Twin Peaks: The Missing Season

The simple intention behind this project is to give fans a new way to interact with this corner of the Twin Peaks universe. This edit doesn't want to imply that the official film is bad, but, on the contrary, it wants to highlight the parts of it that are a masterpiece.

There is a rumor that still goes around the internet or by word of mouth or through the ether-o-sphere that the Twin Peaks feature film was booed at Cannes. While this is false, the rumor persists because the *vibes* of the movie are remarkably different than the first two seasons of the TV show. There are 2 main hypotheses why this is the case based on the years of viewer feedback since its release. This fan edit attempts to highlight the strengths of the original film and bring a new appreciation to it by addressing its strongest points of criticism.

These 2 points are:
1) We don't get to Twin Peaks until 34 minutes into the film and,
2) That the film is emotionally demanding and different from the original series.

When this movie first came out, viewers wanted to immediately drive past that Twin Peaks sign and have some cherry pie. What they got for the first half hour was a place called Deer Meadow and a replacement Cooper in the form of Special Agent Chester Desmond. And when they finally got to Twin Peaks, it wasn’t all coffee and donuts and shenanigans at the Double R diner or the sheriff's station. It was a lot of wall to wall emotions with quite a bit of screaming.

In 2014, the deleted scenes from the film were released for the first time, called The Missing Pieces. There are 91 minutes of footage that includes a lot of the minor characters that fans love.

One of the most drastic changes for this project is that it rearranges the timeline so that the first thing on screen is Laura Palmer and the viewer begins the journey already in Twin Peaks. The scenes in Deer Meadow are intercut with the rest of the film, similar to how they might be in a standard television format. There’s even a new intro that was created for each episode that mimics the original opening of the show, complete with our favorite tune by Angelo Badalamenti.

The other highlight is the extended David Bowie sequence. His part is one of the show's most intriguing mysteries, especially in the context of what happens to his character in season 3, The Return. These scenes have been reconstructed in episode 2 to try to piece back together this puzzle.

The last episode is an hour and a half long and it includes contextual pieces from the last episode of season 2 as well as some of the most important Log Lady introductions. When the first two seasons of Twin Peaks were syndicated for the Bravo network in 1993, each episode was shown with a brief introduction from the Log Lady that were written and directed by David Lynch himself. They are the closest thing that Lynch will ever get to explaining anything, or even giving any kind of clue.

Another goal for the project is to play with intertextuality. How do the vibes change with the film arranged this way? What can it reveal about the relationship between the viewer and the film based on reactions to different edits? And, of course, what can it reveal about the film overall?