town of Twin Peaks, her tragic death sends its insular community into a frenzy of speculation and grief. The Douglas firs rustle with secrets, but the locals also have their eyes glued to another seductive mystery, one that unfurls daily on their TV screens. The opening credits of Invitation to Love, the colorful show-within-the-show in Twin Peaks, doesn’t merely set the scene; it beckons. Accompanied by passionate piano crescendos, a gravelly voice purrs over a pool of blue satin, on which a pair of crimson-manicured hands place a white card bearing the series’ title in attractive cursive. “Invitation to Love,” entices the narrator. “Each day brings a new beginning, and every hour holds the promise… of an invitation to love.”

Snippets of this lurid melodrama sporadically appear throughout the first season of Twin Peaks, each clip providing a taste of its central storyline. A tale of familial dysfunction, fatal attraction, and alluring doubles, it mirrors many themes and narrative strands found in Mark Frost and David Lynch’s primetime sensation. Stylistically, the two shows are worlds apart. The original run of Twin Peaks was shot on film, which lends a rich texture to its color palette of deep greens, maroon reds, and golden browns. Emphasizing depth of field, the fluid cinematography favors unusual framing, in which low- or high-angle shots conjure an uncanny, eerie atmosphere. By contrast, Invitation to Love, written and directed by Frost, was filmed entirely on video. The format was a popular choice among daytime soap operas, giving these series a muted, washed-out look. Frost’s emulation of the genre extends to his shot compositions: largely below eye level, static, and nonintrusive, except for when a shocking development occurs. Here, slow zooms into extreme close-ups are sprinkled in for full melodramatic impact.

Due to their wildly different visual approaches, it would be tempting to dismiss Invitation to Love as an over-the-top parody. The show, however, is more than just a recurring gag. Scenes from Invitation to Love not only serve as a meta-commentary on crucial events in Twin Peaks, but also help situate the latter within the tradition of the soap-opera genre. Now a cultural phenomenon credited with changing the landscape of American television, at the time of its premiere, Frost and Lynch's creation was advertised and described, first and foremost, as a soap. In a full spread dedicated to the show, a 1990 issue of TV Guide magazine introduced Twin Peaks as an “offbeat primetime soap” and a “Gothic soap opera.” Soap Opera Digest, another prominent publication for soap fans, diligently published Twin Peaks recaps alongside similar summaries of long-running fare such as Days of Our Lives (1965–) and Dynasty (1981–1989). The popular tagline "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" also harks back to "Who Shot J.R.?,” a cliffhanger plot line from Dallas (1978–1991) which captivated America. In this sense, the show existed not outside but within the editorial ecosystem of soaps. In various interviews, David Lynch was also reluctant to classify Twin Peaks as a deviation from that norm. In the 1990 TV Guide feature, the filmmaker stated that he did not intend to “send up” the classic soap. “Soap operas for me should not be camp,” he stated, “these are very real characters.” In another piece for People Weekly, which came out after the resounding success of the first three episodes, he continued to insist that Twin Peaks is a “regular television show.” “I still don’t see what the great difference is,” he commented.

Taking a cue from Lynch, we might travel back in time, and behold Twin Peaks through the lens of its soap influences. Consider the now-iconic opening credits of the first two seasons, for instance. Set to Angelo Badalamenti’s ethereal theme, the sequence drifts through the town’s iconographies, from a robin perched on a Douglas fir branch, to the billowing chimneys of the Packard Sawmill and the mechanical choreography of the factory’s machines. Industrial signposts dissolve into an earthy landscape, as shots of mountain ranges, cascading waterfalls, and rippling streams swirl into a misty flow of images. The effect is singularly hypnotizing, yet it also belongs to the visual lineage of other shows named after places. Each episode of Falcon Crest (1981–1990), which aired on CBS in the same time slot as ABC’s Twin Peaks, opens on a car speeding across the Golden Gate Bridge, a journey that takes viewers through the arches of a sprawling mansion and its luxurious vineyards, home to a warring, winemaking family. Dallas, another hot property on CBS, also grounds its power-play intrigue in location-specific opening titles. Shot from an aerial vantage point, the cityscape of the Texan metropolis fills the frame. Split-screen techniques contrast urban skyscrapers with rugged oil fields and rustic ranches, a juxtaposition that alludes to the business and interpersonal feuds that power the show’s fourteen seasons. Knots Landing (1979–1993), a Dallas spin-off that aired after Falcon Crest, takes the same approach. This emphasis on geographical identification—even when a titular town is fictional—foregrounds how soap operas are not only about the characters but also the specificity of place.

Out of all the shows that had come before, the hugely successful Peyton Place (1964–1969) most set the model for Twin Peaks. Known as the first American primetime soap, the show was a spin-off of Mark Robson’s Peyton Place (1957), an astonishingly bleak adaptation of Grace Metalious’s eponymous, taboo-breaking bestseller. Just like Twin Peaks, these works rip off the respectable facade of small-town America to lay bare the moral rot that infects it from within. No surprise, then, that Frost and Lynch watched the film and the series while preparing to write their show. Set in a fictional New England town, the story follows a group of high schoolers who are stifled by the hypocrisies and the conservative values of the older generation. Subjects such as teen pregnancy, premarital sex, and domestic abuse are explored with a startling frankness, sending shockwaves through ordinary American households. As in other soaps, the opening credits of Peyton Place present significant locations, which are interspersed with close-ups of the characters. A voiceover announcing the names of cast members echoes a similar device used in Invitation to Love. But the kinship between Twin Peaks and Peyton Place extends beyond the opening titles. Produced by ABC, both series witness the arrival of an outsider, whose immunity to local ways of life cuts through accepted beliefs and customs, pretenses and lies. They also expose the widening gap between the parallel worlds of teenagers and adults, evoking a fractured America in which the possibility of cross-generational understanding is heartbreakingly elusive. That Russ Tamblyn, who earned an Oscar nomination as one of the troubled teens in Peyton Place (1957), appears among the eccentric townsfolk of Twin Peaks, marks another ironic connection.

Most significantly, both Twin Peaks and Peyton Place are milltowns. One trades in logs, the other in textiles. The fabled image of industrial America similarly looms large in Dallas and Dynasty, whose fictional capitalist empires are built on oil. Passed through bloodlines, such legacy enterprises bolster myths of American exceptionalism, of the nation as the land of plentiful resources and opportunities. They are the tie that binds the local communities together, providing jobs and generating income. For Lynch, factories held a particular spell. In a 1990 interview with David Breskin, the director professed his love for the textures of these spaces, listing “factory” alongside “mystery,” “murder,” and “hotel” as his favorite plot keywords. By the time Twin Peaks came out that same year, American domestic industry was in steep decline, as free-trade deals and globalization reshaped the contours of the nation’s economy. Beyond Audrey Horne’s arched eyebrows and saddle shoes, the retro nostalgia of Twin Peaks can be felt within the Packard Sawmill, a vestige of a bygone era. The soap opera continues to exist on American screens, but industrial settings have now vanished as a backdrop. TV Guide predicted that Twin Peaks would revive the dying primetime soap opera. It did, with flying colors, but it also spelled out the death of the American dream.