[Podcast Criticism] PART TWO: The Secret History Of The Red Room Podcast (2011 - 2022)
"The Good Work"
The Red Room Podcast began as a conversation between two intelligent, passionate people who each loved television enough to sit down in front of a shared microphone and take turns letting the other person speak on a theme before responding. Over the years, Scott Ryan and I became effective at listening and asking each other questions that sparked further conversation. And so our podcast’s format and culture were built over unrehearsed moments of dialogue, though there was also an element of planning, most of which was done by Scott. He was the driving force behind selecting themes and topics to discuss on our show. I did my homework when asked, compiled a list of points to discuss, and showed up with enthusiasm and an often alternate perspective from Scott’s. That’s a formula for great conversations, and we had many.
Part Two of this history will focus on the numbers, but not the typical podcast vanity metrics of downloads, streams, and clicks. My mission is first to lay out the historical evolution of The Red Room Podcast over 10 years and 211 episodes, by describing and then explaining what happened from my subjective perspective. Then, I would like to explore what it means and why it matters.
Like all good analyses, it starts with a spreadsheet of information. This table contains four columns for each episode of The Red Room Podcast:
Column A = episode title/theme
Column B = episode number
Column C = publish date
Column D = show type
Option 1 = Hosts Only ( and occasionally our spouses)
Option 2 = Guest - Critic
Option 3 = Guest - Fan
Option 4 = Guest - Artist
The most important metrics here are the publishing dates and the show types because these two attribution points yield a trend over time. Simple charts are provided below to illustrate key points of analysis.
Act I: The Great Conversations (2011-2014)
The first phase of The Red Room Podcast can be marked on the calendar as occurring between the publication of the first episode in August 2011 and lasting through November 2014. This first period yielded an immense burst of creativity, discipline, and time management, resulting in eighty-five episodes of high-quality conversations about the art and business of Television and Cinema.
Beyond our founding mission, which was driven by two individuals who loved TV as an art form and enjoyed respectfully discussing themes and shows together, the only consistent strategy we deployed was taking advantage of opportunities that arose from sheer luck. We never relied on or believed the performance numbers we were seeing, though we were gathering some great fans of the show.1
The Red Room Was Always An Interview Show
We started by interviewing each other, but a week after publishing our first four episodes, we recorded our first guest episode with the founder of the popular Twin Peaks Archive fan site. It was fascinating to introduce a third person’s spice into the main course of our conversational themes and topics about TV and Cinema. I learned a lot about Twin Peaks that I didn’t know from watching it so late, or directly from Scott, one of the show's great superfans.
Another crucial early guest was critic Dodai Stewart, who, at the time, was working for the now-defunct website Jezebel. She revisited our podcast twice over the next year.
We had a couple of fan episodes where Scott asked selected friends and family members to appear on the show for specific topics. I think he invited generalists on because he knew the “fan-level” conversations would be compelling, and they were. An effective Executive Producer understands how to build a show that is engaging to listen to, and Scott did a great job of lining up people who would drive the conversation in interesting directions that didn’t produce a lot of noise. The Red Room Podcast worked hard always to be a strong signal, cutting through a field of noise.
The Twin Peaks Fan Phenomenon Book
In 2012, we received an email from Marisa C. Hayes and Franck Boulègue, two European intellectual writers, asking us to compose an essay about a topic in Twin Peaks that would be published in a compilation book entitled Fan Phenomenon: Twin Peaks (2013). Scott and I wrote a piece titled ‘Yeah, But The Monkey Says, Judy’: A Critical Approach to Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. It’s a banger essay positing, amongst other key concepts, that the music of Twin Peaks is the only factor of the art that never deceives the viewer. I’ve never read anyone else make such a simple and elegant argument for understanding the perplexing emotional journey of Twin Peaks. With this perspective, Scott and I gave viewers a rope to hold onto in quicksand that has held up for nearly 15 years. If art can yield universal laws that never change, this is one that Scott and I created together for Twin Peaks.
Years later, when music was all but removed from Twin Peaks: The Return, I returned to this joint supposition about how the music never lies, and it helped buoy my narrative analysis and appreciation for what happens over that perplexing 18-hour movie, which divided the audience into new segments. I remain proud of that essay and the company it keeps with other brilliant authors of that book.
But more importantly than pride, publishing a critical essay in a respected book of letters about a cultish popular form of commercial art gave us both more social proof. And this new phase of outreach set The Red Room Podcast on a new path of growth and evolution, one that would be heavily focused on one show and one event that no one expected—the return of Twin Peaks.
Scott and I hosted Marissa and Frank during Episode 61 in August 2013.
The Missing Pieces, a Blue Rose, & Twin Peaks Returns
In the first two full years of The Red Room Podcast’s production, 70% of our episodes were Scott and me volleying ideas back and forth about the shows and themes we loved. We discussed the TV shows we were watching and connected their themes to other shows and films. We introduced each other to new television and collected great shows to talk about, like little kids in the early 1980s who passed around Star Wars toys at the sandbox.
Here is a list of the TV shows and themes we discussed in the first phase of our podcast:
Twin Peaks
The Sopranos
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Battlestar Galactica
Curb Your Enthusiasm
True Blood
Six Feet Under
Deadwood
The Wire
Breaking Bad
Ricky Gervais
America In Primetime (PBS Documentary on TV)
Downton Abbey
Moonlighting
Revenge
Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee
The Newsroom
The Larry Sanders Show
The Films of Quentin Tarantino
Boardwalk Empire
Angel
True Detective
Soap
We also had several “list” shows where we would compile the best 20, 50, or 100 whatevers and go through them one by one. Those were my favorite shows because, while they focused on hyper-specific topics, they also covered a wide range of themes. There were no rules or time frames applied, though we tried to move through all of our lists as rapidly as possible to keep the conversation kinetic and compelling.
My favorite “List Shows” from this time were:
Top 50 Shows of All Time (December 2011)
Top TV Characters of All Time (May 2012)
Top 20 Feel-Good Moments on TV (October 2013)
Top 40 Shows You Should Watch (March 2014)
When guests were welcomed, they were usually other fans of the show under discussion. We didn’t have many critics or creators on during those first two years. The Red Room Podcast was a show created by fans of TV for fans of TV, and through all these changes, we held to that vision.
Act II: The Bridge Is Built Over Twin Peaks Falls (2014-2016)
2014 marked a significant transitional period for the Red Room Podcast, as it evolved from intimate conversations between Scott and me (and sometimes our spouses) into a roundtable guest format featuring interviews with other critics and commercial art creators. The data reveals the trend, but it does not effectively explain why it happened. Regardless of the possible reasons why this shift occurred, it did not change the fact that our show brought together smart, kind, and generous people who loved to consider and discuss great television and films. And there are four of these guests who deserve mention in the context of this phase of The Red Room Podcast’s journey.
NUMBERS BREAK
Red Room Podcast VIPs
Four guests we welcomed on the show would prove to be pivotal figures in The Red Room Podcast’s journey: Courtenay Stallings, David Bushman, Brad Dukes, and John Thorne.
VIP #1: Courtenay Stallings
Courtenay is a brilliant and kind Professor who lives in California. In 2013, she was also a Red Room Podcast listener who was inspired to reach out and offer to be a guest correspondent when the University of Southern California hosted an intellectual event featuring most of the actors and creators of Twin Peaks. She made her debut appearance to report her findings (we also had a blog at the time, which didn’t last long) on Episode 61 in May 2013. We were overjoyed at the offer, and that marked the beginning of a long friendship and partnership with Courtenay. She would go on to become an essential part of the production team Scott put together for The Blue Rose Magazine, which he founded shortly after the announcement that Twin Peaks was returning.
VIP #2: David Bushman
The Paley Center for Media is a nonprofit organization that preserves and provides access to a major television and radio archive, curating exhibits and public programs that focus on intellectual conversations about the cultural impact of media.
David Bushman was a curator for The Paley Center at the time we first invited him on the show for Episode 56 in March 2013. A fussy, opinionated, and argumentative old soul, I liked him instantly. But David and Scott developed a unique connection because they both see the world from a similar perspective. To me, they both sounded like the old men in the Muppet balcony, and I enjoyed participating in and witnessing their friendship begin and their partnership bloom over the years. After establishing two publishing companies together, Scott and David have produced incredible books about TV and Film, and I recommend browsing and buying directly from their website.
David was a guest on our show many times over the years, and his presence elevated the social proof and status of The Red Room Podcast. He graciously bestowed professional dignity on our work, and I am grateful for David’s contribution to the legacy of our show.
But we had many wonderful and compelling guests on the show over the years, and I am thankful for all of them.
VIP #3: Brad Dukes
Another person pivotal in the journey of The Red Room Podcast was author Brad Dukes, who remains one of the luckiest writers I know, having published a book of oral history on Twin Peaks three months before it was announced the show was coming back. It was a hole-in-one swung at with an eyemask on. There was no planning it, but effort and opportunity lined up like the hand of an old-world god placing a champion on the game board of the Earth. Brad Dukes had the right book at the right time.2
For a couple of years, Brad had been interviewing actors, producers, and the creators of Twin Peaks. At the point he started interviewing these semi-famous people about their old art, Twin Peaks had been a frozen franchise for over 20 years, and what Brad did was likely viewed by the creators at the time as nostalgic, necessary, and quaint. Brad was capturing the story behind the art, and it felt important to everyone. He researched, wrote, and got published one of the first great oral histories of important television. Brad’s book, Reflections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks, was a milestone moment, and while unprovable, I don’t believe Twin Peaks would have returned if it weren’t for Brad’s book and that USC event that Courtenay reported on for The Red Room Podcast.
Here’s my argument to support the above statement:
Ideas are memetic and reactionary, running on human emotion. Brad’s book, along with that USC event, brought together all those artists who created Twin Peaks, including Mark Frost and David Lynch. There were a lot of what-if ideas and emotions flowing through those creative people. At some point, Frost and Lynch discussed and agreed on a comeback idea. There was more story to tell in Twin Peaks, and it was time to shake up the world again. At some point, I speculate a team of nerd accountants at CBS reviewed the numbers and realized that the business plan was sound because Twin Peaks has a rabid fan base that consistently shows up and buys the experience repeatedly.
Brad Dukes was a guest on our show on June 10th, 2014, two weeks before the publication of his book. I think we even joked on the show about Twin Peaks coming back. But just over three months later, on October 3rd, 2014, at 11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time, the two creators of Twin Peaks simultaneously published the same message on their independent Twitter accounts. The simple message was a clear indication that something wicked good was on the way. The creators spoke in unison using the language of Twin Peaks, and it was a message to lovers of the art.
“That gum you like is going to come back in style.”
These Twin Tweets happened on October 3, 2014, at 11:30 AM EST from David Lynch and Mark Frost.
The formal announcement of Twin Peaks’ return (including planned format and airing timeline) followed on October 6th, 2014, again at 11:30 AM EST. Season 3 of Twin Peaks was announced to air on Showtime.
I can’t convey to you in words the wave of excitement that went through the community of Twin Peaks fans who had kept the show alive through festivals and friends groups for twenty-five years. The fans are still out there today, gathering forces and deploying small armies who love art around the United States and England, to celebrate what they love together.3
Additionally, on July 16, 2014, a massive restoration and expansion project was completed for David Lynch’s 1992 film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Nearly two hours of restored footage, dubbed “The Missing Pieces,” were released on Blu-ray along with a pristine upgrade in picture and sound quality. This gave us all plenty to talk about on The Red Room Podcast in the months leading up to the filming and the years of production of Twin Peaks: The Return.
VIP #4: John Thorne
From 1992 to 2005, co-creator of the definitive Twin Peaks magazine Wrapped In Plastic, John Thorne, along with his now-deceased publishing partner Craig Miller, published seventy-five issues of incredible interviews, photography, and illustrations, along with elegant and compelling thought work about Twin Peaks and David Lynch’s other art. This magazine, along with the Twin Peaks Festival and a few well-run community websites, such as Dugpa, Welcome to Twin Peaks, and the aforementioned Twin Peaks Archive, all played crucial roles in keeping Twin Peaks alive for twenty-five years.
An artistic community developed around a shared archive of social experiences, characterized by a cinematic vocabulary and rituals that were heartwarming, meaningful, and profoundly changed people’s lives by giving them a sense of belonging. This work of commercial art brought together tribes of lovable weirdos through song and cinema.4
John Thorne first graced the Red Room in November 2014 to discuss Wrapped in Plastic’s legacy, along with Twin Peaks’s announced return.5 Two years later, John returned to our show to discuss Mark Frost’s exciting new masterpiece of a novel, The Secret History of Twin Peaks, just after it was published. John and Scott were among the first to realize that something was deliberately off in the book, almost mechanically askew. Things were not what they should be. Weird and obvious factoids were off and misaligned with the events that happened in Twin Peaks Seasons 1, 2, and Fire Walk With Me. It was a great experience to be part of that insightful conversation and to realize what was about to come when this show hit the air.
So a new phase of The Red Room Podcast began in 2014, and we would primarily focus on Twin Peaks in the future, although there would be occasional compelling deviations. In my opinion, the reason we stopped recording shows together is that we both had other priorities to attend to. I had a new high-pressure sales job, and Scott was hosting other podcasts and writing a book of oral history (like Brad Duke’s on Twin Peaks) about the old show Thirtysomething. And his ability to secure interviews with creators was paying off. He would go on to write several books in this oral history format about the commercial art he grew up loving. And I was there to buy and get signed every book to support him and attend every event I could, because I have been committed to Scott’s success since I met him, and that will never change.
However, it wasn’t easy to let go of The Red Room Podcast’s legacy, because nothing great is easy to let go.
That brings us to Part 3…
Part Three of The Secret History of The Red Room Podcast recounts a project that came to a natural but dramatic conclusion when it was wiped from the Internet. Don’t worry, we were able to salvage most of the files. The third essay aims to convince you that re-listening to these selected, curated, and remastered podcasts is worthwhile if you love art, film, and television.
COMMERCIAL FOR THE DOCUMENTARY I KNOW CATHERINE THE LOG LADY
I helped kickstart the Richard Greene documentary film project several years ago, and I have dreaded watching it ever since I heard about it. Not because it wasn’t going to be a fascinating story, but because it was such a sad story that she died a few days after she filmed the Log Lady’s final scenes in Twin Peaks: The Return. Catherine Coulson’s story was heartbreaking to me, and I didn’t want to confirm that by watching this film. But I finally got my early release access and watched it this week. While her death was certainly sad, the story of the work she put in during the final year of her life is inspiring and life-confirming in every conceivable way. What a legendary talent! This is a well-shot and edited film that is life-affirming. You will want to watch it more than once.
And David Lynch is resurrected every time he’s on screen.
Long Live the Log Lady 🪵!
One of the early fans I must acknowledge is Harold Wallin, a lawyer in Chicago who was a devoted television enthusiast. Harold always supported us, especially in the early years, and I want to thank him for that support.
If Brad Dukes had only written about a legendary retired athlete or CEO just before they announced a major comeback with a new team or company, his book would have made him a millionaire.
The world is a better place because of the Twin Peaks community, though I have never felt fully part of it. There is a personal psychology behind this that makes it my issue, but that topic is outside the scope of this essay and would be better discussed in a private conversation.
Anyone lucky enough to have a slice of cherry pie at Twede’s Diner in Snoqualmie, WA, understands the power of being in an artistically special place, where discussing and celebrating the same love of art together is a shared experience. And sometimes they dance.
I knew immediately after meeting him that I wanted to speak with John Thorne more often. We would eventually go on to create a podcast during the COVID-19 pandemic, titled "The In Our House Now: An Inquiry into Twin Peaks The Return," where every episode featured the two of us discussing Twin Peaks, with occasional guests.
I love this, JB, especially when you talked about the VIPs. I am embarrassed to admit that I had no idea the Red Room podcast was around that long. Yes, I may have been living under a rock.
Perhaps some day we can have a cuppa joe and discuss that belonging feeling.
I remember it used to be $800, to learn not to think. The original was a money scam too.