Twenty years tonight, Twin Peaks debuted. It is impossible to fully state the series’ effect on me as a TV fan, a story teller/listener, and an explorer of Northwestiana.

As for the show’s lasting effect on TV itself, that’s easier to describe.

At the dawn of the cable era, the oldline networks didn’t know whether long-form scripted programming had a future. Twin Peaks proved the format could indeed work. Even though the show itself only ran 32 hours plus a prequel movie, it showed how different recombinations of drama and humor and atmospherics and pacing and production design and editing could be seamlessly added into the medium.

Before Twin Peaks, TV drama with continuing characters (as opposed to detective/whodunit formulae) meant Dallas and its spinoffs. After Twin Peaks, it meant The Sopranos, Deadwood, Lost, Mad Men, Desperate Housewives, The Wire, etc.