The archival of all things Twin Peaks continues with a look at The Television Collection set released in late 2019 and early 2020. This set was a slightly smaller version of the incomparable Twin Peaks – From Z to A Limited Edition Blu-ray collection. Let’s take a look at the announcement, worldwide packaging and artwork for this sister set.
JULY 2019 SPECULATION ABOUT TWIN PEAKS – THE TELEVISION COLLECTION
Twin Peaks Archive first shared a tweet on July 26, 2019 about a post that TVShowsOnDVD made via their Facebook page announcing The Complete Television Collection.
During my research, I learned TVShowsOnDVD was originally affiliated with TV Guide. In March 2013, CBS Interactive acquired TVGuide.com (which meant they also got TVShowsOnDVD). On May 25, 2018, the website was closed and all updates were moved to Twitter and Facebook. It would seem that the news of a new release coming from an official CBS owned entity would be official.
Artwork for The Complete Television Collection was located and shared on July 31, 2019. News spread quickly throughout the fan community about release.
However by August 1, all references to The Television Collection were removed. Fellow Bookhouse Boy Beano Rojo asked TV Shows on DVD about the removal which Twin Peaks Archive shared.
AUGUST 15, 2019 ANNOUNCEMENT
The official, official announcement of The Television Collection was included as part of a much longer press release and announcement for the From Z to A Collection on August 15.
TWIN PEAKS: THE TELEVISION COLLECTION
On October 15, CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Entertainment will also release Twin Peaks: The Television Collection on Blu-ray and DVD. For the first time ever, these releases will present all three television seasons of Twin Peaks in one collection: Seasons One and Two of the original series and A Limited Event Series, along with a trove of previously-released special features.
The set was made available for pre-order on August 21 via Amazon and other select websites.
It’s currently available from a number of retailers including Amazon (Blu-ray and DVD formats), the Showtime Store (DVD only), or Best Buy (Blu-ray / DVD).
INTERNATIONAL RELEASE DATES
While October 15 was the North American (United States, Canada and Mexico) release date, the set was released in other countries in late 2019 and early 2020.
- October 2, 2019 – Brazil (date from Amazon’s product page)
- October 22, 2019 – Italy
- November 6, 2019 – France
- December 19, 2019 – Germany
- January 20, 2020 – United Kingdom
- January 22, 2020 – Australia
- February 7, 2020 – Japan
Zoom UK shared a banner on January 16, 2020 for a pre-order of the set via Twitter.
On January 20, 2020, HMVInverness shared an image of the UK packaging for this set via Twitter
THE OUTER SLEEVE
This set is presented in a hardshell case which is covered with a sleeve containing artwork of Special Agent Dale Cooper with a hint of Laura Palmer.
Below are images (mostly artwork) of sleeves from the international releases.
I found two different version of the Italian release. Most likely the second version is the official release while the first could be concept artwork.
THE ARTWORK
The artwork uses Suzanne Tenner’s publicity shot of Kyle MacLachlan as Special Agent Dale Cooper in the Red Room. The image was taken on March 28, 2016 at Calvert Studios in Van Nuys, California. They crew shot several Red Room scenes that day. The image on the box cover is slightly turned to make Cooper appear he is looking up.
The design complements the Twin Peaks – From Z to A which uses stock photography from Roksana (Roxana) Bashyrova, a photographer from Kyiv, Ukraine. See more details about that box design in this Art Peaks article published in January 2020.
I removed the text from the packaging to create the image above. I love the ghosted image of Laura Palmer from the moment she was found wrapped in plastic at the Blue Pine Lodge. The nod to the owl cave symbol is a nice touch too.
THE CASE INSERT
The hardshell case insert uses the same artwork and information from the outer sleeve.
The back of this insert contains an image of the top of Snoqualmie Falls, Laura Palmer wrapped in plastic and several fir trees. The trees aren’t actually found at the top of the falls as presented in the image.
THE DISC ARTWORK
Unlike other DVD / Blu-ray releases, the 16 discs in this set contain no outer artwork. Instead, they are bathed in blue and with text descriptions.
Perhaps it’s fitting that they are blue given the connection to the Blue Rose seen in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.
Are Season 1 and 2 shown in the original TV format? Or is the picture matted on top and bottom to appear widescreen?
Seasons 1 and 2 are presented in 4:3 format which means how their were originally shown on the ABC Television Network in 1990-1991. Black bars will be found on the left and right of the image when watching on a 16:9 formatted screen.