Both television and movie fans have been rejoicing in the return of Twin Peaks over the last few weeks, and the show has been as captivatingly bizarre as they could have ever possibly imagined.
Unfortunately for viewers, it looks like the current 18-episode-long season is all that we’re going to get from the Twin Peaks revival. That’s according to Showtime C.E.O. David Nevins, who has heavily suggested that Twin Peaks will clock out after its upcoming episode. However, he did leave some wiggle room by confirming that the decision rests in the hands of David Lynch and Mark Frost.
“I don’t think so, but it’s not impossible. [Lynch and I are] both avoiding the conversation for a while; we want to let the story coalesce and see how people feel at the end,” David Nevins explained about the potential for a return of Twin Peaks at a Television Critics Association event on Monday night, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter.
David Nevins isn’t sure which way David Lynch is currently leaning, as he also confirmed at the event that the legendary Eraserhead and Mullholland Drive director has “been in France pretty much since the premiere event” that kick started the show’s run.
While Twin Peak: The Return has been met with critical acclaim, and amassed a cult audience, its viewing figures of between 200,000 and 350,000 are well below Showtime’s smash hits like Shameless and Billions, which bring in around 1 million and 1.5 million viewers each week.
Still, David Nevins is glad that Showtime brought Twin Peaks back, declaring that he’s “really happy” with its performance, before then insisting that it “drove our business in a way that almost nothing else could.” Nevins continued, “It’s been interesting and maybe it’s a blinding glimpse of how Netflix looks at the world, but [it had] a palpable effect on subscribers even though its overall numbers are not as big as our biggest shows.”
If this really is the end for Twin Peaks then there’s a good chance that it’ll also be the last we see of David Lynch for a while. Before the return of Twin Peaks, which originally debuted in 1990 before being cancelled after its second season, David Lynch’s last film was in 2006. In the build-up to Twin Peaks: The Return David Lynch freely admitted that he doesn’t envision a return to film, either.
When asked by the Sydney Morning Herald why he hasn’t released a film in over a decade, Lynch not only predicted that Inland Empire will probably be his last, but also explained, “Things changed a lot. So many films were not doing well at the box office even though they might have been great films and the things that were doing well at the box office weren’t the things that I would want to do.”
Which is a statement so sad that it makes me want to cry. At least we have five more episodes to savor before Twin Peaks comes to an end on September 3.
