Twin Peaks - Pilot Episode [IMPORT]

Rating:
Summary: smell those wonderful douglas furs!!
Review: Okay, so the sound quality isn't outstanding. I think a few of the reviews on the disc were slightly exagerrated in this area, however. I just received the pilot today and watched it without being overly distracted. The video is excellent, much better than VHS, which is probably expected. As far as the sound thing goes, get over it.

This is without a doubt a brilliant piece of work by Lynch and Frost. I have watched the pilot episode seven or eight times now and I never tire of it. This is the ulimate setup for a series that was truly outstanding. It's important for someone interested in purchasing this disc to know that it certainly isn't a waste of money.

The only drawback is the long wait for the imported shipping. Other than that, I have absolutely no complaints.

Diane, I am holding in my hand a small box of chocolate bunnies.

Rating:
Summary: Best thing until the official Region 1 comes out...
Review: The video quality is actually quite decent... As with the other reviews on this page, my main problems are with the sound being a half pitch off. It's very distracting...but the video quality is good.

Anyway, a good story is still a good story. I don't think this DVD will disappoint on that account.

Rating:
Summary: still a stunning story but with awful quality
Review: 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?)

Rating:
Summary: Incredible start to a television series.
Review: What an unbelievable start for a television show. This is probably one of the best pilots I have ever seen. You just get sucked in right away.

Much like Agent Cooper I was drawn in by the utter beauty of the town of Twin Peaks. There are lush trees, beautiful waterfalls, and a quaint town. However David Lynch, being David Lynch likes to scratch below the surface and show us that even a beautiful town like Twin Peaks holds some very dark secrets.

How fitting then that he casts Kyle MacLachlan as the FBI agent investigating Laura Palmer's murder. Kyle's Agent Cooper is almost a grown up version of the character he played in Blue Velvet. I say almost because Cooper has a bit of an edge to him that shines through his childlike innocence at moments. Great examples of this are when he is examining Laura's body, and the crime scene. His deductive skills come out, and he seems completely in charge of the scene, and knows exactly what he is looking for.

As for the DVD itself, the picture is standard video quality. Not DVD quality, but it won't hurt your eyes to look at it. As for the sound, I have no complaints. You could hear everything quite clearly, and the music never overpowered the dialog.
Is this disk worth it? Yes! This is the only way to get the pilot episode on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: What's the big deal? It's just fine.
Review: I read the reviews, and ordered the DVD. Evidently I am not the audiophile the others are who had issues with the sound. The picture was not discernably better or worse than watching regular television. The sound was fine - we have surround sound and tried it several ways - switching speakers, etc., not because it was poor audio, but because I was trying to hear what the problems were. Couldn't tell. The bottom line is, it's the pilot for the series, and if that is what you want, then get this DVD. It is that simple.

Rating:
Summary: quality control?
Review: Of course, it's better than nothing. But, as others have pointed out, the quality is deeply substandard. What's up with only having two character biogs? And what the hell are those subtitles about?

Rating:
Summary: poor quality "Import" DVD
Review: This is a very poor quality DVD.

The audio is comb filtering continously and the video is has many conversion artifacts. The image is at times grainy, and at other times too dark. It doesn't even compare to the "First Season" DVD in terms of audiovisual quality.

This is not a bad review of the content. I love Twin Peaks and the Pilot episode is great. This is just a very poorly made DVD. It is listed as an "Import", but really looks more like a bootleg. I would wait and buy the domestic version when it becomes available.

Rating:
Summary: It is Lynch...
Review: Okay, okay... yes, the picture and audio quality on this DVD are subpar. And yes, the subtitles are laughable. But that doesn't make it unwatchable. It's probably no worse than when it originally aired 13 years ago. Being a big Lynch fan, but never having watched the series and subsequent film, I ordered this along with the first season and "Fire Walk With Me" to go back and see what all the hub-bub was about. After having just watched the pilot episode, I am not disappointed. I'm looking forward to the delivery of the other two. I have quite an elaborate (and unforgiving) home theater system and was still able to get past the shortcomings of this disc and enjoy it. Like I said, it's not unwatchable, and aside from the minor background hiss, I was able to hear all the dialogue just fine. And the picture wasn't detestable. So try to get past the inferior quality of this DVD and take it for what it is: the only thing available at this time. Four-and-a-half stars for the show, two stars for the disc.

Rating:
Summary: Great show, inferior DVD from China!
Review: I ordered this knowing it was imported, but thought it was European - it is Chinese! The only subtitle option is two levels of Chinese. No need to comment on the show; if you haven't seen it it is worth seeing, but the transfer quality is substandard, with all the background sounds (cars, wind, water, etc,) having a swishy, phased sound, though the music and dialog is passable. The picture has a halo around faces and such, as though it is a poor quality copy from PAL or even off TV! My old Beta video off air might look better - the sound is definitely better in Beta HiFi than on this Chinese ripoff.

I am very disappointed in the quality of the DVD, and believe it may be an example of the Chinese pirate phenomena we have all heard about. The only source identification on the cover is a holo sticker saying "Catalyst Logic" and I believe it is a ripoff copy. It also lacked any info sheet inside the box. If I could get a legitimate copy I'd return this and notify the FBI! Agent Cooper, we have a case for you... Tell Diane!

Rating:
Summary: It IS complete, and essential, but aud/vid drags rating down
Review: 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.