David Lynch’s surprise small screen outing remains one of the most fascinating and compelling pilot episodes ever made
For cinephiles of a certain generation, the premiere of Twin Peaks on 8 April 1990 was a seismic event in popular culture, the sort of experience where you remember exactly where you were when you saw it. I was a senior in high school, working at a movie theater in suburban Atlanta, and I watched it alongside a concessionist with whom I used to trade enthusiasms about Marin Scorsese and Brian De Palma, and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, which we had smuggled under our parents’ noses at the video store. It was the one and only time I’d ever spend at his house, and I don’t recall a word spoken between us until it was over. It was like nothing we had ever seen on television, and like nothing we had ever seen in a theater either.
Related: Fire Walk With Me: how David Lynch's film went from laughing stock to the key to Twin Peaks