New Details on David Lynch’s Scrapped Netflix TV Show Revealed

David Lynch left behind a long list of unfinished or unrealized projects when he passed away earlier this year, the latest of which was a Netflix original series called Unrecorded Night. Little was known about this show at the time, and what few tidbits had slipped out were uncertain, as Netflix and Lynch were both committed to secrecy. That changed last week when Lynch’s frequent collaborator, cinematographer Peter Deming, opened up about Unrecorded Night in an interview with The Film Stage. Afterward, Lynch’s daughter Jennifer spoke about it in an interview with The Times. Perhaps the most surprising revelation of all is that fans may still see this project published in some form.

Rumors of Lynch making a limited series for Netflix began to circulate in February of 2020, substantiated by casting calls and hiring notices. According to Production Weekly, the plan was for Lynch to write and direct a 13-episode series, with Sabrina S. Sutherland as a producer. Deming was eventually associated with the project as well, and now he has opened up about his experience for the first time.

“Shortly before he passed – well, like a year, because it was pre-COVID – there was Unrecorded Night, which he had written. I’d read it, and we actually went on one scout, looking at locations. Then COVID hit, so everything shut down and it never rekindled,” he said. Deming denied rumors that the show was somehow related to Twin Peaks, and cast doubt on rumors that each episode would be a feature-length film.

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“It’s definitely its own original thing, and how it was formatted, I don’t really know,” he said. “It was going to be a lot of episodes, because David really liked what he called ‘the continuing story.’ Because I tried to… you know, I really love the feature stuff, but he was like, ‘I’m not going to make any more movies. I’m just going to make longer stories because I love the longer story.’ …[Unrecorded Night] took me three sittings to read it because it was so thick, but it was definitely not Twin Peaks. It was definitely a really interesting… mystery, I would say. Yeah, it’s too bad. It really is. Because it would’ve been good.”

As for the plot details, Deming was careful, noting that he would prefer to talk to Sutherland and others before divulging anything prematurely. However, he was willing to reveal that the show would have been set in Los Angeles, saying, “You know, he loved to make films about Los Angeles. He wasn’t trying to hide the setting. Lost Highway, while not implicit, was certainly implied. Mulholland Dr. was obvious. Inland Empire was obvious. To me, this was another L.A. canon for him, and one that sort of mixed in filmmaking and Old Hollywood a bit, and it was just, maybe, number four in that line of products.”

After that, Jennifer confirmed that Deming was right to withhold the details. She confirmed that Lynch had intended for Unrecorded Night to star Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, and Naomi Watts, before telling The Times, “We are considering offering that as a published piece, so that people can sit with his ideas. It would be very sad if people didn’t get to see it.”