Customer Reviews

Twin Peaks: Pilot Episode

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The good news: Twin Peaks is a singularly brilliant show, a must-see for anyone into David Lynch or TV history, and this disc is the only way to get the pilot on Region 1 DVD. The bad news: The disc runs fast, "chipmonk-ing" the sound and killing Lynch's deliberate pacing. I can't stand to watch it, myself. Your mileage may vary.

Your alternatives are to (1) deal, (2) get the first season Region 2 DVD set from amazon.co.uk, (3) get the "European pilot" film on VHS, or (4) wait until someone does it right.

Don't pay more than $20 for this DVD. You can get it on eBay anytime for that price.

The following is lifted from dugpa.com:

Rights to the Pilot Episode are owned by Paramount. Artisans box set contains the First Seven Episodes of the Series minus the Pilot Episode. Artisan tried to acquire it at one point, but Paramount wouldn't budge. Hopefully once Paramount sees how well Artisans box set sells, they will get smart and release the Pilot themselves. (and hopefully with both the TV and European endings via seamless branching)

Luckily the Pilot is available on all of the non-Region 1 Season One DVD sets by Paramount.

Due to legal wranglings over the pilot episode, it was not included in the recent First Season DVD boxset (another 5 star product). What you get here is a Hong Kong import from Republic Pictures which is legitimate but not the highest quality product. I still gave the disc 5 stars because it is the pilot none the less and who knows how long it will be until it is released in America on DVD.

What you ARE getting: The original pilot episode of Twin Peaks that aired on television in the United States. This is good because it maintains continuity and most importantly the suprise of the series. In other words if you have never seen the show you should watch this version of the pilot, the 29 episodes of the series and then Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me in order to experience it in the way you would have had you been watching the material as it was released. This is the best way for a newcomer to get the Twin Peaks experience.

What you are NOT getting: This is NOT the European version of the pilot. In David Lynch's contract he was required to make the pilot into a close ended feature which could stand alone to sell in European markets and possibly the US if the series were not picked up. That version is basically a Cliff's Notes for the series, showing you the end and culprit without any of the fun of arriving there from the series. I would recommend renting this version after you have seen all of the other material out there however, it has some good moments.

QUALITY: Like I said before this is an import from Republic and not the best quality. The video quality is about equal to if the pilot played on TV yesterday and I taped it on a regular VCR. That being said, the video and sound are adequate, but one should not expect the amazingly crystal clear transfer from the Season One set. (In fact I read that the Season One set having been remastered, has better quality than the master tapes that ABC has in its vaults!)

FINALLY: So again, I stand by my five star rating because though the quality is not superb, the pilot is a necessary part of any Twin Peaker's collection. I recommend purchasing this because as anyone can see from New Line Cinema's decision to not only NOT include the sought after deleted footage from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, but also delay its release for a year when they really had no intention of paying for the rights to the footage in the first place that Twin Peaks is not high on the list of priorities for the studios involved. Don't expect an American release anytime soon.

David Lynch has gained a reputation for his weird and wonderful filmmaking style, like in "Mulholland Drive." And while the release of "Twin Peaks -- Pilot Episode" is not included with the first season release, this eerie and entrancing story will reel you in. It's cult TV at its absolute best.

The body of a beautiful young woman, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), washes up on a shore, wrapped in plastic. Apparently everyone in the town of Twin Peaks adored her, so her death is a blow. FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) takes a look at Laura's body -- and learns that she was murdered by someone he has tracked before.

He investigates Laura's diary, and finds that she may have been killed by someone she called "J." That hardly narrows it down, since the strange Twin Peaks is full of quirky people with that initial. And as Cooper investigates further, he finds himself in a town of dark secrets and strange occurrances -- and still the mystery of who killed Laura.

Due to some bizarre legal wrangles, the Twin Peaks pilot wasn't released with the first season of the show -- which is like releasing "Return of the Jedi" and "Empire Strikes Back" separately from "A New Hope." Despite this oddity, the pilot in itself is a magnificent piece of work, quirky and dark and twisted.

Drugs, murder, ghosts, precognition, dancing dwarves, supernatural possession and murder all crop up in the TV series, and this pilot set it all up -- it's not the best of the series, but it serves as a good set-up. And Lynch's handling of the solidly ordinary Northwest America is turned into a bizarre thing. Under the banality and the boringness is a dark undercurrent, making the town all the more eerie. But it's also so FUNNY at times -- Cooper and the quirky Twin-Peak-ites provide a sort of deadpan comedy to the proceedings.

It's also not just a murder mystery, but a study of the strange, layered characters. Kyle MacLachlan does an exceptional job as Cooper -- he's obviously a bit of a nutjob and neatnik, but a cheerful and likable one. He's backed by a cast of quirky, odd characters, including Lara Flynn Boyle, Ray Wise, Piper Laurie and Michael Ontkean.

Before the "X-Files" made the surreal a hit, before "Carnivale" took surrealism and ran with it, there was the magnificently weird "Twin Peaks." Time has been kind to "Twin Peaks," and long after it was first aired it's still a magnificent creation.

I'd give five stars for a better transfer of this wonderful pilot. But if you want to enjoy the rest of the series, starting with the terrific First Season transfers, you need to see the complete pilot, and this is the only version of it.

If you've read this far, you probably know that, and you're going through all these contradictory reviews to make up your mind whether the audio and video quality of this import version is good enough to buy.

So mine is just another opinion by someone you don't know, but maybe it will help anyway.

First, I side with the guy who says that if you have 5.1 Surround sound, it doesn't sound bad at all. I have to believe from the other reviews that if you only have two-channel playback, it sounds very bad.

Visually, it's not nearly as good as it should be, compared with the beautifully transferred First Season collection -- but it *is* better than VHS and will last longer.

Finally, it's the only way to get the real pilot for the forseeable future. The old VHS versions floating around are all of the European release, which was a version of the pilot padded out with extraneous footage and given a completely arbitrary and pointless ending so that it could be seen in European theaters as a complete-in-itself movie. On which point:

DO NOT BELIEVE THE REVIEW THAT SAYS THIS IS A SHORTENED VERSION. THIS *IS* THE COMPLETE PILOT. Proof: It's ninety minutes long. The pilot was originally aired in a two-hour time-slot. At that time, 15 minutes of commercials per hour was standard. (It's more like 17 or 18 now.) Two hours minus thirty minutes is ninety minutes. The VHS version was, again, padded out with extraneous footage and a pointless, jury-rigged ending, and that's why it was rather longer. But THIS is the version you need to see before you watch the First Season collection. There's a rights problem that prevented the pilot from being packaged with the rest of the first season--who knows if it will ever be resolved? This version of the pilot may be the best we'll get for a long long time, and if you have 5.1 Surround playback, it's not half bad.

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 gets. At this point, who knows when Paramount will be getting their act together.

If you have read about or researched Twin Peaks, then you know all about this DVD and the mystery of the Twin Peaks property, which is just as mysterious as the show.

Like anything in Hollywood, everybody has their grimy little fingers in it, thus the rights for the series, the pilot, the movie, and the deleted scenes are all owned by separate entities, and I wouldn't doubt if the sound was as well.

What do end up with - An awesome box set that has superior sound and picture - not to mention the extras and menus.
However, the box set doesn't include the pilot - which brings you here.

While there are a ton of these on ebay, they are all identicle to this one. As many have pointed out, the pilot episode is available on VHS, but only as the european version with the tacked-on footage, spoiling 2 seasons worth of awesome television all in like 8 minutes. AVOID THIS!

Which brings us to this little savior. I am so greatfull that this is available - I purchased mine right after the box set came out. Straight from Hong Kong, in english, ntsc and region 0 encoded(plays on any dvd player) comes the original pilot for all of us to watch.

While the pilot is possibly some of Lynch's best work ever, this DVD lets it down.

The cover art is what you see - basic. There is no insert, and the dvd art is basic as well. It comes in the standard black amoray case, and plays perfectly without skips from compression.

If you have seen the box set, then you will quickly realize the picture quality for the pilot is washed out, and inferior overall. But again, I am totally greatful to own this! If you have the box set or are a TP fan - this is a must! The story makes up for any shortcoming of the authoring of this dvd. In any case, it is better than VHS any day of the week.

As for sound - Houston we have a problem!

The sound is horrible! Worse than most people describe it to be. Since it is a PAL convert, and the sound is about 2 steps too fast, we get this flanging effect which sounds like your in a wind tunnel. During person to person dialogue scenes it is not a problem. But if there is a car, water fall, saw mill, wind, water or any other ambient noise - look out - you won't hear a damn thing anyone says. My advise is to turn off your surround and stereo - switch to mono, and keep the volume as low as you can tolerate - the flanging is hell on the ears.

So go ahead and enjoy the pilot episode of one of the best television shows to ever!

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!!!

Twin peaks remains one of the best tv series ever so it's a shame that the image and sound quality of this dvd are very, very poor. Image quality looks like a bad videotape copy, and sound is just horrible. (sounds like a very badly encoded mp3 file)
What I also don't understand: The dutch edition of the twin peaks first season INCLUDES the pilot episode, at GREAT quality! Apparently there IS a good quality pilot episode out there somewhere, and I wonder why they don't release it separately? (and while I'm at it, what's the story on the second season? why don't they release it?)

Like many other Twin Peaks fans, I was thrilled to learn that the first season was being released on DVD; and, like many fans, I was dismayed to learn that that set did not include the pilot. Unfortunately, due to legal snafus so complicated it makes Enron look simple, the only way to get this pilot is through this import. It's worth it. The transfer is almost as good as the deluxe boxed set of the first season. Also, a pleasant surprise: This is NOT the European version--with the annoying extra 15 minute ending--but the EXACT pilot first aired on ABC years ago! So, in other words, it's the perfect companion to the set. I guess I'm preaching to the choir here, but this pilot episode is some of the finest TV ever produced: haunting, beautiful, richly thematic, wonderfully wrought in every sense of the world. Treat yourself, and pick this up as an essential companion to the first season set. Caveat: There are no extras on this disc, but that's the price to pay to get this must-have pilot.

While still as fascinating and absorbing as ever, Twin Peaks doesn't seem nearly as odd and loopy as it did fifteen years ago- and that's because its influence has been felt all over television, from Ally McBeal to The X-Files... to Desperate Housewives!

My old VHS tapes are starting to get a little long in the tooth, so I'm glad that the DVDs are coming out. I hope that whoever is marketing it will have the brains to sell the whole 26 episodes (If memory serves) as a boxed set, at a reasonable price.

When you watch the whole series from beginning to end, Twin Peaks takes the form of a supernatural tragedy. Laura Palmer's death brings agent Cooper to Twin Peaks, and he is seduced by the beauty of the place-- but after Laura's secrets have been explored, and the host of the mudering demon Bob is discovered, the mystery gradually becomes more and more about Cooper's secrets, and about his past. Nothing I have seen on TV since I was five years old has disturbed me as much as the final scene from the final episode. I slept about two hours that night.