Twin Peaks: will David Lynch revival live up to expectations?

The cult TV show Twin Peaks is set to return for a new season more than 25 years after the death of Laura Palmer, with enigmatic director David Lynch once again at the helm.

Lynch confirmed the news yesterday when he tweeted a link to an eerie teaser video along with the message: "Dear Twitter Friends... it is happening again."

Twin Peaks was a worldwide hit in the early 1990s, but was cancelled after just two seasons following a dramatic drop off in ratings.

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The show centred on the murder of beauty queen Laura Palmer and the strange goings on in a small fictional town in Washington state. As Twin Peaks progressed, it veered into increasingly exploratory territory with cryptic dialogue and hallucinogenic dream sequences featuring giants and dancing dwarves.

A statement accompanying the teaser video said: "The groundbreaking television phenomenon, Golden Globe and Peabody Award-winner Twin Peaks will return as a new limited series on Showtime in 2016.

"Series creators and executive producers David Lynch and Mark Frost will write and produce all nine episodes of the limited series."

Many television reviewers hailed the return of the show as an opportunity to answer some of the key questions that remained when the second series came to an abrupt halt in 1991. "What, exactly happened to FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) in that final scene of Twin Peaks when he looks in the mirror," asks The Guardian's Brian Moylan. "What did Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) mean when she told Cooper that she would see him again in 25 years? Did Lynch plan this all along? And what has Lara Flynn Boyle been up to? And can Peggy Lipton get her daughter Rashida Jones to appear in an episode?"

Some critics have expressed concern about the current fashion for TV revivals, suggesting that the classic show should have been left alone. But Time magazine's James Poniewozik argues that there is no point trying to judge the revival two years before it even exists. "If you loved Twin Peaks – or even if you’re just curious – you now have an excuse to go back and look again at one of the greatest things TV ever did. And in 2016, its creators will do something great again. Or they won’t. In which case there will be plenty of time to hate it then. Why waste two years pre-hating something?"