Review: TWIN PEAKS The Definitive Gold Box Edition
http://firefox.org/news/articles/1450/1/Review-TWIN-PEAKS-The-Definitive-Gold-Box-Edition/Page1.html
barbara mountjoy
I’ve been writing ever since I was a little girl, unable to control the words that wanted to percolate through my fingers into the keyboard. I’ve had some moderate success, but I’m still working hard, with my ultimate goal to have novels in print. In the meantime, I’m keeping my day job as a family law attorney, my night job as parent to three children with special needs, and writing when I can. If you'd like to know more, see http://awalkabout.wordpress.com
By barbara mountjoy
Published on 04/29/2008
“Diane, it’s fifteen years after our series was cancelled, but I have to say our show is still intriguing, mysterious, and definitely goes down better with a slice of cherry pie and a damn fine cup of joe...”
When the Bizarre is Just So Satisfying
“Diane, it’s fifteen years after our series was cancelled, but I have to say our show is still intriguing, mysterious, and definitely goes down better with a slice of cherry pie and a damn fine cup of joe.”
FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) never delivered this line to his personal recorder in the Definitive Gold Box Edition, released in late 2007, but he might as well have. The ten-DVD set has the 29 episodes, including the two-hour pilot, and the international version that tied up the loose ends when the first season was released abroad as a feature film.
This bizarre series from the twisted mind of David Lynch (Blue Velvet) had all of America talking, at least during its first season, as everyone wondered “Who killed Laura Palmer?”
The show begins with this simple situation: the high school homecoming queen is found murdered, wrapped in plastic, on a riverbank. Another girl from the town is discovered wandering, injured and disoriented on an old railroad bridge, but she doesn’t remember what’s happened. The FBI is called in, and Dale Cooper comes to the small town of Twin Peaks to investigate.
From that point on it’s anything BUT simple. The town is populated with a bunch of odd characters, all of whom seem to have one or more mysterious connections with each other. There’s the Log Lady (Catherine Coulson), the widow of a dead woodsman who carried a hunk of pine with her everywhere and occasionally receives messages from the log. Dr. Lawrence Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn), the town shrink, wears glasses with two different colored lenses and has a Hawaii fetish. Major Garland Briggs (Don S. Davis of Stargate fame) is an Air Force officer with ties to Project Blue Book and other supernatural studies. Ed Hurley (Everett McGill) and his drape-mechanics-obsessed wife Nadine (Wendy Robie), who wears a patch over the eye dear Ed shot out years before.
There’s lost loves and dead husbands and mysterious wives and fatherless children—even before you get to the Giant who appears in Cooper’s dreams and the Man from Another Place, a dwarf who calls himself the Arm and talks in an odd vernacular, living in a red room with black and white zigzag floors. The coffee practically takes on a life of its own. And of course, Bob (Frank Silva).
A number of actors who are much better known these days also appeared in the show, such as Miguel Ferrer (The Stand, The Night Flier), Billy Zane, Heather Graham (Lost in Space), David L. Lander (yes, Squiggy), Lara Flynn Boyle (The Practice), Ray Wise (Reaper), and even David Lynch himself as Cooper’s extremely hard-of-hearing boss.
The show was cancelled after its second season as time slot moves by ABC and the fraying of strong plotlines led to a crash in the ratings. Though it is still available for viewing on the SF/horror channel Chiller, somehow it is better to be able to watch the 29 episodes in toto, without having to wait for the next weekly installment. The details and twists are fresher in your mind, and the dark humor of the soapy mixture of vampy Lolita Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn), domestic abuse victim Shelly (Madchen Amick), drug runner Leo (Eric DaRe) and the others, including hotel magnate and master schemer Ben Horne (Richard Beymer), who takes a weird turn after his jail time to live out his Civil War fantasies, complete with horses.
The box set has a number of special features. There are only four deleted scenes because the show was done before DVD release was common, and most of what wasn’t shown was discarded, but they’re included, along with several group interviews with cast members; interviews with Angelo Badalamenti, who wrote the unforgettable music and Julee Cruise; even a couple of scenes from Kyle MacLachlan’s appearance as host of Saturday Night Live when the show was used as comic material.
Twin Peaks is the kind of show that would never survive today on network television but haunts the viewer long after the viewing is done. If you’ve a bent for the eccentric and bizarre, or just want to see what strangeness had everyone talking, you will enjoy this show. Just don’t forget to put the coffee on.
FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) never delivered this line to his personal recorder in the Definitive Gold Box Edition, released in late 2007, but he might as well have. The ten-DVD set has the 29 episodes, including the two-hour pilot, and the international version that tied up the loose ends when the first season was released abroad as a feature film.
This bizarre series from the twisted mind of David Lynch (Blue Velvet) had all of America talking, at least during its first season, as everyone wondered “Who killed Laura Palmer?”
The show begins with this simple situation: the high school homecoming queen is found murdered, wrapped in plastic, on a riverbank. Another girl from the town is discovered wandering, injured and disoriented on an old railroad bridge, but she doesn’t remember what’s happened. The FBI is called in, and Dale Cooper comes to the small town of Twin Peaks to investigate.
From that point on it’s anything BUT simple. The town is populated with a bunch of odd characters, all of whom seem to have one or more mysterious connections with each other. There’s the Log Lady (Catherine Coulson), the widow of a dead woodsman who carried a hunk of pine with her everywhere and occasionally receives messages from the log. Dr. Lawrence Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn), the town shrink, wears glasses with two different colored lenses and has a Hawaii fetish. Major Garland Briggs (Don S. Davis of Stargate fame) is an Air Force officer with ties to Project Blue Book and other supernatural studies. Ed Hurley (Everett McGill) and his drape-mechanics-obsessed wife Nadine (Wendy Robie), who wears a patch over the eye dear Ed shot out years before.
There’s lost loves and dead husbands and mysterious wives and fatherless children—even before you get to the Giant who appears in Cooper’s dreams and the Man from Another Place, a dwarf who calls himself the Arm and talks in an odd vernacular, living in a red room with black and white zigzag floors. The coffee practically takes on a life of its own. And of course, Bob (Frank Silva).
A number of actors who are much better known these days also appeared in the show, such as Miguel Ferrer (The Stand, The Night Flier), Billy Zane, Heather Graham (Lost in Space), David L. Lander (yes, Squiggy), Lara Flynn Boyle (The Practice), Ray Wise (Reaper), and even David Lynch himself as Cooper’s extremely hard-of-hearing boss.
The show was cancelled after its second season as time slot moves by ABC and the fraying of strong plotlines led to a crash in the ratings. Though it is still available for viewing on the SF/horror channel Chiller, somehow it is better to be able to watch the 29 episodes in toto, without having to wait for the next weekly installment. The details and twists are fresher in your mind, and the dark humor of the soapy mixture of vampy Lolita Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn), domestic abuse victim Shelly (Madchen Amick), drug runner Leo (Eric DaRe) and the others, including hotel magnate and master schemer Ben Horne (Richard Beymer), who takes a weird turn after his jail time to live out his Civil War fantasies, complete with horses.
The box set has a number of special features. There are only four deleted scenes because the show was done before DVD release was common, and most of what wasn’t shown was discarded, but they’re included, along with several group interviews with cast members; interviews with Angelo Badalamenti, who wrote the unforgettable music and Julee Cruise; even a couple of scenes from Kyle MacLachlan’s appearance as host of Saturday Night Live when the show was used as comic material.
Twin Peaks is the kind of show that would never survive today on network television but haunts the viewer long after the viewing is done. If you’ve a bent for the eccentric and bizarre, or just want to see what strangeness had everyone talking, you will enjoy this show. Just don’t forget to put the coffee on.