In an interview, Engels indicates his desire to resurrect Twin Peaks in some fashion:
I think if we could figure out a way to do it, I think everybody would have fun going back. You just don’t want to do Return to Mayberry. It’d be a miracle to get the whole group back together again but I think, all things being equal, they’d say ‘I’m in’. I certainly would.
Apparently this goes beyond Engels’ own optimistic speculation – the network is interested as well:
The network will come to me and say ‘What do you think about this?’ Thing is, all the writers and directors from the show have gone to have nice careers, and none of them will want to come back and do, as I said, Return to Mayberry. When people think of Twin Peaks they usually think of it as this show about a town full of weird people… and that it was quirky. But I think what they’re forgetting is that it also had a lot of heart. There was so much emotion to it. It’s a quirky town, sure, but there’s so much more in it – and it gets lost when people try to revisit that.
Twin Peaks originally aired on ABC – the network that bid farewell to Lost. Engels touches on the fact that Lost owed a great deal to Twin Peaks and would probably never have existed without it. So as ABC tries to find a way to fill the void left by that pop-culture juggernaut, it seems natural that there’d be some discussion about the possibility of resurrecting Twin Peaks.
Engels stresses that all of this is conditional on the participation of series creators David Lynch and Mark Frost, but goes on to confirm that Lynch has long maintained his interest in these characters and their world.
While there are no concrete plans at the moment, the fact that there’s even interest in bringing back Twin Peaks is pretty exciting. If you ask me, the first season is some of the best television ever produced. I know fans remain divided on the second season, and while it definitely falters a bit, they had some intriguing ideas in play. It’s common knowledge that with declining ratings, the network required them to reveal the identity of Laura Palmer’s killer halfway through the season in an attempt to lure viewers back. Unfortunately, this severely complicated and hindered other story lines that were developing.
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I’m not sure how much of a difference the original story arc would have made on viewer’s reactions, but it’s a shame that Twin Peaks was axed before it had a chance to find its footing again. Say what you will about the movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, but I enjoyed quite a bit of that as well.
Check out the rest of the interview for more of Engels’ insights into the show, the film, and the future of Twin Peaks.
Would you be up for a return to Twin Peaks? Would the show fare better now than it did in the early nineties? Would you prefer they leave it as it is? Sound off below.
