The large and passionate community of Twin Peaks fans, who have been waiting more than a quarter century for new episodes, had a big day on Monday. Showtime, the network that will air this year’s Twin Peaks revival, held a presentation at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, and answered a lot of questions about the long-awaited project.

The series, finally, has a premiere date of May 21, which will see the debut of the first two episodes, followed by the immediate on-demand release of the third and fourth episodes. The series, it was also revealed, will have 18 episodes. It will be “close-ended,” and a Showtime executive described the series as, “The pure heroin version of David Lynch.” And while not much is known about the plot, we also learned one area into which it will delve.

Lynch, the show’s co-creator, said at the TCA presentation that the events of the 1992 prequel movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, will factor into the plot of the new season. The co-creator, appearing on a panel with Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and Showtime brass, didn’t give away a lot of plot detail during his time before the press, although he did say that “the story of Laura Palmer’s last seven days are very important for this."

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Fire Walk With Me, which Lynch directed shortly after the cancellation of the series, concerned just that - the final week in the life of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), whose murder kicked off the series’ pilot and the central mystery of most of its run. The film, which has developed a cult audience over the years along with the series itself, mostly depicted events that had been hinted at in the series and solved few of its outstanding mysteries.

The news of the inclusion of the Laura Palmer material is welcome if not exactly surprising; after all, the actors who played Laura herself (Lee) and her father/murderer (Ray Wise) have both been confirmed for the revival series for awhile. If nothing else, this news indicates that a quarter century later we might get some answers to what was going on in the movie, in addition to the show.

The downside? It remains to be seen how the show will depict Lee, who turns 50 in April, as a teenager who died in the early ‘90s - a change in the rules of how time passes in the Black Lodge, or some other supernatural explanation?

Twin Peaks premieres May 21st at 9 pm on Showtime.

Source: David Lynch