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| Kyle MacLachlan, Sheryl Lee, Michael Ontkean,
Sherilyn Fenn, Jack Nance, Lara Flynn Boyle, Madchen Amick, Ray Wise,
Joan Chen |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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[takes
a sip of coffee, and immediately spits it out]
Special Agent Dale
Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan): Damn good coffee... And hot!...
An
FBI agent arrives in the small northern town of Twin Peaks to investigate
the shocking murder of the teenage prom queen Laura Palmer.
 Few
people who were around in 1990 can have missed the Twin Peaks
phenomenon. With its daring, adult approach, eccentric sense of humor,
and all-out publicity assault, the pilot and the first series' seven
episodes received ratings unprecedented by any other prime time TV show.
Its style and subject matter broke uncounted barriers and paved the
way for adult American TV in the last decade: series like The X-Files,
Murder One and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer would be unthinkable
before the success of Twin Peaks. A fairly unique foray into
television by genius director David Lynch, the series remains an anomaly
to this day, hard to describe to those who've never seen it, and impossible
to understand for those checking in on the third or fourth episode,
wondering what all the fuss is about.
Unfortunately, the series' reputation was tarnished by its declining
popularity midway through its second (and last) season, and by the unfairly
harsh reception of its cinematic prequel Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With
Me. The show quickly developed from a pop culture phenomenon into
a cult audience favorite, as the second series' continued erratic weirdness
seemed bent on whittling down its following to only the most devotedly
die-hard devotees. Finally making its DVD début in a box set
that may serve as reference for all other TV shows released on DVD,
the first season can again be viewed for the brilliant mix of comedy,
soap opera, film noir and horror film that it is. Even without
the memorable trailer, most viewers should have little difficulty latching
onto the plotlines and major characters, and allow themselves to be
drawn into the uniquely funny, horrifying world that is Twin Peaks. |
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Only
available as a four-disc box set for Region 1. The set includes the
seven episodes from the first series, but without the two-hour pilot,
which is currently only in existnce as a Region 0 release produced in
Thailand and available through various e-tailers specialized in Asian
DVD titles.
The
fullscreen image is framed at its original aspect ratio of approx. 1.33:1.
The impressive cinematography, with its deep, rich browns and warm interiors,
is handled terrifically in a new high-definition transfer. No sign of
compression artifacting or other flaws are evident anywhere in the presentation.
The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Surround and in new Dolby Digital
and DTS 5.1 mixes, both of which are truly outstanding. It's great to
hear the memorable theme come to life across the full depth of the surround
field. The rear channels are also employed for representing the threatening
throbbing and humming noises that occur regularly during the series'
more intense sequences. Bass response is outstanding in both discrete
mixes, giving the series the phenomenal audio presentation it deserves.
It's
a shame that Artisan, the DVD distributor responsible for the production
of this box set, was unable to secure the distribution rights for the
memorable pilot, or convince Warner (which holds all international rights
to the pilot) to release it as a separate title. Even so, fans of the
series shouldn't allow the pilot's absence to keep them from getting
this incredible set, which provides the kind of exhaustive look at the
series one rarely sees even in today's incredible DVD market.
All seven episodes are preceded by optional Log Lady introductions,
rather fuzzy-looking oblique intros only vaguely related to the specific
episode but fun for fans unfamiliar with the Bravo channel re-runs for
which they were scripted and shot by Lynch himself. All episodes are
also accompanied by audio commentary tracks by directors, writers
and the cinematographer and production designer who worked on the series.
David Lynch himself always refuses to talk about his movies, so he is
unsurprisingly absent both in the commentaries and in the other supplements.
All seven commentaries are outstanding tracks in their own right, with
comments both on general processes that went on during the creation
of the series and scene-specific remarks and tidbits of trivia. All
the speakers are clearly proud to have participated in the production
of such a landmark series, and their commentary tracks are enthusiastic
and appealing. The episodes are further enhance by episode guides,
bringing together notes on deleted scenes and unshot material, and accessible
through the episode's Features menu or through a Matrix-like
icon that will appear whenever a deleted or unshot scene would have
occurred, returning the viewer to the exact point he/she left off or
the beginning of the previous chapter stop.
 Disc
four holds the seventh episode and the main body of supplements. First
off, there's a fifteen-minute telephone interview with Mark Frost.
As the second major contributor to the series, Frost has plenty of interesting
stuff to say about the series, but the editing seems overly artificial
and distracting, while the interviewers come across as fans of the series
overawed to be speaking to one of the geniuses behind their favorite
show. The 20-minute documentary 'An Introduction to David Lynch'
features just about everyone *except* the man himself. Cast members
and other collaborators on the series talk with affection and enthusiasm
about Lynch's visual ideas and working methods, and provide some nice
insights into how the series developed. Actor Michael J. Anderson (the
series 'Man From Another Place') demonstrates how he affected his character's
strange speech patterns in the 3-minute Learning to Speak in the
Red Room featurette. A droll item, and fun to watch just once. 17
Pieces of Pie: Shooting at the Mar-T Diner is a nine-minute interview
with the owner of the café made famous by the series, who speaks
with disarming candor about what it was like to have David Lynch et
al suddenly descending on her diner, followed by years of huge demand
for her pies, and with fans undertaking pilgrimages until this very
day.
Finally, the supplements section holds an extraordinary Twin Peaks
directory, in which characters are presented surrounded by links
to other characters with whom they have some relationship during the
first season. For each selected character, the actor's filmography and/or
biography and/or a brief 'video postcard' has been included, granting
glimpses of these people that are sometimes frustratingly random but
very much in the spirit of the show. Finding out how to navigate these
screens can be a little tricky at first, but one soon gets the hang
of it, and you will be hunting down those video messages one by one
before you know it. Most actors, all filmed very recently, talk about
how they got involved with the series, or contribute some anecdote about
David Lynch, or simply talk about something completely unrelated to
the series (in Al Strobel's case, he tells the harrowing story of how
he came to lose his arm). It's really too bad that the production team
wasn't able to garner these video postcards from *all* the characters
presented here, but there are still very many available, and all are
great fun to watch. So grab a box of donuts and begin the hunt! The
animated menu screens are gorgeously designed, with sepia-tinted footage
from the series in the background, overlaid with text and symbols presenting
the navigation options.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: February
7, 2002
Click
here for IMDB info on Twin
Peaks .
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