Kyle MacLachlan stars in "Twin Peaks"

If your brain hurts a little after watching the first few episodes of the highly anticipated "Twin Peaks" revival, don't worry -- you're not alone. And if you've seen the original series, or if you're at all familiar with creator/director David Lynch and his work, you likely weren’t expecting anything else. When it comes to "Twin Peaks," unsettling weirdness is par for the course.

The new limited series is not a reboot of the original, but a continuation of the story that maddeningly left us with many a cliffhanger and loose end 26 years ago. Developed by Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost over three years, the 18-episode run premiered last month to a devoted audience of fervent Lynchites. A new episode of the surreal murder mystery airs Sunday, June 18, on Showtime.

Nowadays, in what's becoming known as a golden age of television, filmmakers are turning more and more to TV to tell stories that 10 or 20 years ago would have been strictly big-screen fare. Thanks to cable networks such as HBO, AMC and, yes, Showtime, we're getting a much broader offering of programming, the likes of which wouldn't fly on the Big Four networks.

Lynch broke the mold more than 25 years ago with "Twin Peaks," which aired on ABC in 1990-91. It bore a cinematic style that was unlike anything that most people had seen on TV before, and the show gained a fervent cult following. It's widely credited with forever changing the medium and the way we watch TV; countless shows have been influenced by "Twin Peaks" and Lynch's surrealist, sometimes head-scratching style.

True to Lynch's notoriously tight-lipped form, very little was known about the revival going in, just as very little was known about the original. "'Twin Peaks' is a mystery that holds other mysteries," was the director’s enigmatic response to Entertainment Weekly when asked to sum up his creation in a sentence. (Oh, that clears things up!) Showtime president David Nevins offered a scrap more at the Television Critics Association press tour when he revealed that "the core of [the revival] is Agent Cooper's odyssey back to Twin Peaks."

Lynch directed every episode of the new series, and most of the original cast returned as well. Kyle MacLachlan ("Sex and the City") slides back into his leading role as FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, a role that earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor -- Television Series Drama, as well as two Emmy nominations. Madchen Amick ("Sleepwalkers," 1992), Michael Horse ("North of 60"), David Duchovny ("The X-Files") and Kimmy Robertson ("The Louie Show") are also among the long list of returning cast members reprising their original roles.

New cast members (of which there are literally dozens) include Jim Belushi ("According to Jim"), Cornelia Guest ("I Know Who Killed Me," 2007), Matthew Lillard ("The Bridge"), Laura Dern ("Jurassic Park," 1993), Naomi Watts ("King Kong," 2005), Michael Cera ("Superbad," 2007) ... the list goes on and on. The full cast boasts a whopping 217 actors; it speaks to the incredible phenomenon of the original series that basically half of Hollywood (and Eddie Vedder) wanted to be a part of the revival, even in just a tiny capacity.

Cornelia Guest in a scene from "Twin Peaks"

"I would hear stories from them about how they were heavily influenced by 'Twin Peaks,' and so they wanted to be part of the new series, even if it was just one day of shooting," MacLachlan told EW. "For others, it was about working with David because he is so phenomenal. It just kept growing."

As fans of the original "Twin Peaks" know, the series is a murder mystery, beginning with the discovery of town darling Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee, "Backbeat," 1994), found dead on the riverbank and wrapped in plastic. In the finale, while in the extradimensional (or whatever) Black Lodge, Cooper encounters the weirdly speaking spirit of Laura, who cryptically tells him, "I'll see you again in 25 years," before striking an equally weird pose.

Well, it’s 25 (OK, 26) years later, and the new "Peaks" opens on an older Agent Cooper, still in the lodge, still shrouded in dreamlike ambiguity. And, lo and behold, there’s murder afoot once more. In Buckhorn, S.D., the decapitated head of a local librarian is discovered on the headless body of an unknown man. Also in Buckhorn: Cooper's long-haired, leather-clad and decidedly sinister doppelganger is quite clearly up to no good.

I’ll respect Lynch's reticence at leave it at that, but there's a lot to unpack in the first episode alone. Twenty-six years hasn't diluted any of the show's inherent Lynchiness, and the limited series is chock-a-block with the director's now-recognizable cinematography, uncanny tone, dark psychodrama and offbeat humor, but, with Showtime as his vehicle instead of ABC, Lynch is now working within even broader parameters. If you haven’t seen the original, I highly recommend doing so before delving into the revival.

"Twin Peaks" is often mentioned among the greatest TV dramas of all time and, like it or hate it, an awful lot of great series that followed owe major credit to its influence. The revived "Twin Peaks" continues its limited run with a new episode airing Sunday, June 18, on Showtime.