When Twin Peaks aired in the early 1990s, the show was an enigma. Nothing like it had been seen on television before. The series had David Lynch at its helm, a man who was, at the time, known for his dark and usually graphic movies. Bringing him to the small screen was likely a huge risk and it was certainly a medium in which the director could probably never fully extend his wings due to the content rules and regulations of the time.
A lot has changed in the 25 years since Twin Peaks aired on ABC. David Lynch is back, once again, guiding the reboot, this time on a network that allows much more fluidity when it comes to sex and violence than was allowed all those years ago. While Twin Peaks had originally been, as the New York Times puts it, a show that stood out because “there was little precedent for a series that probed so graphically and enigmatically into the darkest corners of the American psyche,” now it exists in a world where networks such as Netflix and HBO can explore every dark crevice of the human psyche.
However, David Lynch just might have a wild card up his sleeve when it comes to the reboot of Twin Peaks . Part of the appeal of Twin Peaks , in the early days, was the mystery surrounding who killed Laura Palmer. During the original series, there was a dream in which Dale Cooper saw himself in 25 years time. In this dream, he is in the red room, along with Laura Palmer. Over the course of the early series of Twin Peaks , this dream, and the red room it showed, became more significant. In the final episode, Laura Palmer told Agent Cooper that she will see him again in 25 years time.
While, technically, we are now 26 years out from the season finale of the original Twin Peaks , it is still pretty close to the time frame in which the show ended, indicating that, perhaps, the intention was always there to continue on with the story all these years later.
According to an interview David Lynch did with Arab News , this was actually part of the draw of returning to Twin Peaks all these years later.
“That was part of it, yeah,” Lynch responded when asked specifically about the 25-year time gap. “And the love of the world and the characters.”
While not a definitive answer from Lynch, it certainly does indicate he may have always planned for this reboot, even if it was just at the back burner of his mind.
As for the show’s other creative mind, Mark Frost, he is more decisive about what they were hoping for with Laura’s quip about seeing Cooper again in 25 years when he spoke to the New York Times .
“That episode was going to be the basis of our argument for whether we were going to come back or not. As was the structuring of all the cliffhangers that we included in the story to try to induce them to say, well you know, people are going to want answers to all these things.”
Of course, all those years ago, they were hoping this line would help them score a third season with ABC, something that never eventuated — until now.
Mark Frost was persistent in getting a third season of Twin Peaks and spoke with David Lynch about it. They decided they needed a good enough reason to reboot after all this time.
“I felt I’d found a couple of threads that I thought could carry us into a third season,” Frost revealed, not indicating if Laura’s comment about seeing them in 25 years was one of them.
The rest, as they say however, is history.
Are you looking forward to the new series of Twin Peaks ? Let us know by commenting below.
The return of Twin Peaks premieres on Showtime on Sunday, May 21, at 9 p.m.
[Featured Image by Suzanne Tenner/Showtime]
