Twin Peaks - The Definitive Gold Box Edition (Seasons 1 & 2, Pilot)

Twin Peaks was only on the air a few years, and totals about thirty hours of television, but quality matters more than quantity, and this was a groundbreaking, original, surreal and surprising show, with a boatload of memorable characters and Kyle MacLachlan as coffee-loving agent Cooper, squeaky clean and smart, slowly exploring the darkness of Twin Peaks and the murder of Laura Palmer.

Finally, the series is complete on DVD, the original movie pilot and all the episodes, along with the option of a log lady intro (another favourite character) and a bonus disc of deleted scenes, the documentary "A Slice of Lynch," the feature length "Secrets from Another Place," on the show, as well as the famous Saturday Night Live sketch with MacLachlan, music videos and more. There's even a selection of a dozen postcards from Twin Peaks included, though of course this is a clever way to get you to mail ads for this set all over the continent. I even like the way the discs are packaged, easily accessed because it's like flipping through a book.

Peaks fans may want to check out Carnivale, the HBO series that also finds themes of good versus evil, and borrows the surreal tone of Twin Peaks.

Sure, everyone has his/hers favorite TV shows, and preferences shift with seasonal mood, age and experiences. However, THIS IS TELEVISION AT HER BEST! The frivolity of the 80's gave way to the seriousness of the 90's - all painted in 50's Americana nostalgia of innocence lost.

Atmospheric, mysterious, intriguing, smart,...Words are just not capable to describe this prematurely terminated series! Every time I watch it I discover another moment, another gem I treasure. Too bad the network executives decided to, first, meddle with the plot and, when this backfired, they treated this masterpiece as filler material. No wonder ratings floundered resulting in the series eventual cancellation.

True, the 25 years are not up yet. However, I think that Agent Cooper has remained trapped in the Waiting Area long enough. Let's all petition David Lynch for a long-awaited movie or TV mini-series to tidy things up.

This particular BoxSet is everything Season 2 was not: excellent picture and sound quality AND all the missing Extras! Commercials, trailers and product spin-offs...
My advice: if you already own Season 1, sell it, avoid Season 2, and buy this one.

Own it and make weekends out of it. Once in a blue moon a certain magic manifests amongst us. One that never fades.
And there is always music in the air.

How do I know? A gentle giant told me.

"Twin Peaks" was the ultimate cult TV show -- suspenseful, complex, hilariously written and with hidden layers that casual channel-flippers might not catch.

Though it lasted only two seasons, David Lynch and Mark Frost's classic series is a brilliant piece of television, with dozens of intertwined subplots and a mystery death that goes a lot deeper than just murder. For the very first time, both seasons AND the pilot are united in this box set -- a must have for cult TV enthusiasts.

The body of a beautiful young woman, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), washes up on shore, "wrapped in plastic." It seems everyone in the town of Twin Peaks adored her, so her death is a blow. FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is assigned to the case -- which seems connected to his past work -- so he settles down at the comfy Twin Peaks hotel and continues investigating.

And Twin Peaks' secrets start surfacing -- love affairs, madness, wackos, corporate devilry, and drugrunning. And clues about Laura are cropping up: a bloody shirt, a drug deal, a secret affair and a heart necklace. People catch glimpses of a one-armed man and a grey-haired killer -- and Cooper has a prophetic dream with both men, as well as a red room, a double of Laura Palmer, and a tiny man who dances to jazz music.

The second season introduces more unrest for the inhabitants of Twin Peaks -- and an injured Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) has a vision that may have something to do with Laura Palmer's death. Midway through the season he finds who it was (or rather, who it SEEMS to be). But that's not the only plotline in the second season -- we also get a psychopathic ex-Fed, parasitic demons, a disastrous beauty pageant, strange caves, and a twin pair of "Lodges" that seem to exist outside space and time... which Cooper's murderous ex-partner is searching for.

"Twin Peaks" starts off as a basic murder mystery, but rapidly becomes something a lot stranger and more frightening. It becomes a bit weaker during the second season -- especially when Laura's killer is revealed prematurely -- but it's still strange and darkly humorous right up to the flawed cliffhanger end.

And Lynch and Frost knew how to spin a great TV show -- they took the usual murder mysteries, and loaded it down with eerie symbolism, creepy visions and inscrutable (but important) lines ("Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see...."). And there are arcs that stretch through the series, slowly unfolding their secrets like dark roses.

But it's not just strange-weird, but strange-funny too. And the dialogue has that brilliant quirkiness that most series cannot keep going for long ("Fellas, don't drink that coffee! You'd never guess... there was a fish in the percolator"). Considering how likably strange the characters are -- including Cooper -- it's not too surprising that it's crammed with quotables ("Black as midnight on a moonless night...." "Pretty black").

And the characters are VERY odd too. Cooper himself is played with quirky brilliance by McLachlan -- he's a bright, lovable, friendly kind of guy who loves Tibetan mysticism, tape recorders and a "damn fine cup of coffee." He becomes even more likable as the series goes on, and we get to see some of his more tragic dimensions.

And Cooper flanked by a number of talented actors playing two basic varieties of characters: the relatively normal ones with a slight quirk, such as abusive truckers, the sheriff, teen lovers, and obnoxious FBI agents who offend the residents of Twin Peaks. And the REALLY strange ones, like the weird Log Lady, the one-armed man, the spacey Lolita, and the eerie spirits that haunt Twin Peaks.

The entirety of "Twin Peaks" is hard to even describe, because the plots were a perfect balance of the surreal and mundane -- and the entire series is a dark cult gem from beginning to imperfect end.