The first season of Twin Peaks is out on DVD. It's a four-disc set, which one might expect for an entire season of a television series; a single DVD can hold eight hours of material, right?

Unfortunately, the first season of Twin Peaks — which doesn't include the pilot episode, by the way — was only seven episodes, as the show was picked up midseason. So we get a sparse two episodes per disc, and the pilot must be purchased separately. And it cost twice as much as the first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which does include the pilot (and which should be arriving from Amazon any day now). The animated menus are cumbersome, and ambiguous at times; such effects were nifty when DVDs first came out, but now I find myself impatiently waiting for the next menu to finally pop up, rather than being dazzled by the technological bells and whistles.

On the bright side, the first two episodes that I've watched so far have had commentary from the director (episode 1) and the cinematographer (episode 2), who actually discuss the mechanics of filming a television series, which is something I find quite interesting.

Visually, the remastered episodes are stunning, with beautiful lighting and a cheerfully warm tone (thanks to the coral filters they shot all the interior scenes with). The storyline and characters aren't any less freakishly bizarre than I remembered, and now I'm noticing details I missed when it was on television (like Big Ed Hurley and Deputy Hawk subtly exchanging ritualistic gestures in the first episode). Special Agent Dale Cooper is so off-the-wall with his gnostic methods of obtaining information that he makes Fox Mulder look like an absolute skeptic.

Speaking of whom, seeing Twin Peaks again renews the question: Is the Sprint PCS spokesman supposed to be a parody of Mulder, or of Cooper?