I May Be Dreaming, But Don't Pinch Me..."Twin Peaks" Is Coming Back!!!! (for real this time)

Remember how everyone thought Andrew Packard was dead, but he wasn't really dead, then he came back, and then Josie went into that wooden pull knob? Well, Andrew may have been a minor "Twin Peaks" character, but it now seems he was actually a metaphor for the entire show, because it is coming back in 2016! 

Rumors that David Lynch would be returning to that town both wonderful and strange have been rampant for the past few years, but when he made a really short film featuring the mostly deceased Palmer family for the recent "Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery" blu-ray set, the mystery of all Lynch's chat about TP being an ongoing story seemed to be solved in unspectacular fashion. Then everyone went cuckoo a few days ago when Lynch and "Peaks" co-creator Mark Frost simultaneously tweetled "That gum you like is going to come back in style". The rap was that "Twin Peaks" would be returning to TV, and additional clues indicated it might be coming to Showtime.

I'm rarely seduced by rumors, so I decided to wait and see before reporting anything. Naturally, I'm now at the back of the line in announcing that "Twin Peaks" will indeed be coming back with all-new episodes, and Showtime will indeed be the network to show it.

The show will pick up with nine episodes to film in 2015 and air the following year, 25 years after Coop's unfortunate visit to the john in his room at the Great Northern Hotel. That means we'll probably finally find out how Annie is.

Lynch will be directing all nine episodes, which is major news in itself since he hasn't directed anything but commercials and music videos since INLAND EMPIRE in 2006.

The only major problem is the deaths of some key Twin Peaks citizens. Though I will certainly miss Jack Nance as Pete Martell and Don Davis as Major Briggs, they are not quite as integral to what happens next as Frank Silva, who embodied the terrifying Killer BOB. As much as I usually loathe CGI, and think it's downright odious when departed people are digitally inserted into films, commercials, and the like, I think it may be necessary in this case. Even if Silva had not died two decades ago, it may have been necessary anyway since I doubt BOB ages.

Although these kinds of reunion deals don't always work out ideally (I wasn't an "Arrested Development" watcher, but apparently a lot of its hardcore fans were disappointed by its Netflix revival), I actually have faith in the return of "Twin Peaks". David Lynch is our greatest living artist. He has rarely made a piece of art that hasn't thrilled me on some level. And the fact that Mark Frost is involved makes the entire thing utterly legitimate and ensures that the project will be on track and true to that very specific style the classic series forged. I only hope no one pinches me and wakes me before this wonderful, wonderful dream come true.

Review: 'Reflections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks'

Shows as cinematic, daring, and genuinely artistic as “Twin Peaks” come along rarely even in television’s new “golden age” (and with shows like “Breaking Bad”, “Mad Men”, and “Game of Thrones”, I truly do believe TV is enjoying a renaissance). Back in 1990, there simply wasn’t anything else to compare to it even with a crop of excellent series like “China Beach” and “Northern Exposure”, so it’s understandable that all these decades later its cast and crew are still so eager to speak of “Twin Peaks” in DVD and blu-ray bonus documentaries and onstage in last year’s series of panel discussions at the University of Southern California. Big stars like Piper Laurie and David Duchovny will still make time to chat about a 25-year old series that lasted a mere season and a half.

As a crazed Peaks Freak, I make time to watch every one of these recollections I can find, so as excited as I was to read Brad Dukes’s new book, Reflections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks, I was skeptical I’d learn much. I was totally wrong to be skeptical. Reflections is the best book I’ve picked up all year. Dukes scores by digging into the aspects of the show that have not been discussed to death already. Yes, he covers the oft-told origin of the series that began life as “Northwest Passage” and the origin of Killer BOB, the media frenzy that met the show and the early demise that followed the forced resolution of the core “Who Killed Laura Palmer?” mystery, and everything else obligatory. But Reflections really shines when getting into less-traveled zones and giving them surprisingly serious attention. Full sections are devoted to Duchovny’s Agent Bryson (though Dukes did not interview that particular actor), Josie Packard ending up in the pull knob, Diane Keaton and Uli Edel’s turns as director, and most welcome of all, the sweetness of Frank Silva, the set decorator who ended up playing television’s most heinous creature. Mysteries are solved. We finally get some specific details about Stanley Kubrick’s mythic screening of Eraserhead, and Kubrick was not the only legendary director in attendance. Kimmy Robertson reveals her very personal role in getting Duchovny cast. We learn why Windom Earle appears in demonic makeup in the penultimate episode. We get some juicy tidbits about the much-loathed James and Evelyn Marsh mini-noir that will make me look differently at a subplot I sometimes skip through. And though no one holds back their personal opinions (Sherilyn Fenn is as forthcoming as ever about how she thinks Lara Flynn Boyle screwed up the series), you really get a sense that the cast and crew loved working together and loved “Twin Peaks” as a job and a show. If they didn’t, Dukes probably would not have been able to gather nearly 100 of its former denizens (including long-time holdout Michael Ontkean!) to reflect on it two and a half decades down the road.