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By
WAYNE KLEIN
"Twin Peaks" has been
unfairly criticized for jumping the shark early.
That's simply not true. Lynch and his films have
never had easy resolutions. It's also clear that
Lynch and Frost weren't exactly sure where they
where going with the second season. the first
season of the show with its mixture of surrealism,
soap opera situations, suspense and melodrama
caught on unexpectedly and created unrealistic
expectations for the second.
First up, the show looks great. Lynch went back
and supervised the transfers and the colors are
more accurate than on the first season set that
came out from Aristan in 2001. We get all 22
second season episodes. We also get Log Lady
introductions. We also get a selection of
interesting interviews with production staff
including directors Caleb Deschanel, Tim Hunter,
Stephen Gyllenhaal, Jennifer Lynch, Tim Holland
and various cast members in an "Interview Gird".
Sadly, Lynch is absent but he always is for the
home video presentations of his films so its not a
surprise. That's OK as he is ably represented by
the show itself. The show has a huge influence
that impacted other shows like "The X-Files"
(Duvochny's role as an FBI agent here and his
casting in "X-Files" couldn't have been an
accident and although he lacks the zen-like
quality of McLaughlan) to even recent shows such as
"Lost" and "The Lost Room". Interestingly, each of
these series has had problems with their
resolution. As in magic it's not the set up per se
that matters as much as bringing back the object
that you made disappear. The longer the magic act
the more difficult it is to pull it off. In
retrospect although I don't like the way the
second season ends (and would like to have a
better more positive resolution as that's what was
always hinted at to me in Agent Cooper's demeanor
and approach), I'm not surprised it ended the way
it did. A pity that Lynch didn't choose to do a
movie sequel instead of a prequel. Perhaps with
the popularity of this set and the impeding
re-release of the first set (with yeah! the
pilot) we'll see that happen.
David Lynch's visually stunning compositions and
the writing that he and Mark Frost concocted kept
viewers on their toes with funny and often weird
touches. When the second season premiered many
critics (and fans to be fair) were frustrated with
the slow resolution of the central mystery--who
killed Laura Palmer and why? The slower resolution
allowed the show to blossom with interesting side
stories (where I'm sure J.J. Abrams got his idea
for the approach for "Lost"). That's not a
surprise though since we had twice as many
episodes as the short first season to cover much
of the same ground.
The only problem I had was that when it comes to
the main page where you select previews or main
menu it freezes before moving forward on its own
(I assume that's because there are no previews
since I didn't see any). It's an odd hiccup and I
can only assume that CBS/Paramount used their
usual introduction screen but that when authoring
there were no previews to add so no choices to be
made. Still, it freezes for about 15 or 20 seconds
before moving on and if you're patient the main
menu for "Twin Peaks" pops up.
The first episode of season two opens with Agent
Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) shot, bleeding and
unconscious on the floor of room 315 of his hotel.
After he recovers Cooper and Sheriff Harry S.
Truman (Michael Ontkean) continue to unravel the
mystery of Laura Palmer and other related
mysteries. We also meet a cross dressing FBI agent
(David Duvochny), a dwarf and giant along with the
usual cast of bizarre characters during season two.
Frost, Lynch and the other writer/directors
continue to mine the dry, deadpan humor that made
this series work so well.
Rumor has it, the first season and the pilot will
be released later this year as a complete package.
You may want to wait to purchase the whole set as
I'm not sure if Paramount will be releasing the
first season/pilot separately. Regardless, this
groundbreaking series still works because of
Lynch's weird, off-beat style, Frost's writing and
the deadpan humor that the terrific cast gets to
dish out. |
