Both shows were filmed around the same time and place in WA state and, as you note, had a kinda similar surrealist vibe. Which made watching them togeather kind of strange. Like Joel and his friends adorable hijinks were happening just down the street from a brutal murder investigation.
Funnily enough there's a Northern Exposure episode with a brief Twin Peaks parody. I think it was Russian Flu in season one. Joel and Elaine are on a trip, and they're shown around an area with a waterfall and viewing platform, like The Great Northern Hotel/White Tail Falls.
The scene is a pretty funny Twin Peaks parody, with music and visuals inspired by Twin Peaks, and includes a joke about seeing a woman holding a log... :)
I vaguely remember reading that they were in fear if being cancelled at that time, in part because of the popularity of Twin Peaks, so they decided to lampoon it a little bit. I can't find a reference to that but it'd be funny if true.
I had the same thought. Like its friendlier younger sister. I think Twin Peaks fans realised early on the main point of the show wasn't so much who killed Laura Palmer, but the weird and wonderful characters in the place. Northern Exposure doesn't really have a One-eyed Jacks or a Bob... But it does have a Bigfoot character that could be right out of it.
I'm not so sure about that assessment of Twin Peaks. Look at the back half of season 2, where the "weird and wonderful characters" become the focus of the show. It's barely watchable.
When Lynch came back for the final episode of that season he refocused it on Laura Palmer and brought back characters that hadn't been seen for many episodes, like Laura's mum or Audrey's brother. They weren't much fun, one being wracked by grief and the other mentally disabled. But that's what Twin Peaks is really about and what gave it staying power.
Everyone (including Diane Keaton when she directed an episode) seemed to think it was this kooky place and the weirdness was the point. There's plenty of fun there, but Lynch really understood it: hence Season 3 which gives you all of half an episode of Fun Dale Cooper before pulling the rug out from under you and reminding you that a girl was murdered and we shouldn't move on from that.
I got the impression at the time that Lynch was figuring it out as he went along. Some days that worked; some days it really didn't but mostly carried through on the strength of its performances.
I admit I haven't seen it since the original airing. I would likely evaluate it differently now.
He absolutely was, quite famously. He'd be writing the episodes in the diner week-to-week.
For me it's the pattern for a lot of shows that went off the rails: starts with a strong premise and setting, but gets an indefinite run so the writer(s) can't actually terminate any story arcs and end up floundering badly. It got dramatically better again when he had to wrap it up.
Some shows start off in that state (like Lost - I was familiar enough with the pattern then to avoid getting sucked into that one); some drift into it (Twin Peaks and BSG at least). It usually takes getting cancelled to pull them out of it, which is really sad.
It is a condemnation of americas modern media culture that Netflix kept turning down David Lynch's ideas in the years before he died. Who knows what weird interesting art we could have had if they (or anyone else) had simply given Lynch (and countless young new artists too) a bag of money and a deadline.
Series 2 did overfocus on the characters, but the eccentric characters were there at the beginning. Log Lady was the most outlandish but Pete Martell and Audrey Horne get introduced early on and are quirky. Dale Cooper himself is pretty strange.
I always thought the most boring major character in Twin Peaks was James Hurley, the would be biker.
I never watched the third series. I think I got part way through the first episode and never bothered with the rest.
Log Lady is weird but not quirky. The back half of season two had Nadine mentally regressing to a high-schooler but with superhuman strength (played for laughs); Dick Tremayne, a pompous menswear salesman wooing Lucy (played for laughs); and Benjamin Horne reenacting the Civil War (played for laughs). It's all very cartoonish.
If you watch season three, Log Lady gets quite an emotional farewell as the actress was dying of cancer. It's Lynch's insistence on treating even the quirky characters as real human beings that makes all the difference.
There were actually filming the same waterfalls from the opposite sides. And OFC the NE director was pretty much aware up to the point of making these references.
TP is about showing the actual dark side of the seemingly cozy rural towns and the American Dream. The Lodge are the dark secrets kept from the locals in order to function as a society and to keep that Romantic -in the German sense- imagery forever. But we all know that's doomed to fail somehow.
NE it's the opposite, it tries to bring some joy from the other stereotyped rural 'bumfuck helltown' to show up actually deep and educated people to the half-spolied urbanite guy. You can even see how die-hard conservatives learn from their opposites and how the urbanite pick ups some useful -real life- skills too.
With TP you are seeing the hidden 'dangers' of depicting a town as a postcard/desktop wallpaper. With NE you are watching what happens when the Romantic image shatters away... from day one, and for a much greater and cozier environment.
When I was a kid/teen and went into a village in Summer, the best moments where not just roaming around a place being 'frozen' in time, but with a pocket radio tuner and science magazines/books bought a few KMs away having the best of both sides (past and future). Oh, and the locals had really great books and music (a heavy metal/ rock compilation) too, in late 90's/early 00's.