As promised I’ll have a review of the new season 2 Twin Peaks DVD set up later this week, but in preparing for the release, I sat down this weekend and watched season 1 for the umpteenth time. I must admit that I don’t think I’ve watched all 7 episodes in a row for at least two years and it left me with a bevy of new observations. Today I’ll share my thoughts on the season 1 DVD release which while out of print can still be found quite easily on the net. Tomorrow I’ll discuss the many parraells to Lost that I discovered while watching the first season. Finally on Thursday or Friday I’ll have a review of the season 2 DVD.
First and foremost, this is a great TV show. If you’re still reading this I’ll assume you’re familiar but on the off chance you’re not, Twin Peaks is the story of a small upper Northwest town that is full of secrets. The show was famous for the “who killed Laura Palmer” storyline but in truth the show was very much a cross between a nighttime soap and a 50’s melodrama. There were only 8 episodes produced in the first season as ABC introduced the show in midseason with trepidation. The show itself was groundbreaking in the way it told its stories but I’ll talk more on that tomorrow.
The DVDs of the first season themselves are some of the best ever produced when it comes to a TV show. Considering Twin Peaks originally aired at a time when cable television wasn’t in every house or even every room in the house many of us watched a grainy picture to begin with. Then there was the VHS release of the series which is quite possibly the worst looking VHS transfer I’ve ever seen. Still for those of us that loved the show, it’s all we had until the DVD of season 1 came out 5 years ago. The season 1 set comes in a beautiful package that features a slip cover with Laura Palmer’s prom picture on it that slides over a picture of her dead, wrapped in plastic. Each disc features two episodes and the picture transfer is breathtaking. Seriously, I don’t think the show ever looked this good when it aired. There is a Dolby and DTS sound mix, both of which allow you to hear the series in a new light. Then there are the extras. First you’ve got the Log Lady intros to each episode that David Lynch filmed and aired when the show ran in repeats on Bravo. Then, there are script notes that can pop up as you view the eps which feature nuggets on deleted or alternate scenes. Of course there are commentaries too but none from Lynch, who is notorious for hating DVD commentaries. Lastly there are a gaggle of interviews on the final disc. There is a pretty insightful interview with series co-creator Mark Frost and then a series of interviews with some of the cast that get increasingly bizarre. For example the interview with Sheryl Lynn, aka Laura Palmer, is very revealing…when it comes to her trip to Africa after the failed show LA Doctors. The interviews are so weird that they belong on a DVD set for Twin Peaks . Some of the menus are hard to navigate but that’s really a minor complaint. The biggest complaint comes from the fact that the pilot episode of the show is not included. Because Lynch and Frost sought to avoid the censorship and creative drains of financing the show through a US studio they entered into a very complicated contract that eventually tied up the rights to the pilot. Word on the street is that those issues have finally been cleared up and if the new season 2 set sells well we’ll get either a series box set or a re-released season 1 with pilot later this year. Until then, I still believe that this really is the standard bearer for TV show sets and it sets a high standard for season 2.
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