What Happened To David Lynch's Twin Peaks Spin-Off Starring Sherilyn Fenn

Few television series have ever gotten off to a stronger start than "Twin Peaks." Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch, "Twin Peaks" was an instant sensation when ABC aired the pilot on April 8, 1990; the broadcast attracted a whopping 34.6 million viewers after getting hyped to the heavens by many of its era's leading media outlets. Frost and Lynch brilliantly baited the hook in the pilot with the mystery that would have people wildly speculating for the rest of the TV season: Who killed Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)? They also introduced viewers to arguably the most eccentric dramatis personae of all time. Kyle MacLachlan grounded the series as the cheerily inquisitive FBI Agent Dale Cooper, who initially baffles the straight-shooting Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean) before earning his trust and, ultimately, friendship.

Twin Peaks' citizenry certainly had monsters in their midst (most notably Bob), but most of the zany characters who lived in or passed through the Pacific Northwest town were kind at their core (even if they didn't always show it). Whenever I return to the series, being amongst the likes of Coop, Truman, Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton), Ed Hurley (Everett McGill), Pete Martell (Jack Nance), Hawk (Michael Horse), Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz), Lucy Moran (Kimmy Robertson), and, of course, Margaret Lanterman aka "The Log Lady" (Catherine E. Coulson), is a balm to my soul. As in any Lynch movie or series, there is something horribly sinister lurking beneath the surface of this normal-ish small town, and it is awful when it touches these people I adore. But I always have faith that they will endure.

Like many "Twin Peaks" fans, I also fell fast in love with Sherilyn Fenn's Audrey Horne, the mischievous teenage daughter of not-so-kind businessman Benjamin Horne (Richard Beymer). When she's not making trouble for her father, she's attempting to win the heart of Agent Cooper, whose feelings for the young woman range from mild annoyance (particularly when she gets herself trapped at One-Eyed Jacks) to platonically warm.

During the show's initial run, audiences were shipping Coop and Audrey something fierce, which didn't feel creepy at the time because both actors felt so close in age to each other. (Indeed, MacLachlan is only six years older than Fenn.) In a 2014 interview with The A.V. Club, Fenn said that Frost and Lynch were evidently open to exploring such a romance during season 2, but Lara Flynn Boyle (who played Laura Palmer's best friend, Donna Hayward) nixed this because she was dating MacLachlan at the time.

Though the show's ratings were bad and getting worse as its second season progressed, Audrey was still one of the series' most popular characters, which led Frost and Lynch to consider a spin-off vehicle for her. Audrey's show never materialized, but Lynch still wound up turning premise for the series into something special.

In the same interview with The A.V. Club, Fenn was asked about the scrapped "Twin Peaks" spin-off show, which, according to Billy Zane, would've paired his businessman John Justice Wheeler with Audrey. Fenn said the Audrey series actually wound up becoming "Mulholland Drive." As she put it:

"That was either in between the first and second season or after the second season, but they were like, 'What if we did a movie, and it's Audrey in California?' And they talked about an opening scene of her driving along Mulholland Drive, and how she's a little bit older."

Fenn acknowledges that she didn't quite grasp the concept of the show. "I was young, and I thought it sounded weird, because no one ever really did that," she continued. "I was, like, 'Okay, but do people do that? Go from TV to a movie as the same character?' Then all those years later, David made ['Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me'], and I didn't have anything to do with it."

Fenn didn't have anything to do with "Mulholland Drive" (which many consider to be Lynch's finest work and one of the very best films of the 21st century), but she did get to be a part of 2017's "Twin Peaks: The Return," where it was lovely to see her sway trance-like to her theme music one more time. Audrey, like the rest Twin Peaks' townspeople, died along with David Lynch in January 2025, but they will enchant us for the rest of our lives.