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Twin Peaks: Will there be a season 4?

A continuation of Dale Cooper's story hasn't entirely been ruled out, but don't hold your breath

Clarisse Loughrey
Monday 04 September 2017 13:36 BST
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Twin Peaks may have just had one of the most jaw-dropping finales around, but it certainly failed to answer a whole bunch of questions. And asked many, many more.

Naturally, it's led to many fans wondering whether Twin Peaks: The Return isn't actually the conclusion of Agent Dale Cooper's story, specifically since the show's final moments seemed to set up brand new avenues for David Lynch and Mark Frost to go down.

Officially, there's no word on season 4. And throughout season 3's development, there was never a sense that this was anything more than a one-off revival, and open-endings are something of a David Lynch specialty, so there's no reason the nature of the season finale should change things.

Indeed, Showtime president and CEO David Nevins told Deadline, "It was always intended to be one season. A lot of people are speculating but there’s been zero contemplation, zero discussions other than fans asking me about it."

Programming head Gary Levine did, however, add: "The door’s always open to David Lynch, whether that would lead to another season, I don’t know if he wants to do it. This was a Herculean effort. I’m not sure if any director has ever done 18 hours in a row of a series… It’s remarkable what he achieved, fans are liking it and for me that’s what’s satisfying."

Showtime's support is at least hopeful, since the greatest barrier to more episodes might actually be the season's steadily dropping ratings, rarely drawing more than 300,000 live viewers on average for its 18 episodes. However, Nevins seemed insistent to The Hollywood Reporter that the show was still a success, with a larger than normal percentage of views coming from streaming later on.

What would change David Lynch's mind, then? Not much it would seem. The director's not exactly one to bow to commercial or fan pressure. That's not to rule season 4 out, but it's very likely Twin Peaks' frustrating ending was entirely intended.

You can read our review of the finale here.

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