I recently learned that the December 1st episode of Psych is going to be a Twin Peaks reunion, starring Laura/Maddy, Leland, Audrey Horne, Bobby Briggs, the Log Lady, the mayor’s trophy wife, and the shut-in. I am stoked.

The first season of Twin Peaks was… I can’t think of anything to say about it that isn’t hackneyed, so I’ll just go with “mind-blowing.” Every so often you’ll hear “there’s never been a show like this before,” in reference to some edgy, dark new TV drama… and then they’ll compare it to Peaks. I’m not a television historian, but if there’d ever been anything like Twin Peaks on TV before, I haven’t seen or heard of it. Perhaps some of our more seasoned readers can correct me. Either way, find the pilot episode and the first season, watch them, and then pretend that the season finale was the end of the series and that you’d always wonder what would have happened next.

I say that because the second season went horribly awry, and showed that the whole thing probably just should have been a single-season series on cable for maximum effectiveness. It had some great moments, but there was rampant making-it-up-as-you-go-along-ism that made certain subplots (James Hurley’s trip down the coast, Richard and Andy joining the Big Brother program, the Miss Twin Peaks pageant, the paternity issue near the end of the series) very hard to care about. The only saving grace was there was enough Lynchian weirdness to sustain the diehard fans’ interest, and then the show was (perhaps mercifully) cancelled. A year later, there was a prequel/sequel movie, Fire Walk With Me, that cleared up nothing while being simultaneously moving and disastrous.

And that was it. No more Peaks, but plenty of shows since then which clearly bore its influence and learned from its failure. I’ve never seen Psych, so I don’t know if it falls into that category, but the mere prospect of revisiting Twin Peaks–even with names changed and roles swapped around–will compel me to tune in. (Is “tune in” the right term to use for watching something on cable?)

One of the key elements of the show was a dream/vision in which Agent Cooper saw himself 25 years in the future. Well… 25 years later works out to either 2014 or 2015. Some of the actors behind big roles (Pete, BOB, Major Briggs) have passed on to one of the two Lodges, but it would be ridiculously awesome of Lynch to gather everyone else up and direct another coupla hours of Twin Peaks. Since that’s unlikely to happen, I’ll have to settle for a hopefully-enjoyable mini-reunion on Psych.