PASADENA, Calif. — The long-awaited continuation of the “Twin Peaks” saga finally has a premiere date. After first being promised for 2016, and co-creator director David Lynch briefly leaving the project, the new “Twin Peaks” will finally arrive on Showtime May 21.
During an afternoon session devoted to Showtime programming at the Langham Huntington hotel during the Television Critics Association winter 2017 press tour, a few details about “Twin Peaks” — one of the most anticipated TV events of 2017 — emerged.
David Nevins, president and CEO of Showtime Networks Inc., told reporters that the “Twin Peaks” coming to Showtime will be true to the vision of the cult favorite series created by Lynch and Mark Frost, which aired for two seasons on ABC in 1990 and 1991.
Nevins praised Lynch, who will direct all 18 hours of the new “Twin Peaks,” as a great filmmaker, and added the episodes coming to Showtime are “pure heroin David Lynch.”
“I hear heroin is a very popular drug these days,” Lynch himself said during a surprise appearance to talk about “Twin Peaks.”
Not that Lynch gave anything away. Neither did cast members Kyle MacLachlan, returning as FBI agent Dale Cooper; Madchen Amick, back as Shelley Johnson, who was a waitress in the original; Kimmy Robertson, who was Lucy Moran, receptionist at the Twin Peaks sheriff’s office; and new cast members Laura Dern (whose collaboration with Lynch includes “Blue Velvet”); and Robert Forster (who was in the Lynch-directed movie, “Mulholland Falls”).
Reporters were cautioned that we wouldn’t hear any details about the shrouded-in-secrecy “Twin Peaks.” But Lynch calmly answered questions about working on the original “Twin Peaks,” and what it’s been like to return to the fictional Pacific Northwestern town.
A longtime practitioner of Transcendental Meditation, Lynch, wearing his customary dark suit and crisply buttoned-up white shirt, was composed and positive. And the filmmaker was sometimes a man of few, though polite, words, as when, asked why he and Frost make a good team.
“Mark is very smart,” Lynch said.
After reporters laughed at the succinctness of Lynch’s response, he elaborated that he and Frost are really “a good combo.”
Lynch was more poetic when recounting how he and Frost first came to create “Twin Peaks,” a process Lynch described as the two of them being initially “lost in the wilderness,” then entering “a deep forest,” and then, as the trees began to thin, they came out of the woods and “discovered the small town called Twin Peaks.”
“I love this world of Twin Peaks,” Lynch said, adding that he sees the new, 18-hour series “as a film,” “a film in parts.”
Lynch was excited to return to “this beautiful world” and these “beautiful characters,” as he said, and he characterized working on the new episodes as “a joyful, fantastic trip with this great crew, and great cast.”
Asked about the original “Twin Peaks,” Lynch recalled how happy he was with the pilot, which was an unquestionably brilliant piece of work, and wildly unlike anything done for TV up until that point.
Back then, “Twin Peaks” only lasted two seasons. Lynch said what killed the show originally was that, while Lynch and Frost wanted to ask the question, “Who killed Laura Palmer?” they didn’t want to provide an answer.
When he and Frost were “told we need to wrap that up,” Lynch said, they did. But, he added, the show “never really got going after that.”
Asked about returning to Washington state, and some of the original locations where “Twin Peaks” filmed in the ’90s, such as Snoqualmie and North Bend, Lynch said the locations were “both the same and different.”
After Lynch departed, telling reporters and critics “I hope you enjoy ‘Twin Peaks,’ thanks a million,” MacLachlan, Dern, Amick, Robertson and Forster came out and managed to talk without saying much of anything about the new “Twin Peaks.”
MacLachlan and Amick agreed they hadn’t really expected to do more “Twin Peaks” episodes, but both were happy to be back in the “family,” as MacLachlan said.
His long association with Lynch, going back to “Dune” and “Blue Velvet,” MacLachlan said, made communication between director and actor subtle but effective.
“Twin Peaks” will pick up the story since last we saw it, more than two decades ago, when the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer revealed the dark secrets lurking beneath the woodsy surface of the town of Twin Peaks, Washington.
The series, which Nevins said is designed to be a closed-ended, one-time event, premieres with a two-hour opener on May 21. Showtime subscribers can watch the third and four episodes via Showtime on demand, or the streaming service Showtime Anytime.
