How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

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Metalane
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How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by Metalane »

It could be # of hours or episodes/parts.

Also, if season 4 were to be shorter than The Return, do you think Lynch would still take the "slow-cinema" approach?
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

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Metalane wrote:It could be # of hours or episodes/parts.

Also, if season 4 were to be shorter than The Return, do you think Lynch would still take the "slow-cinema" approach?
It’s impossible to predict. Who would have guessed Lynch would give us 18 hours in S3? I do think the Part/episode count was determined by the “slow cinema” approach, and not vice versa. That’s what the dispute with Showtime and his walkout were about: he genuinely didn’t know how many hours he needed, but he knew the pace he wanted. I think if you look at Lynch’s career, he started with a super slow pace in Eraserhead, then became more commercial/mainstream, but has evolved back to that initial slower approach, particularly in INLAND EMPIRE and TR. i don’t see that changing on any future projects, TP or otherwise.

Almost everyone seems to think any future season would be shorter than 18 hours. I’m not so sure, although it is a reasonable assumption just based on Lynch’s age, and the fact that it’s a miracle he even pulled it off once!
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by Metalane »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
Metalane wrote:It could be # of hours or episodes/parts.

Also, if season 4 were to be shorter than The Return, do you think Lynch would still take the "slow-cinema" approach?
It’s impossible to predict. Who would have guessed Lynch would give us 18 hours in S3? I do think the Part/episode count was determined by the “slow cinema” approach, and not vice versa. That’s what the dispute with Showtime and his walkout were about: he genuinely didn’t know how many hours he needed, but he knew the pace he wanted. I think if you look at Lynch’s career, he started with a super slow pace in Eraserhead, then became more commercial/mainstream, but has evolved back to that initial slower approach, particularly in INLAND EMPIRE and TR. i don’t see that changing on any future projects, TP or otherwise.

Almost everyone seems to think any future season would be shorter than 18 hours. I’m not so sure, although it is a reasonable assumption just based on Lynch’s age, and the fact that it’s a miracle he even pulled it off once!
Great write up. I'm very glad that Lynch implied that his future projects will likely take place in the medium of television. Of course, more screen time doesn't mean better, but I thought the 18 hours we got were perfect. I could definitely see why people would think a successor would be shorter, with reasons such as the pandemic, his age, cast members, budget, material, etc. Also, I thought Lynch knew from the beginning he needed 18 1-hour long time slots, and Showtime only wanted to give him 9.

Either way, I'm still optimistic for the "Wisteria" leak from earlier this year. I hope that Lynch doesn't feel like he *needs* to return to TP just for fans sake, or Showtime's request. I hope he still has all the freedom he desires. Although, he did complain about time and budget constraints on The Return.
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

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Metalane wrote:Also, I thought Lynch knew from the beginning he needed 18 1-hour long time slots, and Showtime only wanted to give him 9.
What I recall reading is that the initial script had episode/part breaks just as placeholders/guidance for Lynch and Frost (I’m not sure if it was said how many episode breaks there were in that script), but they decided to take those breaks out before delivering the script to Showtime. So the script delivered to Showtime was one long script, and Showtime determined that based on the page count, it equalled nine episodes, and budgeted it accordingly. Lynch knew that he was going to take his time with things and that this wouldn’t be a traditional case of one page equals one minute of screentime (for instance, the whole Part 8 atom bomb sequence was less than a page of script but Lynch knew it would last way longer, and he also planned to add whole scenes during production as inspiration struck him). So he really couldn’t give Showtime a runtime or episode count, but he knew it would be more than nine and he would need a bigger budget. Apparently David Nevins was out of the country at the point all this went down, and the other executives did not fathom what Lynch was saying. Since they budget based on episode count, they took issue with him asking for a larger budget without promising an episode count, and negotiations broke down. When Nevins got back, Lynch made his demand for the budget he needed and Nevins agreed. It was only in editing that Lynch decided on 18 as the magic number.

That said, he shot sixteen Roadhouse performances (including the unused third Au Revoir Simone song), so it seems he had a number of Parts in his head during production that was pretty close to what we ended up with.
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by eyeboogers »

Mr. Reindeer wrote: It was only in editing that Lynch decided on 18 as the magic number.
I don't believe this to be correct. At least the number 18 was being thrown around a lot, even before production started.

https://collider.com/twin-peaks-season- ... ode-order/
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

eyeboogers wrote:
Mr. Reindeer wrote: It was only in editing that Lynch decided on 18 as the magic number.
I don't believe this to be correct. At least the number 18 was being thrown around a lot, even before production started.

https://collider.com/twin-peaks-season- ... ode-order/
I do recall that, but I thought Lynch himself said that he didn’t decide on the number of hours until editing (possibly in an interview and/or in Room to Dream). Does anyone else recall this? I recall thinking at the time that it seemed rather odd considering that that number had been rumored for awhile. Maybe he guesstimated that that’s what it would be but wasn’t 100% certain until he sat down with the footage?
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by eyeboogers »

Probably the deal with Nevins was "18ish" :-D
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by LateReg »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
eyeboogers wrote:
Mr. Reindeer wrote: It was only in editing that Lynch decided on 18 as the magic number.
I don't believe this to be correct. At least the number 18 was being thrown around a lot, even before production started.

https://collider.com/twin-peaks-season- ... ode-order/
I do recall that, but I thought Lynch himself said that he didn’t decide on the number of hours until editing (possibly in an interview and/or in Room to Dream). Does anyone else recall this? I recall thinking at the time that it seemed rather odd considering that that number had been rumored for awhile. Maybe he guesstimated that that’s what it would be but wasn’t 100% certain until he sat down with the footage?
All of this remains guesswork, but Reindeer is correct in all of his assertions, as far as all information I know. I believe I understood it that the series could be up to 18 hours, or anywhere between 9 and 18. Fenn let it leak that it would be 18, but I think that was misinformation, not yet actually known, and that she was speaking based on the max amount it could be. (And without even reading that Collider article I remembered that it was Fenn who said it...and I had always chalked it up to being unreliable, even if it proved to be right.) After the dispute, Showtime would have reported the length had it been known, but I think they only said it would be longer than the initially promised 9-episode count. And yes, I recall Lynch did say that he only decided during editing, and said how almost all the footage he shot fit perfectly, that it just worked out to be a full 18 hours.

I do find it interesting regarding the 16 musical numbers you mention. I don't know if that proves anything one way or the other, though, since they are sometimes used as an ebb and flow sort of thing and may have always ended up where they are in the flow even with less episodes, but maybe he had always intended on using no more than one per episode. That said, he does essentially use two in multiple parts (Part 9 segues from HudMo to Au Revoir, and then 15 and 16 function similarly, counting ZZ Top and Audrey's Dance), so I really don't think we can glean anything about the episode count in this way, except that it seems he was covering his bases.
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

LateReg wrote:
I do find it interesting regarding the 16 musical numbers you mention. I don't know if that proves anything one way or the other, though, since they are sometimes used as an ebb and flow sort of thing and may have always ended up where they are in the flow even with less episodes, but maybe he had always intended on using no more than one per episode. That said, he does essentially use two in multiple parts (Part 9 segues from HudMo to Au Revoir, and then 15 and 16 function similarly, counting ZZ Top and Audrey's Dance), so I really don't think we can glean anything about the episode count in this way, except that it seems he was covering his bases.
As an aside, I wish there were behind the scenes footage from the Roadhouse shoot. What a chaotic but super fun day (or was it two days?) that must have been.
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by Metalane »

Great discussion everybody! I'm just glad that we got 18 hours and not the alleged 8-9 hour plan. I feel the editing and pacing of The Return was perfect (no filler as well), and couldn't be happier with the amount we got.
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

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Metalane wrote:Great discussion everybody! I'm just glad that we got 18 hours and not the alleged 8-9 hour plan. I feel the editing and pacing of The Return was perfect (no filler as well), and couldn't be happier with the amount we got.
To answer your original question, I have always been of the mind that a new season would be shorter. I have no real basis for thinking this, other than the history of Twin Peaks projects ricocheting in style from one to the next as the project demands, as well as Lynch's history as someone who was always prone to edit down his works into a tighter format. The most compelling argument for a shorter follow-up is my belief that the length of The Return was necessitated by the series central concern of the passage of time. One of the ways in which it functions on a higher, perhaps viscerally conceptual level is by making the viewer feel the passage of 25 years even within its 18 hours. There's a reason we wait 16 Parts for Cooper to return, a reason Lynch allows us to observe so many characters simply living their lives that have nothing to do with "plot." Those themes of time, waiting, patience and the possibility of returning are built into the storyline and execution, where even someone who only recently discovered Twin Peaks will still experience the wait that fans endured for 25 years. Since I don't believe that these concepts could be as central to a new season, I think it will be accordingly shorter. Not faster paced, but tighter. But this all served a purpose, to me, and that purpose was essentially, mainly time, and the experience of its passage.
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by vicksvapor77 »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
LateReg wrote: As an aside, I wish there were behind the scenes footage from the Roadhouse shoot. What a chaotic but super fun day (or was it two days?) that must have been.
The Roadhouse shooting was actually five consecutive shoot days. :)
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

vicksvapor77 wrote:
Mr. Reindeer wrote:
LateReg wrote: As an aside, I wish there were behind the scenes footage from the Roadhouse shoot. What a chaotic but super fun day (or was it two days?) that must have been.
The Roadhouse shooting was actually five consecutive shoot days. :)
Ah! That makes sense, it was a ton of material. I don’t know why I thought I’d read somewhere that it was either one or two days; that seemed insane to me.
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by Metalane »

LateReg wrote:
Metalane wrote:Great discussion everybody! I'm just glad that we got 18 hours and not the alleged 8-9 hour plan. I feel the editing and pacing of The Return was perfect (no filler as well), and couldn't be happier with the amount we got.
To answer your original question, I have always been of the mind that a new season would be shorter. I have no real basis for thinking this, other than the history of Twin Peaks projects ricocheting in style from one to the next as the project demands, as well as Lynch's history as someone who was always prone to edit down his works into a tighter format. The most compelling argument for a shorter follow-up is my belief that the length of The Return was necessitated by the series central concern of the passage of time. One of the ways in which it functions on a higher, perhaps viscerally conceptual level is by making the viewer feel the passage of 25 years even within its 18 hours. There's a reason we wait 16 Parts for Cooper to return, a reason Lynch allows us to observe so many characters simply living their lives that have nothing to do with "plot." Those themes of time, waiting, patience and the possibility of returning are built into the storyline and execution, where even someone who only recently discovered Twin Peaks will still experience the wait that fans endured for 25 years. Since I don't believe that these concepts could be as central to a new season, I think it will be accordingly shorter. Not faster paced, but tighter. But this all served a purpose, to me, and that purpose was essentially, mainly time, and the experience of its passage.
Now that's something to think about. I haven't thought about that before. The Return was the first time Lynch attempted a form of "slow-cinema" in a television based format. Given how Lynch has been known for doing revolutionary and groundbreaking feats in the realm of cinema before, I really don't have doubt that whatever he pumps out next (TP related or not (maybe "Wisteria")) it'll still be fresh to the medium!

There were also various different reasons why Lynch chose the slow-cinema structure. Such as atmosphere, realism, mystery, investment, etc. The Return, just like Lynch's work in general, shall be debated, analyzed, and discussed about for eternity!
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Re: How long would you expect a season 4 to be...?

Post by AXX°N N. »

One idea I find compelling that has been floated on this forum before, is the idea that it will be the last thing we'd expect, which is something so trim in length as to maybe even be a standalone film, whether a sister piece to FWWM about Carrie Page or something on a new track entirely.
Recipe not my own. In a coffee cup. 3 TBS flour, 2 TBS sugar, 1.5 TBS cocoa powder, .25 TSP baking powder, pinch of salt. 3 TBS milk, 1.5 TBS vegetable oil, 1 TBS peanut butter. Add and mix each set. Microwave 1 minute 10 seconds. The cup will be hot.
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