I’d never seen the Twin Peaks pilot before. I got into the series in the late 90s when Bravo showed the series. By Bravo’s nature, it was never on consistently, so I never saw the episodes in order or anything, and I am pretty sure that most of the episodes I saw were from the second season. When the first Twin Peaks DVD set came out in like 2001, it lacked the pilot, what with it being tied up in rights hell.

About a year ago, I acquired a bootleg copy of the pilot. It came at a time when my interest in Lynch wasn’t so big, so I kind of sidelined it until my next kick. When that kick came, I noticed that I had become too picky about quality, and a VHS-quality bootleg seemed about as attractive as watching Godard’s shitty political movies of the 70s.

But now we have the Twin Peaks Gold Box, the definitive document of the series. It includes both of the major versions of the pilot. I have only watched the US pilot, but I will consider giving the international pilot (which includes a patched on ending to the mystery, using new footage). Video quality of the Gold Box is pristine compared to the previous two DVD releases. It upscales to HD resolutions flawlessly, and the recoloring makes the show look recent, and not in a fakey way. The only thing the set is missing is the movie. And some commentaries from season two, but does anyone want those that much, anyway?

I think there is something of a Blade Runner original cut vs. director’s cut thing going on with Twin Peaks. Previously, I watched it without the pilot. I had to swim without witnessing the events that the whole rest of the story revolves around. Watching it with the pilot, finally, is both a revelation, and something of a disappointment. Give me two paragraphs to sell you on this one.

It’s a revelation in that I’m seeing this new (to me!) footage for the first time ever. I am finally getting the rest of the story. Finally I can see how some of these tertiary characters are linked to the mystery. And it’s not just a getting to see the rest of the story thing; the pilot is also potentially the best episode. Shot by Lynch himself, a good argument can probably be made that places the Twin Peaks pilot highly in his pantheon of masterpieces. It’s shot like a Lynch film. It’s got that great Lynchian detached acting going on. It’s got that Lynch signature blend of realism and surrealism, a decadent mix. It’s basically Blue Velvet without Dennis Hopper, focusing instead on the human side of the story rather than the lunacy. That comes later.

The pilot is also something of a disappointment. Similar to how the lack of window dressing exposition made the original cut of Blade Runner a bullet train to snoresville, conclusively knowing these key events definitively kind of makes me appreciate that I had to work to figure things out for myself on my original viewing. Call it a media take on Hemmingway’s iceberg theory, but not knowing the humungadunga important part of the story made me do a bit of detective work on my own, and personally, I think my journey of swimming to piece things together was much more rewarding than just watching the pilot. It’s kind of like watching a great TV show and predicting the big plot reveal in the last episode. Except backwards. People say vaguely similar things about the movie, Fire Walk With Me. Seeing the events that we’d speculated on, only seen described, vague visual flashes at most, seeing the preceding events definitively kind of waters down the Special Goodness we had previously built up around the show.

But hey, can’t really blame Lynch because I watched the show out of order, and my own personal TP sequence just happens to be better than the official. And any hatin’ I do feel in my heart is set to rest by the sheer quality of the episode. It’s good stuff! It’s good to have one last TP burst of goodness, and it’s interesting that the burst just happens to be the first episode.

If there’s one take away from this post, it’s that the Gold Box is something any discriminating media consumer needs to own. After like 15 years of not getting the treatment it deserves, the show’s finally getting an excellent release. As for Fire Walk With Me, it would certainly be nice if Lynch cleaned that up and gave it a new DVD release. It would be even nicer if he got the mythical “lost footage” and tried to cap off this portion of his career in the best way possible. Unfortunately, due to how that movie was originally received, I don’t think it is likely that David wishes to revisit it. Fingers crossed, though!

Addendum: Possibly something that may warrant investigation in a later post, but I am kind of surprised by some of the cinematography in the series; even in the episodes that Lynch didn’t direct. What’s spurring this current, immediate comment is the realization that there are several instances of shots (some of them consistent shots that recur in multiple episodes) that show a rather blatant influence from German expressionism. Unsurprisingly, these shots tend to be used in creepy moments, and shock shots. However, in some cases they are used for atmospheric merit. Maybe I will snap a screenshot later, but there is a recurring shot of the staircase in the Palmer home that is bleeding German expressionism, from the angle of the shot, to the use of shadow, and even to the shot being lit so that it is nearly in sepia tone. Nice, nice touches.

Also, the score still blows my mind. Even as a current classical music snob.

I’ve kind of been meaning to do some writing on German expressionism. Fritz Lang’s silent films have made up a large portion of my film diet lately, along with the bigger Murnau movies. And I love Orson Welles and Hitchcock and noir. Stuff like Sin City and some of Tim Burton’s visuals show that the form’s influence is as alive as it has ever been. Might be worth writing about, maybe.