@fan_of_films said:

I think the new season has to be a deliberate parody of Twin Peaks from Mr Lynch and Mr Frost. The Dougie scenes would seem to prove it. Ep 6 starts with a scene in which Dougie is outside, returns home, goes upstairs, is eating crisps, offers one to to his child, they play with the lights and then his wife moans at him. The scene lasts for 13 mins. Filler material designed to pad out the show for 18 episodes.

In ep 6 we have a scene where Dougie's boss looks at the papers and it goes on and on and on... totally self-indulgent padding. The actor looks kinda embarrassed as he does his best "pretending to be interested in the scene" acting. And Kyle MacLachlan does his Rainman shtick. Yawn.

The Dougie scenes also undermine the tension of the show. The original season had a dark premise, who killed Laura Palmer?, who were the main suspects?, would Coop and Truman's investigation lead them to the culprit?That dark expectation, that enduring mystery, is virtually non-existent in the new season. The tension is completely undermined/eroded with Cooper arsing about like Forrest Gump. It's sad to see the show end up like this. Perhaps with a tighter storyline, a genuinely scary premise - a new murder in Twin Peaks - and the new season could have been something but it wasn't to be. Sadly self-indulgence and a meandering plotline is what we got instead. Showtime should have vetoed the plot after the early draft and told Lynch and Frost to "come up with something better!" I'm afraid to say David Lynch has lost his mojo and I doubt he'll recover it before the end of ep 18.

The new season is terrible, a self-indulgent mess told at a snail's pace. Gloriously crap!

I think your assessment is a bit of an overreaction. Although I agree that the Dougie trope is getting a bit drawn out, the show is still doing a well enough job keeping the story intriguing by introducing new elements to the story we never saw before. I mean, did you seriously want a who killed Laura Palmer 2? That IMO woulda have been a yawn fest. The show has pretty much continued the Laura Palmer murder storyline (in a way) by showing us the Hasting murder. Of course, we already know that BOB did it so in reality it woulda been pretty lame if they approached it from the "Gee, I wonder who committed this murder?" angle. I believe it is way too early to write the show off as garbage and I am well pleased that it did not try to recreate the same atmosphere where the show left off 25 years ago.

The title of my post changed and I didn't change it. Spooky!

I suppose it's about 'expectation '- what you expected vs what you get. Depending on how cynical you want to be, you could argue the Dougie storyline is a cheap way to keep Dale Cooper out of the show. In other words, Lynch and Frost didn't want Cooper to be the hero of the show investigating a new crime so they thought "let him inhabit another character!" Personally, I feel this was the wrong approach to take given that the show has been off the air for over a quarter of a century. I'm sure most or all fans expected Cooper to leave the Black Lodge and hunt down the bad Cooper - and/or some other character possessed by Bob.

One of the strengths of the original show was Agent Cooper, his cool deductive reasoning, working out all the pieces of the murder jigsaw and trying to find the murderer. There's none of that deductive reasoning nor the character's affability in the new season. Cooper has become an idiot savant. David Lynch could have avoided fan criticism had he not gone this story route.

I think another valid criticism is the lack of Twin Peaks! Much of the storyline is set outside Twin Peaks and you can argue it makes for a less focussed storyline. Twin Peaks itself was one of the main stars of the original show - the quirky locations, the strange characters within the town. Six episodes into the new season and it feels like the town is a minor location. Is this really a Twin Peaks third season or actually season one of a new show featuring a few brief Twin Peak locations and characters?

I understand some people are upset because they had expectations of going back to the silly 90s format of the old Twin Peaks show which was cool for its time but is dated now. I personally do not want to see the lame direction the show was going there in mid season 2 with James banging some scammer broad who sets him as a fall guy for a murder or Nadine thinking she's a cheerleader and has Hulk powers. That was godawful and was exactly the kinda of soapy stuff TP was trying to make fun of in the first place. THANK GOD we now see NY, Las Vegas, and South Dakota.. The town Twin Peaks is still significant because the entrance to the Lodge is located near there but the town itself is not necessary for the real meat of the story. So sorry folks! If you were expecting a continuation of the 90s TP, then best move along. Lynch has a FRESH story to tell.

THERE THEY ARE ALBERT. FACES OF STONE!