Season 4? Or is it over after this? Wisteria/Unrecorded Night? Something else? (Speculation thread.)

[enumbs]

Lynch isn’t the same director now as he was thirty years ago, but he has never been afraid of frustrating or alienating parts of the audience. It seems plausible to me that a version of the first two seasons directed entirely by Lynch might have turned some people off in the same way many were turned off by the Return. I doubt the latter half of season one would have had the same energetic and pacy feel for example.

[DougieJones]

Ten days until Twin Peaks Day 2022. I wonder if we’ll get some sort of announcement/indication as to whether or not we’re getting a S4.

[Histeria]

Now that would be a curveball.

[Stavrogyn]

Imagine if Lynch announced an announcement coming on February 24, and then announced that he is retiring as a director.

[mtwentz]

Well specifically I was referring to episode 8, Season 2 premiere. That's the episode that really piqued my interest in Twin Peaks, but also the one that was the beginning of the end ratings wise.

I remember reading shortly after the series ended that the opening scene with the waiter and the Giant was the beginning of the audience mass exodus.

Without access to quarter-hour viewership, its kinda impossible to say anything re: the waiter and the Giant. Seems I looked up the trades once, and found separate hour viewership? Not sure where that is in my archives. I'll dig around.

I am speaking more anecdotally here- stories of viewers who couldn't get past that scene. I don't know if we will ever know for sure.

But if I recall, the viewership did fall off immediately after the Season 2 premiere.

Getting back to the main point- a lot of the contributions by other directors were great. It is hard to see how Lynch could have improved upon that stretch from Episode 10-13, my favorite non-Lynch episodes of the series. You combine those episodes with 9 and 14, and I consider that the most compelling TV ever.

But for most of Season 1, and everything after episode 14, I personally feel the quality would have been better with Lynch at the helm.

[Audrey Horne]

Part of the problem with that stretch is not so much the writing or the directing, it’s that the story structure was a mess. They couldn’t land on anything and it kept shifting every week, and there was very little conflict.

It’s been common for production to say this resulted in them being forced to reveal the killer earlier, and the eleventh hour scuttlingof the Cooper, Audrey plot… but the problems are evident right off the bat in crafting the second season. They had Windom Earle introduced, they had the mill fire etc. so sure let’s say they don’t reveal the killer, what was their plan to keep us griped.

The whole thing is moot though because even if Lynch had directed every episode and the scripts and plot were Citizen Kaneesque, the viewership was not there. At least not enough for the network.

Fire Walk With Me is an example of no tampering, nothing standing in its way. There was Peaks/Lynch fatigue amongst the general public.

[JackwithOneEye]

I seem to recall pictures of the Giant and that scene was described in the Time magazine issue w Lynch on the cover, just ahead of the premiere airing. So I was prepared for that scene. That's my recollection, which could be off after 3 decades. But maybe that helped send people running for the hills.

I do remember thinking Windom Earle was somehow connected to the Hong Kong guy when it first aired, the way that scene was cut together in the ep after the premiere, in the Great Northern Restaurant.

[Audrey Horne]

Yeah,that TIME magazine was the best. And the Rolling Stone and Newsweek all in the same time about a week before the premiere.

Although, thanks Newsweek for basically giving every plot point of the premiere… including it wraps up with BOB killing Laura …with the asterisk of “wait, but BOB might not exist.” Yeah,I remember that premiere being basically yep, check, check, check, that’s out of the way, bring on the new episode where we know nothing,

The TIME had those four photos that I was o. The edge of my seat and running circles in my head. We knew The Giant was a new character long before. But then it had Cooper shot. The Audrey clinging to a curtain at OEJ famous photo but I thought it was a tree and she escaped into the dark woods. And the last picture was the Ben and Josie reunion that wouldn’t happen until episode six.

Best week for Peaks fans ever. and Kyle on SNL the night before the premiere.

[JackwithOneEye]

the Time magazine got me excited Lynch was directing the premiere. It was the first time I think I'd seen any of his paintings in print. I don't remember the Newsweek issue. My mother subscribed to Time, and I remember being in 7th grade and being given some orientation of how to use the card catalogue in the school library, and I remember looking over at the magazine rack and saw that Lynch cover staring at me.

I seem to remember a few months before on Donahue, someone asked Mark Frost, when will Lynch come back and direct, and Frost was like, I'm not sure, he's really busy these days.

[AXX°N N.]

The Audrey clinging to a curtain at OEJ famous photo but I thought it was a tree and she escaped into the dark woods.

Thanks for sharing this, it makes me so nostalgic for some reason. I think we all have these little fan malapropisms that uniquely paint how we see certain scenes. It's like hearing the lyrics wrong in a song--you'll always remember your wrong lyrics!

[DougieJones]

Seems as though Sabrina privated her Instagram account. Wish I was following before I noticed. Hope she’s doing alright.

[Histeria]

She started posting BTS photos from production again after a long gap and probably wants to do so without being pelted with irate UN/Wisteria questions all day.

I remember she got so many comments and DMs about it that she asked a commenter "would you prefer I stop completely?" on the one where Lynch is in front of the Palmer House that had the caption "The Story Continues".

It's one thing speculating/commenting passively here or on twitter/reddit but when it's directed at her personally every day via comments/direct messages then it surely gets a bit toxic sometimes. Especially if the project hit bumps in the road after all that speculation.

[Agent Earle]

She could've easily avoided all the "unpleasantries" by issuing one simple statement about the status of the so-called "project" everyone was speculating about for months (years now?). Instead, she (and all the other TP associates active on social media) continued to stoke the flames, knowing full well how it'll be interpreted.

[Histeria]

ViacomCBS changes name to Paramount.

And Showtime will finally be integrated into Paramount+ as a single bundle (in addition to being available separately). So in about six months, all three seasons of Twin Peaks will be united for the first (?) time.

They've also announced a gigantic spending spree on new content, with more shows to be unveiled. Note that David Nevins now has an expanded responsibility for Paramount+ originals on top of Showtime ones.

She could've easily avoided all the "unpleasantries" by issuing one simple statement about the status of the so-called "project" everyone was speculating about for months (years now?). Instead, she (and all the other TP associates active on social media) continued to stoke the flames, knowing full well how it'll be interpreted.

Agreed but I was just speculating on motivation, not issuing a moral judgement or defense.

[AXX°N N.]

She could've easily avoided all the "unpleasantries"

Everything I've seen of digital groupthink instills extreme doubt about that. You can inspire ire from the twitterverse merely for apologizing the wrong way after constant harassment implicating your obligation to apologize in the first place (or else). No matter what degree of teasing she did (if it wasn't, all along, just completely organic impressions she wound up giving related to daily interactions with Lynch, ie, recent fascination with purple), no one deserves to have to stare down the muzzle of anonymous internet entitlement and hostility.