10 TV Episodes That Broke All The Rules
1. Episode 2 - Twin Peaks
David Lynch's multi-dimensional murder mystery is widely regarded as one of TV's biggest and boldest experiments and has gathered a legion of cultish fans since it first premiered in 1990.
The story follows FBI agent Dale Cooper as he attempts to solve the murder of a young girl in the titular town. In the show's second episode, Cooper is transported to a mysterious location when he enters a dream. This was viewers' first exposure to The Red Room.
The Room is part of the otherworldly Black Lodge, an alternate dimension home to several of the evil spirits that antagonise Cooper throughout the series. In Episode 2, he is transported to the Room and sees a vision of Laura Palmer (the murdered girl) and The Man From The Other Place, a spirit who appears in the form of a man with dwarfism.
The apparitions speak to Dale in a strange, cryptic language and a mysterious black shadow moves across the wall. The whole thing is surreal and creepy as anything and it is brilliant.
Basically any parody you've ever seen of Twin Peaks has this episode in their somewhere. Television had never seen anything like it and, to be honest, it probably hasn't seen anything like it since.