Cinematic doppelgängers: Twin peaks as a case study of a cancelled series' transformation into feature film

Abstract

The adaptation of some series into feature films may be read as a sign of the series' success and enduring popularity. For a cancelled series, however, the transformation into film comes with the baggage of 'unfinished business' - a need to continue the story in another medium. On a formal level, such adaptations must negotiate between functioning as narrative structures in their own right while simultaneously being extensions of the series' storyworld and plotlines. When David Lynch revived the cancelled series Twin Peaks as the prequel Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, both the popular and critical receptions were initially unfavourable. Indeed, the film has been read by many as a rejection of the TV series. In this article I will argue that Fire Walk With Me is neither a total rejection nor continuation of the series. While the film draws on the narrative components of the Twin Peaks storyworld, it reshapes them into a more bounded narrative structure - one organised around Laura Palmer's subjectivity and achieved through the marginalisation and exclusion of much of the Twin Peaks' community. In doing so, Fire Walk With Me certainly distances itself from the regenerative structural principles of its serial predecessor. Paradoxically, however, by inverting the series' structure the film also ensures that the storyworld of Twin Peaks remains open for potential future proliferation, rather than terminating its expansion as a typical series finale might do.