When Bob Iger Ruined Season 2 of ‘Twin Peaks’

[TMC]

The then-ABC president disagreed with co-creator David Lynch over whether to reveal the show's fundamental mystery

BY AIDAN BRYANT



The meddling studio executive has existed since the dawn of the moving image. Art vs. commerce has been and always will be an endless battle. One of the most known examples of a studio ruining a great thing because they need to make more money — or, even worse, because they seem to know better than the people who actually make TV and movies — is the battle David Lynch had over Twin Peaks. Lynch, one of the most beloved and iconic American filmmakers ever, engaged in a debate with CEO Bob Iger over one specific question: Who killed Laura Palmer? Said battle would not only change the path of Twin Peaks, but of Lynch's entire career, and provides a deep insight into the current situation involving Iger as well as the studios and their attempt to snuff out the ongoing writers strike (which SAG-AFTRA has just joined).

What Makes 'Twin Peaks' a Great TV Show?

Twin Peaks is a show that needs no introduction. It is arguably Lynch's most iconic and enduring work, with new fans popping up every day, social media accounts dedicated just to posting stills from the show, and constant re-watchings of all three seasons, as well as the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. For such a successful show, one would expect it to have more than three seasons. This was certainly the plan; however, that did not come to fruition.

Twin Peaks is a complex show. It's about murder, trauma, pie, secret romances, shady business deals, loveless marriages, and nuclear bombs, among many other things. These plotlines all branch out from one question: Who killed Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)? Laura is the key to the entire show. Her death is what sets the plot in motion. It starts the conflict, brings Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) into town, establishes new romances, everything you could think of. The show, even without Laura Palmer appearing in it besides in old footage, in pictures, and as a dead body, is about her, and her death. When that question is answered, the show is over. To answer it before that would be incredibly shortsighted, and ruin the rest of the show.

Lynch, and his co-creator, Mark Frost, understood that. They never wanted to reveal Laura's killer, but at the very least wanted Twin Peaks to end with audiences finding it out. To be honest, any writer with a modicum of understanding of how stories work, and how they should be structured, understands that. The man who did not was Bob Iger. Iger has been in the studio business his entire adult life. Now CEO of Disney, he was named head of ABC Entertainment in 1989. It could be argued that Iger, first and foremost, is a businessman, and back then, especially, television was often viewed as a business, made to sell advertisements. Commercials are what makes the business run, and according to excerpts from his own book, The Ride of a Lifetime, Iger was frustrated that Lynch would not give the audience the answer to who killed Laura Palmer. Storylines like these, however, were incredibly common. The famous "Who Shot J.R.?" plotline in Dallas, parodied by The Simpsons in "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" (which also has an excellent parody of Twin Peaks, funnily enough), is a classic example. At the time that Twin Peaks was on the air, TV was meant to keep an audience coming back week to week in order to figure out the story.

Why Did 'Twin Peaks' Get Cancelled?

Lynch and Frost were doing something different with Twin Peaks. It was a much more cinematic, much more open-ended, and much more interesting kind of television show. It remains incredibly influential because of that. The modern conception of "prestige TV" would not exist without it — but to Iger, that was the issue with the show. In his mind, the audience needed to know who killed Laura Palmer, or at least receive some indication that the storyline would be tied up. Lynch was ultimately overruled and agreed to divulge the identity of Laura's killer midway through Season 2.

Unsurprisingly, this caused ratings to plummet. In The Ride of a Lifetime, Iger even said, "After that, the storytelling became a mess. There was no engine propelling the story after the mystery was resolved." The back half of Twin Peaks Season 2 is a mess, and even die-hard fans will admit that. It has no direction, because the show no longer had a reason to go on. Twin Peaks was later moved to a Saturday night airtime, which may as well have been yet another death knell, leading to plummeting ratings. Lynch attempted to save the show with a spectacular finale to Season 2, which did reignite the engine, but that was not enough, and Twin Peaks was canceled. Even a public plea, as well as Lynch giving out Iger's mailing address live on Late Night with David Letterman, was not enough to stop ABC from pulling the plug, although Iger also admitted later in his book that "David might have been right all along." This, however, is not the end of the story.

What Happened After 'Twin Peaks' Was Cancelled?

Lynch would go on to do much more with Twin Peaks after the show's initial cancellation, directing Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me in 1992. The opening shot of that film is a television being destroyed, and that says more than enough. The movie, which serves as a prequel to the series, is incredible and recenters Twin Peaks entirely around Laura, her life, and the brutal murder that sets off the show. It is absolutely horrifying, and potentially the best film Lynch has ever directed. It also, however, flopped, due to the extreme content, and has a frankly antagonistic attitude towards the audience, perhaps stemming from the way Lynch felt after being forced into revealing Laura's killer in the original show. However, it has been reappraised and is now rightfully considered an excellent film.

Twin Peaks would make a comeback with Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017, with Lynch and a returning Mark Frost once again dismantling and reassembling the idea of what television could be. It is an absolute masterpiece, and a testament to what can happen when you allow someone to have a vision and execute it. Even with the unfortunate circumstances of the original show's Season 2, Lynch and Frost overcame them, cementing the series as one of the greatest ever, a timeless work of art still worth watching years after it first aired.

Iger, however, has had a different trajectory. He is now at the forefront of the ongoing WGA strike, a mouthpiece for the studios that are seeking to break the strike, and has recently called the demands of the writers "disturbing". Demanding a fair wage, better conditions, and that the industry you work in not be actively set ablaze by the studios is not disturbing. It is what the studio heads are doing that is disturbing — stamping out creativity, paying writers as little as possible, and forcing them into thanklessly churning out more of the same content for years instead of something that can be considered meaningful or interesting.

Right now, we are witnessing a repetition of what happened with Lynch but on a larger scale. Those like Iger, Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav, and others at the top have become convinced that they know more than the people that make this small-screen endeavor possible. If they succeed, we may never see another Twin Peaks ever again. Something that creative, weird, and original would never be allowed to exist today, and that is a shame. We know what the studios will do if they win, and we cannot let that happen.

With the ongoing WGA strike, and with SAG-AFTRA striking as well, support from the television audience is incredibly crucial. Everyone must remain united for any of this to work, and after everything these creators have given us, our support is the least we can offer.