American audiences are no longer sympathetic to small-town police in this way, and certainly not to fast-talking feds. Messages about the rot and corruption that lies beneath our postcard-pictures of roadside diners, cherry pie and logging mills are no longer novel. These days everybody knows the prom queen is on coke; it’s expected. These days, Kyle MacLachlan, who played Agent Cooper, plays the mayor of Portland on Portlandia, a show about the precocious and self-important excesses of “hipster” culture in the Pacific Northwest.
Owls are now twee, not spooky.