David Lynch and Mark Frost’s hypnotic television mystery, Twin Peaks, continues to stun with its tone of eerie, unsettling dread and sense of storytelling complexity. The show also helped to bridge the intense, absorbing experience of cinema with the scope and breadth of network television, creating a strange, mesmerizing spell with its invention and intelligence.    

On February 4 1990, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) was found dead, wrapped in a plastic bag off a riverbank in a small Washington town. F.B.I. Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), meanwhile, is investigating the murder of another teenager found across the state line and discovers that the two deaths may be linked. Cooper decides to combine his investigation with the efforts of the local police department.

The detectives soon realize that Laura had led a double life and that her death was connected to possibly everyone in town; although she was a star cheerleader and the only daughter of a prominent family, Laura was also a drug addict who prostituted herself for cash. 

Twin Peaks was truly Dickensian in its storytelling, with each episode conveying the same level of detail and minutiae of a page in a great novel. Ultimately, the murder of Laura Palmer serves as the introduction to this off-kilter, bizarre township, exploring not only what led to these murders, but also how this incident has affected the individual lives in this small town. The police procedural gradually withdraws into the storytelling backdrop of the series, as these residents begin to interact and converge in unsettling, interesting ways.

Along with Hill Street Blues’ Mark Frost, Oscar nominee Lynch (The Elephant Man¸ Blue Velvet) created a sense of artistry and originality previously absent in television. Not only did Twin Peaks feature the atmospheric, moody atmosphere of a feature film with its intense cinematography and expert editing, but it also features the clear signature of a storyteller who heightens his world’s density with every episode, paving the way for David Chase (The Sopranos), J.J. Abrams (Alias¸ Lost) and Larry David (Seinfeld¸ Curb Your Enthusiasm). Its pop cultural influence is obvious in modern television: the likes of Lost, Weeds and Battlestar Galactica all feature layered, enduring storylines that reward their audience’s ongoing attention.

Twin Peaks also inspired Lynch’s 1992 feature, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, which followed the last days of Laura Palmer. However, the film is but the footnote to his and Frost’s great Dickensian achievement.

Andrew Moraitis