As we approach the twentieth anniversary of Twin Peaks’ initial television debut it is time to ask if it is still relevant. Many people are probably wondering if it was ever relevant to begin with. The answer is probably no, not in the conventional sense of the word anyway. Of course there is nothing conventional about Twin Peaks or David Lynch, for that matter. Maybe the question should be asked, “Has Twin Peaks lost its eeriness, and cult draw and become cheesy?” This is not a simple yes or no type of question. How could a show that bizarre and surrealistic relate to people in the first place? In which case, those who say that it was never relevant have made a valid point. The question of whether it has become cheesy may be moot in that it was created with a heaping helping of kitsch—Log Lady, backward/forward talking midget, Special Agent Dale Cooper’s over-the-top noirish persona and his unnatural affinity for cherry pie, et al.—to help create the eeriness and out-of-time quality that I find so effective.

I posit that a work that is so far removed from reality, one that defies zeitgeist and other time-related hindrances and elements that create expiration dates, could never really become obsolete or dated. The element of interdimensionality alone keeps Twin Peaks removed from any context that would allow its shelf life to run out. I was only twelve when Twin Peaks first aired, and I didn’t think much about it then. I didn’t know anything about it, actually. It wasn’t until six or seven years later when I got introduced to Blue Velvet and Eraserhead that I decided that I needed to watch anything and everything David Lynch had ever directed. It was then that I made it a point to check out Twin Peaks. Of course, by this time I had the opportunity to begin with the pilot episode, a luxury the original fans did not have. I instantly fell in love with it. It was then that I thought back to when I was twelve. I remembered that it seemed for about five minutes everyone I knew was asking, “Who killed Laura Palmer?” For a very brief moment in time, as I recalled, Twin Peaks was a national obsession. Of course this didn’t last for long. By the sixth or seventh episode, the quality of the shows were going downhill, and David Lynch was having less and less to do with them. The unfortunate petering out of interest in the show came as quickly as the initial obsession with Laura Palmer’s killer.

The show became quite awful, a parody of itself. Then the slipshod prequel, Fire Walk with Me was released a few years after the last episode aired in an attempt to tie up loose ends left by the series’ untimely demise, and Twin Peaks was condemned to television mediocrity forever. However, instead of dwelling on the last twenty episodes that most haven’t seen all of and that fans pretend were never made, I prefer to focus on the first episodes whose brilliance fostered the national craze. Containing all of the surrealistic genius and American Gothic down-hominess of Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks harbors some of the darkest atmospheres television has seen without really seeming to try too hard. Of course, this is Lynch’s trademark. Or was his trademark.

The baron of the bizarre (that’s right, I just came up with a nickname that I want to catch on) may have used up the last of his good ideas. Relegated to making short films as of late, his latest foray into feature film territory resulted in 2006’s Inland Empire. Though he enlisted the help from a couple members of the Lynch Mob—Laura Dern and Justin Theroux—this film just falls way short of enjoyable or aesthetically pleasing. Like a lot of people, when there are elements of a piece of art that I do not understand, I first wonder if it is just over my head. However, in this case, I am confident with my assertion that Lynch offers nothing more than self-indulgence: bizarre images strung together into some form resembling a movie just like strung popcorn has some of the basic visual elements as a string of pearls.

This is not to say that he will necessarily never make another good film. Historically his career has been quite spotty. While creating great films like Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, Mulholland Dr., and The Elephant Man (which is really helmed by Mel Brooks, but Brooks was reticent to attach his name to it in fear that it wouldn’t be seen as a serious drama), he has also made stinkers like Lost Highway and Dune. While the hopeful may say this is just another dry spell and the overly biased and/or pretencious may say that Inland Empire was a good film, I wonder if we haven’t seen the last of David Lynch at his finest. I’m not aware of any movie projects on his horizon. He spends a great deal of his time and resources promoting transcendental meditation, and he always has his hands in producing others’ movies, and taking part in other forms of art. Those of us waiting with bated breath for the next Lynch masterpiece may just turn blue and keel over. Instead we should turn back and look at the wonderfully black moments that he has given us over the last 30+ years.

This brings me back to my original question: Is Twin Peaks still relevant, or is it dated and obsolete? Does it still instill the unnatural feelings, the tone of perversity that it once did? Have American tastes calloused so much that it no longer has the same effect on us? I’ve recently gone back through my VHS box set—the old one that has several episodes per tape—and I have come to a couple of conclusions: 1) Twin Peaks is every bit as unnerving and enthralling as it was when I first encountered it thirteen years ago, and 2) I really need to upgrade my box set to DVDs. Maybe it’s been a couple years; maybe it has been nearly twenty since you’ve experienced Twin Peaks. Procure yourself the pilot, watch several episodes and get lost in the woodsy, weird world of Lynch and the pine-filled perversity that is the town of Twin Peaks. It is still very much worth it.