10 Most Memorable TV Drama Moments Of The 2010s

Officially, this was probably the least viewed moment of these rankings. Even fewer of those meagre numbers can claim to have totally comprehended the almost unearthly, disjointed, surreal images they were privy to throughout Part 8 of Twin Peaks: The Return.

Attempting to analyse the avant-garde is part and parcel of any David Lynch project, and the continuation of Twin Peaks, more than 25 years after the original, didn’t disappoint in that regard. Perhaps no single sequence better evoked the atmosphere of the truly bizarre hallucinatory vision emblematic of Lynch’s filmography, however, than the “Gotta Light?” scene.

In a pitch black desert, an anonymous couple, unknown of origin, destination, or name, are motoring down a lonesome (lost) highway. At least, it’s lonesome until their headlights reveal a ghoulish “woodsman”, one of many that had been haunting the screen at various points throughout this eerie hour.

Shambling over to their open window, the woodsman repeatedly asks for the titular light, his voice distorted by electrical crackling. He offers no additional comment or question, and the inhabitants of the vehicle quickly become too terrified to provide much in the way of response before they flee.

There’s no explanation, no closure, nothing to give any substantial insight into what just happened. The entire vibe of the sequence suggests nothing more than the kind of formless, disorienting nightmare on which David Lynch has built his reputation.

It’s the definitive moment from, and encapsulation of, a beautiful, brilliant, and often bewildering episode that transcended the medium.