The Creepiest Villain in TV History: Killer BOB

In a previous article I nominated Miles Drentell of Thirtysomething as the greatest TV villain of all time. This time around I want to do away with all the philosophical trappings of ambiguity and focus only on the creepiest villain in television history.  American television history, I should add. Actually, there does not exist any tremendously deep well of truly frightening and nightmare-inducing villains in the history of American episodic television so while it may seem to be a very easy choice, I must confess that it actually was a tremendously easy choice. The creepiest villain in American TV history was Killer BOB from Twin Peaks.

Because I don't want to give everything away, I will focus not so much on BOB's actual role in the mythology of the series as much as on those features that make him so uniquely scary. Most fans of Twin Peaks when they think of Killer BOB tend to bring forth to the consciousness that iconic image of the long, straggly-haired man hiding beside the unfortunate Laura Palmer's bed. Or else it is that extraordinary shot-due to the devilment of my own psyche the shot I consider to be the single most frightening image ever to appear in an American television series-of BOB slowly climbing over the Palmer's sofa. What most people don't know is that BOB was an accident of David Lynch's own twisted psyche.

Apparently, or so the story goes, Lynch one day had a sudden image of Frank Silva-the show's set decorator-crouching in a sinister manner in Laura Palmer's bedroom. He actually went ahead and filmed that infamous scene without really knowing how he could use it. Later on, as these synchronic happenstances often occur, Lynch noticed that when he shot the scene of Laura's mother screaming in her own bed that a reflection of Silva could be noticed. In an instant the vitally important element of Killer BOB was created. Ain't art grand?