Twin Peaks: The Complete Series- The Definitive Gold Boxed Edition

I've never called myself a "Peaks Freak" but I suppose I meet some of the criteria to fit under this moniker, and after indulging in the Definitive Gold Box Edition I do so with a certain enthusiasm that I had forgotten I had for this show and its characters. The boyish wonderment while lost in the Twin Peaks universe was swept into a fire of obsession just like it did when I first watched the program in Junior High and later, in its totality, in college, a flush of nostalgia for a unique pocket of pop culture history driving me to compulsively daydream at work about the episodes I had watched the night before. Even at its worst, and it does get pretty bad, its still a special journey unlike any other television drama. After a monstrous six or seven episode lag occurring immediately after Laura Palmer's killer is revealed in the second season, the series gains a bit of its original footing back at the finish line, wrapping up with a sensationally weird, cliffhanger finale directed by the mastermind himself. Twin Peaks was always loosely satirizing the soap opera genre by utilizing its style, but it took itself seriously enough to permit its audience to invest emotionally into those conventions. The style was a comical device but it was also the theater in which the authentic drama was displayed. The decision to reveal Laura Palmer's killer (the show's MacGuffin) was pressed onto David Lynch and Mark Frost by the Network, insisting on it due to the audience demand. In retrospect this is arguably the biggest blunder in television history. Lynch claims he had never intended to reveal the identity of the killer. Bitter over compromising his vision Lynch stepped back from the show as did Frost, affiliated only on a production level as they took on new projects. The show really idles in its lack of direction from its co-creators. I mean it becomes obvious during these post-Laura episodes that the show has gone into a tailspin with absolutely no compass. It's only goal seems to be to indulge in quirkiness and in doing so the show gets close to becoming annoying. The storylines during this span of episodes are contrived, disingenuous, absurd and nearly unwatchable. You would have had to have been the holiest of Peaks Freak during the original broadcast to hang through this schlock and even on DVD it gets tough but because you know there is an endpoint you hang out a little longer, even if the show isn't taking itself seriously anymore because for some reason you do, or you want to, and so you force yourself into believing its still legit, or on some "next level" trip, or that any episode now it will all turn around. And then something wonderful happens. It almost pulls off such a feat. The show, near its final arch, begins to gain momentum with a boost of magic. A huge attraction to Twin Peaks was its metaphysical elements. While watching the last five episodes of season two I couldn't help but to think of LOST, another program which relied on supernatural twists which I was a huge fan of. The last time I had seen these season two Twin Peaks episodes LOST hadn't been created yet so I never thought of any borrowed aspects of the Twin Peaks universe existing in other shows but watching the episodes now I definitely see a connection. My awareness of the influence Twin Peaks had on LOST added a thrill to the last three episodes. The show was heading in a direction that could have been beautiful again if allowed a season three, but unfortunately, it was too late. too much damage had been done from the lag. But then again maybe Twin Peaks is Twin Peaks because the way it left. One of the reasons the end of the second season remains enduring is probably because we'll never know how it was to continue and so we are left to imagine it on our own.The Extras included in the box set are very complementary and insightful to the series. I felt I learned a lot about the show that I didn't know from watching the making of documentaries and seeing some of the cast at the time this was filmed was interesting as well.

A cultural phenomenon during its 1990-92 run, "Twin Peaks" holds up wonderfully well almost 20 years later. The gold box edition offers both the original pilot and the international version, as well as all the episodes from "Twin Peaks" all-too-brief two season run. After reading of some viewers' problems with discs, I was concerned that I might run into some of the same. Happily, that was not the case. The set that I ordered from Amazon was perfect. The episodes themselves have beautiful clarity, perhaps more so than when they originally aired, and I found the extras to be both informative and entertaining.For those not familiar with "Twin Peaks", it was a strange and exhilerating television experience, the likes of which I had never seen when it first aired. Conceived by David Lynch and Mark Frost, it is a dark and deeply disturbing journey into the psyche of a seemingly normal, all-American town. The sudden bursts of violence were shocking for a network television show in the early '90's, and those images still pack a punch today; there is an unsettling eeriness that prevails through most of the episodes, leavened by quirky, sometimes oddball humor supplied by the eccentric inhabitants of Twin Peaks.The brilliant David Lynch has stated that Twin Peaks belongs to the same universe as his underrated "Lost Highway", and there is a certain similarity of themes that are constant, I think, through not only "Highway", but "Mulholland Drive", and the earlier "Blue Velvet". They all seem to be part of a macabre world that looks familiar, but is, somehow, not our own.The cast of "Twin Peaks" is enormous and everyone seems to inhabit their characters to an impressive degree. I can't think of a villain in television history who is more terrifying than the diabolical Bob; the very sight of him slithering and cackling makes one want to scream. As played by Frank Silva, he is the essence of unending horror and the stuff that nightmares are made of. Even the madman Windom Earle (Kenneth Welsh)can't hold a candle to Bob's demonic presence.On the flip side of the coin, the series' lawmen--FBI agent Cooper and Sheriff Harry S. Truman--are wonderful, stalwart, brave men, vividly brought to life by, respectively, Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Ontkean. "Twin Peaks" was, perhaps, the finest hour for both actors. MacLachlan has gone on to lesser (I think), husbandly roles in "Desperate Housewives" and "Sex and the City", but I'll always remember him chiefly for this turn as Dale Cooper. Of the many other cast members, the great Piper Laurie is deliciously malicious as scheming Catherine Martell, with Jack "Eraserhead" Nance on hand as her clueless, cuckholded husband, Pete; Joan Chen is convincingly demur and devious as the traitorous Josie; and Richard Beymer is both touching and amusing as nutty, rich hotelier/bordello owner, Benjamin Horne. Ray Wise and Grace Zabriskie offer a touching and, ultimately, chilling portrait of a grief-stricken married couple. The younger cast members are also compelling, especially Madchen Amick, Sherilyn Fenn, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Sheryl Lee, who plays both the ill-fated Laura Palmer (whose murder sets the series in motion) and her lookalike cousin, Maddy Ferguson. In fact, it would be difficult to single out any performer in the series who isn't dead-on with their characterizations.While the pilot and Season 1 are pretty much flawless, Season 2 almost sinks a few times, due to some seemingly superfluous plot developments that do nothing to advance the plot. In fact, getting through episodes 17-22 may require some patience and a certain level of tolerance for out-and-out inanity. It's worth hanging in there for the remaining episodes because they come close to recapturing the essence of the earlier shows, and, in some cases, surpass the exhuberance and sheer weirdness that was displayed in the first season. Anyone expecting everything to be neatly wrapped up in the finale will be sorely unamused, although, for me, "Twin Peaks" is more a case of the journey being more important than the destination. I think "Twin Peaks" is as close to a television series masterpiece as has ever been produced for American television.