"Wild Palms" owes its existence to "Twin Peaks."
Although entirely unrelated in substance, the two have a lot in common in style - extreme weirdness with an outrageously avant garde look and feel.But the folks at ABC who commissioned both projects think they've learned from their mistakes.
" `Twin Peaks' . . . was supposed to be on the air every week for a number of years," said Robert Iger, president of the ABC Network Group. "And I think that was the mistake.
" `Twin Peaks' should have been conceived and then commissioned as a seven-hour show. And it should have been called `Who Killed Laura Palmer?' And when hour seven ended, we should have found out who killed Laura Palmer and it should have faded into history . . . as one of the more significant shows that ever aired on network television."
Which is why, when Iger was looking for an "event" to "make some noise," he went to Oliver Stone and "Wild Palms" creator Bruce Wagner and asked them to create a six-hour series.
And that's why "Palms" is better than "Peaks." It has a satisfying ending.
Oh, "Palms" starts out even more murky - make that incomprehensible - than "Peaks." The plot involves a regular guy, Harry Wyckoff (James Belushi) who finds himself caught in the middle of a plot that involves virtual reality, new-age religion, politics and secret organizations.
It's the year 2007, and Sen. Anton Kreutzer (Robert Loggia) is a major force in America. Founder of New Realism (also called Synthiotics), a cultlike religion, he's also the owner of the Wild Palms Group, which includes a television network, WPN.
And WPN's great advance is a virtual-reality system by which sitcom characters appear in three dimensions in the viewer's own living room.
It's all part of a plot to take over the country and achieve computer-generated immortality.
At the center of the battle are a pair of underground groups. The Fathers are the bad guys, a vigilante off-shoot of Synthiotics. And the Friends are the good guys who oppose the Fathers.
All of this unfolds very slowly for the first three hours. At times, "Wild Palms" seems to be weird simply for weirdness' sake - full of symbols (the white rhino), hallucinogenic computer-aided drugs and oblique references.
It's engrossing and repelling at once. There is a good deal of grotesque violence here, although much of it is implied.
Belushi is surprisingly good as Wyckoff, and Loggia manages to go right to the edge with Kreutzer without crossing it. The cast also includes Dana Delany as Grace, Harry's wife; Angie Dickinson as Josie Ito, Grace's mother; Kim Cattrall as Paige Katz, Harry's former lover who's involved with Kreutzer; Bebe Neuwirth as actress Tabba Schwarz-kopf; Ben Savage as young Coty Wyckoff; and David Warner as Eli Levitt, who is not who he seems to be.
But then, that's part of what "Wild Palms" is all about. Most of the characters are not what they seem to be - or what they believe themselves to be.
This is the sort of television that you just have to sit down and experience. Enjoy the images without getting too caught up in the confusing plot.
Eventually, all will be revealed.
ABC is right about one thing. "Wild Palms" could not survive as an ongoing series. It's just too weird.
But it may succeed as a six-hour miniseries. If you're bored with network television, this is certainly something different.
`Wild' schedule
The six-hour miniseries "Wild Palms" debuts Sunday at 8 p.m. on ABC (Ch. 4) with a two-hour segment.
Hours 3 and 4 air Monday at 8 p.m.
Hour 5 airs Tuesday at 9 p.m., and the final hour airs Wednesday at 9 p.m.