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Twin Peaks | Description: American Drama Series Year: 1990 State: top/arts/television/programs/dramas/twin_peaks Directed: - David Lynch - Uli Edel - Mark Frost - Graeme Clifford - James Foley - Stephen Gyllenhaal - Duwayne Dunham - Caleb Deschanel - Tina Rathborne Actors/Actresses: - Sherilyn Fenn - David Duchovny - Miguel Ferrer - Kyle Maclachlan - Billy Zane - Heather Graham - Lara Flynn Boyle - Joan Chen - Madchen Amick - Jonathan Sanger - Kyle MacLachlan Sound Quality is Awful, But It's Better Than Nothing This is the best the Twin Peaks Pilot has ever looked. (Well, aside from the big screen at last years Twin Peaks Fest) The disc has a surprisingly crisp and clean picture. I played this with a switchbox against the Warner Bros. Pilot Laserdisc, and the DVD did to the Laser Disc what Agent Desmond did to Deputy Cliff in FWWM. However, beware there are noticeable artifacts, and minor distortion is apparent in some scenes. Why this is, I'm not sure. they are not so horrible, that they detract from the presentation, but they are noticeable. The dark scenes were done very well IMHO. Minor dust specs on the print every once in a while, but much cleaner than the laserdisc. Audio: The audio has received a FULL aggressive 5.1 remix. Lots of the sound effects are appropriately panned to the rear surround speakers. One thing you definitely want to do is turn your back speakers down a bit, as they can often be distracting. The bass seems to be a bit much at times, but again, a slight adjustment on your Home Theater system can easily correct this. One specific moment that was a good use of the rear surround is when the translator mentions how "Health und Industry They Go Hand De Hand". The response laughter of the Norwegians are panned to the back speakers and give a "Room Full of Laughing Norwegians" effect. It is clear that whomever remixed the sound did so from a sound reel master. Now the DOWNSIDE. There are a few things that bother me about the sound. First off, when comparing it to the Laserdisc, I noticed right away it seems that whoever mastered the movie (I assume) transferred it from a PAL Master. It's the only explanation I can think of for why the pitch of the sound is about a half step too high. Also, the sound although pretty good for the most part, sounds definately out of phase in the Center Speaker during parts with music in the background. Although it is annoying at times, it is not completely a loss. So be warned ! Supplements: Well, there's not a lot here. You get a nice Scene Access menu, along with Character Biographies for Joan Chen and Kyle MacLachlan. You also get treated to some awful Republic Pictures trailers for "One Against the Wind", "Class Cruise", "Live Nude Girls", and "Witchboard 2: the Devil's Doorway". My advice... skip them. Parting Thoughts: All I can say is that I was very surprised by this release. Although 4% faster than it should be, is a nice addition to a Twin Peaks Fan's collection. The DVD comes only with a 5.1 soundtrack, as the original 2-Speaker Surround soundtrack is absent. The picture is great minus the artifacting, and the sound is bad, but not a total loss. Expect lots of phase problems in the center speaker. Finally having the Pilot as it aired on Television as opposed to the extended European version is a Twin Peaks Fan's dream come true. I would recommend this to any Twin Peaks fan that wants to get a clean copy of the Pilot on DVD. For now, this is as good as it ge Great pilot, horrible DVD!!! Wow, what a terrific pilot...so intriguing, so suspenseful, so unique and witty, and smart. This is what great TV is all about, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that the show was cancelled so soon. But while the pilot is definitely worth having, a cleaned up version should have been included on the Season 1 DVD, rather than this horrible import. The picture quality is terrible and the sound is horrible. Don't even get me started on the subtitles...UGH! They completely changed words and sentences around and use poor English, which, as a screenwriter, really bugged me!!! But of course, every Twin Peaks fan must own this and it's worth it until a better version comes along, despite the lackluster attempt of the distributors. Twin Peaks is classic television at its best!!! Poor quality DVD of an absolutely essential episode I should dock this disc a star for its sub par production, but I won't simply because the episode itself is so superb. There are two things wrong with this DVD: first, releasing the pilot as a stand alone instead of incorporating it with the first season, and second, the inferior sound and video. Some of the reviewers are questioning the latter, but I can attest that when one compares one of the DVDs from the first season box set with the pilot DVD, there sound and video quality are not anywhere near the same. It does not render the show unwatchable, but it does detract from one's enjoyment. The first of the two reasons I cite is equally unforgivable. Not only do I find it unforgivable to not include the pilot in the box set, I am not clear why they didn't just collect both seasons and the pilot in one set. It isn't as if there are that many minutes or episodes package. If shows like BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and THE SOPRANOS, which contain more minutes in one season than TWIN PEAKS did in total, can be easily packaged in one boxed set, why not it? What makes not including the pilot incomprehensible is the fact that the series makes absolutely no sense without the pilot, and the pilot doesn't mean anything without the ensuing episodes. From first to finish, these decisions baffle me, especially when one considers that the pilot is not currently available except for this import. The fact that this is one of the most phenomenal TV series in history makes this even more lamentable. TWIN PEAKS is simultaneously one of the best and one of the most influential shows the medium has ever seen. America has never been as friendly towards Surrealism as has Europe, but one might make the case that David Lynch is our most important exponent of it. What makes the series so brilliant is the way that Lynch manages to blend surrealism, film noir, Hitchcockian humor (less recognized but just as influential as Hitchcockian suspense), and soap opera to create what was, up to that time, arguably the finest series TV had ever seen (though shows like THE PRISONER could easily take issue with that judgment). The show is so stylized as to almost succumb to self-parody, but even in the most delightfully absurd scenes, the show manages to hit precisely the right tone and balance. The influence of TWIN PEAKS can be found in nearly every show that has tried to move away from a traditional self-contained episode format to longer story arcs. There had been shows that had tried to tell stories over a longer period of time. HILL STREET BLUES had had this approach, although one could still watch any one episode without having seen it before. But TWIN PEAKS made no sense whatsoever in episode-sized chunks. Except perhaps for shows the fourth season of ANGEL or a couple of seasons of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER or 24, no other show has places so much emphasis on the story as a whole. Without TWIN PEAKS, the long story arcs of THE X-FILES would have been impossible, Buy Twin Peaks at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Twin Peaks Search with the Priority Search Engine on Twin Peaks This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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