After years of having been played like Charlie Brown, and having the football equivalent of the oft-discussed deleted scenes from director David Lynch\u2019s “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” pulled away from them by the Lucy van Pelt stand-in of protracted rights discussions, a tangle of other legal issues and\u2014occasionally, it must be stated\u2014disinterest on the part of their creators, fans of the trailblazing television series “Twin Peaks” and its 1992 cinematic prequel finally have sweet, sweet relief.<\/p>\n
For those who might be too young to remember, “Twin Peaks”\u00a0burned white hot, debuting in the spring of 1990 on ABC and quickly becoming a national obsession. Unfolding in a small Northwestern town that only got stranger and stranger, the mystery of who killed teenager Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), a pretty homecoming queen whose seemingly idyllic life masked a web of dark and tragic secrets, gripped a nation. Before social media and the golden-age of long-form narrative storytelling for which it would offer itself up in sacrifice, there was the cult of “Twin Peaks,”\u00a0from Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost \u2014 and a special and knowing club of folks who \u201cgot it,\u201d realizing that boundaries of television could stretched beyond what thought previously possible.<\/p>\n
Now those fans, as well as neophytes, can indulge in the heady, classic show, with the Blu-ray release of “Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery,” which gathers in stunning 1080p the two small screen seasons of the show (along with the alternate version of its pilot), the aforementioned “Fire Walk With Me” and, among loads of other special features (some ported over from the previous \u201cGold Box Definitive DVD Set,\u201d others new), the more than 90 minutes of material excised from the feature film, meticulously restored, scored and edited into something decidedly \u201cfilm-like\u201d by Lynch himself.<\/p>\n
Prior to its street date, however, fans of the series and reporters gathered alongside Lynch and a coterie of actors and behind-the-scenes players from the series, at Los Angeles\u2019 Vista Theater, for a red carpet premiere entirely befitting for such a landmark event. Series composer Angelo Badalamenti, whose music was instrumental to the show\u2019s arresting mood, brought younger family members and other friends, and chatted with Russ Tamblyn, who played zonked-out Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, one of only several men seemingly bewitched by Palmer. Others in attendance included the previously mentioned Lee, Ray Wise, Madchen Amick, Grace Zabriskie, Lenny von Dohlen and Miguel Ferrer.<\/p>\n
On the red carpet outside, prior to the screening, Zabriskie, who played Laura\u2019s mother, Sarah Palmer, recalled the visceral quality of her grief-stricken reaction to intuiting her daughter\u2019s death. It was so raw and pained that it still raises goosebumps today, for the manner in which it taps into the primal, howling quality of losing a loved one. \u201cI had to trust David pushing me further and further, long after I felt as though I was over-the-top several takes (prior),\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I still tell him that I don\u2019t think he used the most extreme takes \u2014 that he actually did push me past what even he ended up wanting. But that\u2019s the kind of thing an actor never really knows.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a show full of quirky characters, Catherine Coulson also immediately made an impression\u2014as a woman known as the Log Lady, who carried a sawed branch of a tree around with her everywhere, and pretty much gave everyone the stink eye. Like many of the older actors in the series, Coulson had known Lynch previously, having met him at the American Film Institute and worked with him on his debut film, “Eraserhead.” \u201cI think (TV) was probably just a bit straighter before David Lynch and Mark Frost came along,\u201d she stated. \u201cI think that “Twin Peaks” helped open the door to a lot of things that we now see on cable. I think it was a pioneering show, and that it gave permission to show other sides of people\u2019s behavior, in a really good and creative way.\u201d<\/p>\n
That creative dialogue, a give-and-take between the show\u2019s creators and artisans on every level, was evident from the get-go. \u201cWe talked a lot about the character\u2019s log, and how she got it,\u201d Coulson recalled. \u201cShe was married to her husband, who had fought a fire and lost, and (we really thought through) the whole log relationship \u2014 that it wasn\u2019t a person, it was an \u2018it,\u2019 but I still listened to the log. I think the Log Lady was very wise, and somewhat of a soothsayer.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her character\u2019s honor, Coulson carried a miniature log with her to the event \u2014 a twig, really. \u201cThis is a token log,\u201d she joked. \u201cIt\u2019s too dangerous (to carry the real one). I once called TSA to inquire about it, and said, \u2018I have this log and I\u2019d like to carry it on.\u2019 This was after 9\/11, and the man on the phone said, \u2018The log? Don\u2019t take a chance.\u2019 So it was good advice, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
If only parallel words of caution and advice could have reached Frost and particularly Lynch in the aftermath of the series\u2019 groundbreaking first season, and helped broker a more lasting detente between the show\u2019s runners and ABC, who wanted to wrap up the Laura Palmer plot line posthaste. Piddling censorship (the show still got away with an amazing amount for network television) and narrative dictates contributed to a slide. The alluring weirdness remained, in broad strokes, but the second season stumbled and lost its way midway through, further exacerbating dwindling ratings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never had to deal with the censors, that was done on another level,\u201d said Wise, who played Laura\u2019s father, Leland Palmer. \u201cAnd when things filtered down to me, it was cool, I just did what I had to do. I know David talked from time to time about little comments that he would get from up above. But I also don\u2019t think he paid too much attention to them. He had a pretty good deal with them \u2014 they had pretty good creative control, he and Mark Frost. But they wouldn\u2019t have ventured into it if they didn\u2019t have that type of control. That\u2019s what makes ‘Twin Peaks’\u00a0kind of special, even initially \u2014 that they were given that kind of freedom on a big network.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alas, in the end it wasn\u2019t meant to last. But we’ll always have the memories — and now, courtesy of the stunning new Blu-ray set from distributor Paramount, they’ll be in high-definition 1080p as well.<\/p>\n
![\"Twin](\"http:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/Twin-Peaks.jpg\")
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