Amazon Deal of the Day: Twin Peaks,

Updated on December 28, 2010 By Ken Begg 7 Comments

The show indeed lost it’s way, and I always thought the last episode was purely designed as an FU to viewers, as if Lynch and Frost were pissed off that anyone was still watching the show. When it started, though, it was some of the most revolutionary and just plain best TV ever. Now you can relieve the madness, good and bad, with the Twin Peaks Definitive Gold Box Edition for $36, or 60% off the list price of $90.

And for buffs of a more old fashioned sensibility (although I love both shows), Amazon is still selling at a very good price the Ellery Queen show from the ’70s, starring Jim Hutton. I love this show, especially the gobsmacking array of guest stars and character actors it featured every single week. Great stuff.

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  • BeckoningChasm

    I own the set, and it’s great, though the audio commentaries from the earlier boxes were removed.

    I think the exact moment when it went bad was when Billy Zane and Heather Graham came on board. Not because they’re bad performers (though Zane is pretty bad here) but because 1) the show didn’t need more characters, and 2) it shattered the Cooper-Audrey relationship.

  • I think the die was cast when they closed out the first season and STILL didn’t solve the Laura Palmer murder. I honestly think Frost and Lynch assumed the show would be off the air by then and hadn’t really worked the thing out. Certainly the second season provides further evidence for that notion.

  • Reed

    Oh man, I love the first season of Twin Peaks. The second season is not good, but in my opinion it does contain one of the most truly disturbing scenes ever displayed on television. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of personal taste, but for me it is not a plus.

    An aquaintance of mine on a forum I used to frequent made a passionate defense that we were never supposed to find out who murdered Laura Palmer, because that wasn’t really the point of the show. My answer to that was, and still is, “bullshit”. When you write episode after episode about an FBI man searching for a murderer one way or another you have to deal with either solving the murder or failing to solve the murder.

    The show also featured quite possibly my favorite character in any show – Albert the forensic guy. “Mayor, I know that your position in this fair community guarantees the banality and insincerity of your remarks, but stupity is not an inherent trait.”

  • Calypso

    Reed–I’ll bite. There were so many scenes that were disturbing I’m wildly curious to know which one you’d rank #1 (I’m a huge Twin Peaks fan). Was it the letter under the fingernail? Laura screaming madly in the Red Room? I suspect your choice is something less obvious…

    And I also love Albert. Not to mention the disturbingly pretty La Femme David Duchovny.

  • Reed

    SPOILER ALERT

    Feel free not to read this post if you’ve haven’t seen the show and want to. LALALALALA.

    OK, it was when Laura’s twin is attacked by Bob. That freaking scene is brutal and unrelenting, and it affected me more than any other on TV violence I have ever sat through. It’s hard to describe exactly why. I’ve been an action movie and horror fan for 30+ years now and I’ve seen a lot of gruesome stuff, but there is something about that scene that totally eliminated my emotional distance from what I was watching. Obviously, your mileage may vary.

  • Calypso

    I agree. Lynch is always good at getting under my rational radar and right into the back brain.

    What really blows me away thinking about that scene is that (as I”m sure you know) the guy who played Bob wasn’t even a trained actor. How was he able to convey what he did so perfectly? There’s a scene somewhere earlier where he walks over a couch and there’s just something in his body language that sets you up for the surreal norm of the Red Room.

  • TongoRad

    I rather enjoy watching my old Twin Peaks season 2 tapes these days, now that I know where they’re going with the whole thing. It was definitely a bit different when you had to wait week to week, and then they seemed to keep on adding more and more irrelevant story lines. You could even take the whole thing as a twisted commentary on soap opera conventions, if that helps, but mostly I just enjoy being along for the ride.

    I gotta disagree with Ken on the ending, though. Even back in the day I thought it was a real return to form, a fantastic way to bookend the season, and one of my favorite episodes of the whole show. Lynch may indeed have meant it as an FU to the studio suits, but as to the viewers, to me (at least) it was a love letter.