Peaks of perfection

On Saturday night, I just saw the end of a Top 100 TV Dramas Ever type programme on More 4, or E4, or one of those channels. As it happened, just as I turned over, it had reached 8 or 9, and was talking about Twin Peaks.
I could argue that it should have been far higher (it'd definitely make it into my top 3 TV programmes ever), but that's obviously pretty subjective.
One thing it didn't say, though, and that I haven't seen mentioned in any of the various David Lynch articles that have been in the papers in recent weeks (he's got an art exhibition in Paris at the moment), is just how it changed the face of TV. They all acknowledge it was influential, but mainly in the way it made 'weirdness' more mainstream. I'd argue that even more important was the way in which it showed you could make a TV series with genuinely cinematic production values. All those big US dramas such as The Sopranos, The West Wing, Lost and 24 owe it a huge debt in that respect, I think.
My own love for the show is such that I found myself putting Agent Cooper's line "Damn fine coffee - and hot!" into my poem Cafe Italia, which is in the current issue of Poetry Nottingham. But my favourite character? It would have to be ultra-sarcastic FBI pathologist Albert Rosenfield, magnificently played by Miguel Ferrer. His "Sheriff Truman - I love you" scene is just about my favourite in TV history.
Here are some of his most memorable torrents of abuse - cynicism has rarely sounded so eloquent.