‘Two Birds, One Stone’: Transmedia Storytelling in Twin Peaks 1

This chapter describes the ways in which Twin Peaks employed transmedia storytelling forms to enhance its narrative world and foster active and long-term participation amongst the series’ fans. This chapter will show how transmedia expansions combined contemporary forms of merchandising with innovative forms of storytelling. As the only major serialised storyworld in David Lynch’s career, these media-industrial experiments also shed light on the work of an artist and cinematic ‘auteur’ figure who has inspired tremendous speculation amongst fans, especially in the connections between different works and across different media. Finally, by contrasting the original series with the expansions that accompanied the return of Twin Peaks a quarter century later, the chapter will shed light on changing possibilities and limitations within specific media-industrial periods. In order to map out the key transmedial connections within this rich and surprisingly diverse franchise, the chapter will first offer terminology to navigate basic forms of transmedia multitexts, before moving on to a more detailed analysis of the transmedia forms that have come to surround, enhance and enrich Twin Peaks in its different incarnations and historical periods.