Twin Peaks-Season 2: Part 2 (1990)

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General		Extras
Category	Mystery	Featurette-Log Lady Episode Introductions Featurette-Director Interviews Featurette-Cast Interviews
Rating
Year Of Production	1990
Running Time	495:25
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (44:31) Multi Disc Set (3)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Graeme Clifford Caleb Deschanel Duwayne Dunham Uli Edel
Studio Distributor	CBS Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Kyle MacLachlan Michael Ontkean Mädchen Amick Dana Ashbrook Richard Beymer Lara Flynn Boyle Sherilyn Fenn Warren Frost Peggy Lipton James Marshall Everett McGill Jack Nance Kimmy Robertson
Case	Custom Packaging
RPI	?	Music	Angelo Badalamenti David Lynch David Slusser

    This box set collects the second half of the second, final season of Twin Peaks. For more general information about the show, check out our review of the first half of the season, here.

    The sparkle began to fade after a promising, though comparatively brisk, opening to season 2 of Twin Peaks. The crime upon which the show originally revolved was more or less solved fairly early on in the season and the writers were unable to retain the sense of intrigue that had driven the earlier episodes. Repeated tweaking to the show's formula don't help, either. Despite the flaws in the plot, The characters still manage to make the episodes quite entertaining and there are a couple of great guest stars, such as David Duchovny as a transvestite DEA agent. Entertaining though it may be, this home stretch is certainly not a patch on the show's former glory.

    Don't expect satisfaction to come from all the loose ends being tied up either. Twin Peaks' surprise cancellation at the end of this season led to a maddening cliffhanger. At least some solace can be had in that the build up towards the end is a fun watch!

Video

    The video is generally very good, particularly for a show of this age. This is a fine example of a cult favourite given the technical presentation it deserves.

    The show is presented in its original 1.33:1 full frame aspect ratio.

    The image is surprisingly sharp for the most part despite there being a mild grain visible throughout. The level of grain is very consistent, however, so it does not degrade the viewing experience. There is a good level of detail visible in dark areas and shadows.

    The colours are quite bold for an older show and reasonably consistent throughout. A number of scenes seem a little too orange, however, although this is apparently deliberate effect to add atmosphere to certain locations. This is most evident in the many wooden sets.

    Small film artefacts are occasionally noticeable on screen, but these are never particularly distracting and really do little more than remind you of the age of the show - something the transfer generally does a good job of hiding. There is, on rare occasions, noticeable telecine wobble. Whilst each occurrence tends to be very brief, almost to the point it looks as though someone bumped the camera, it is a little distracting if you notice it.

    There are no noticeable MPEG compression issues in the transfer.

    Based on the few minutes I sampled, the white English subtitles appear to be quite accurate and well timed.

    Each disc in this set is a RSDL disc. The layer change occurs between episodes and are consequently not noticeable even when all the episodes on a disc are played together.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The original English language stereo soundtrack has been mixed up to Dolby Digital 5.1 (384 Kbps) for this release. There are also German, Italian and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 Kbps) language tracks available The original English stereo mix is not included.

    The dialogue is reasonably clear, but occasionally a little soft in the mix. The audio quality of the dialogue has not stood the test of time as well as the video and it will sound a little lo-fi to many ears used to hearing more recent audio tracks. There are no sync issues with the dialogue. Thankfully, there is no sign of the dialogue problem (dialogue coming out of the wrong channel in the surround mix) that affected the one of the episodes in the first box set from this season.

    Angelo Badalamenti's glorious musical score sounds as beautiful today as it did when the show first aired.

    The 5.1 remastered sound is a bit of a mixed bag. Most of the surround channel use goes to the score, which makes it sound fantastic and becomes incredibly engrossing. The enhancement to the score comes largely at the expense of the dialogue, which is virtually mono in that it sits almost solely in the centre speaker at all times. This uneven breakup occasionally leads to points where the score overpowers the dialogue. There is minimal subwoofer usage, but there is not a lot of need for the subwoofer other than to support the score.

    There is no denying that this is a decent remix, but it is a shame the original audio was not included as well.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Log Lady Introductions

    Each episode features a brief (about a minute) intro from the Log Lady. Most of the intros make little or no real sense, nor do they explain anything or add a great deal to the episodes. Nonetheless, they are make for a pretty amusing watch.

    The quality of the intros is a tad better than VHS quality. There are occasionally large film artefacts visible and the image is rather soft. Given the brevity of the intros, the mediocre video quality isn't enough to spoil them.

    These intros can optionally be played at the start of the episodes and the intros contained on each disc can be played together in one hit.

Director Interviews Featurettes

    Several recent interviews with various directors of the show are included, two per disc. The interviews cover only a range of genial topics but are reasonably interesting, even if they do fawn over David Lynch a little too much. The interviews are more of a historic look at the directors' experiences with the show rather than an insight into the production, which serves them well.

    The directors featured are Caleb Deschanel (4:22 runtime), Todd Holland (4:13 runtime), Jennifer Lynch (OK, she wasn't a director, but the author of Laura Palmer's Diary. 3:50 runtime), Duwayne Dunham (4:04 runtime), Stephen Gyllenhaal (3:44 runtime), Tim Hunter (2:44 runtime).

    Season two of Twin Peaks has been released in Region 1 as a single box set containing 6-discs. The menus on the Region 1 disc are much nicer than the spartan menus on the Region 4 release. Region 1 features a Portugese dub track not found on the Region 4 edition, but Region 4 has additional German and Italian language tracks as well as a whole raft of additional subtitle tracks.

    In terms of special features, both regions' editions contain a series of interviews with people involved with the show (directors and cast) and introductions to the episodes by the "log lady" from the show, but these extras are spread evenly across the discs in Region 1, whereas they are all clumped together on the second set for Region 4. The unfortunate side effect of this split-up is that Region 4 viewers miss out on the "log lady" intros for the first half of the season.

    Also worth mentioning is the packaging of the two versions. The Region 4 sets come in a cardboard digi-pak surrounded by a plastic sleeve featuring a full-colour image on the front and are very similar to the season one packaging. The Region 1 edition is a somewhat generic cardboard box that featuring similar artwork to the Region 4 release and contains 3 slimline amaray cases, each containing 2 discs. There is no denying that Region 4 got the better end of the stick on this front.

    To make a fair comparison between Region 1 and Region 4 you really need to weigh up the complete season two set in Region 1 with both Region 4 sets. In terms of content, Region 1 is ahead by a nose, however if you do own the first season set and would like to have a consistent looking (not to mention much nicer) set of boxes for season 2 at the expense of a small quantity of extras, Region 4 is the place to shop. At the time of release, the Region 1 set is priced around the same mark as the two Region 4 sets put together.

    Twin Peaks remained an entertaining show until its end, but the ongoing plot does get a little silly. These episodes are well worth a watch, but are not up to the standard of earlier episodes - despite some fun new guest characters.

    The special features on this set are well worth a look, and innovatively designed, but are relatively superficial.

    The video transfer is surprisingly good for a show of this age, but not without a handful of minor faults. The audio also holds up well, but does sound dated despite a 5.1 remaster.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall