'Twin Peaks' comes to DVD

It never appeared on screen, but Mädchen Amick has always envisioned a happy ending for Shelly Johnson, the character she played on the late, great television series "Twin Peaks."

During the show's brief early-'90s run on ABC, Shelly remained stuck between two jerks: her husband, Leo, who in one memorable scene beat Shelly with a bar of soap inside a sock, and her boyfriend, Bobby, the smarmy, scheming captain of the local football team.

"Twin Peaks" ended before Shelly could set herself free from these guys. But Amick likes to think that she eventually did.

"I've always imagined that Shelly just packed up one day and left that town," Amick said in a phone interview. "She had to get out. The people there just held her down."

Shelly was just one of the unique characters who populated "Twin Peaks," the groundbreaking show created by filmmaker David Lynch and writer/producer Mark Frost.

The show, which debuted in 1990, brought unprecedented levels of dark humor, surrealism and sophistication to the modern TV drama. Ostensibly a murder mystery about the killing of homecoming queen Laura Palmer, the show actually was about the town of Twin Peaks itself, a place where even the warmest smile can hide unspeakable evil.

Despite lasting just two seasons, the show continues to have a devoted fanbase. Today, a DVD box set containing all 29 episodes of the series and the original feature-length pilot (never before available on DVD in the U.S.) -- plus a plethora of bonus features -- hits store shelves.

"It really did change television," Amick said. "Before 'Twin Peaks,' most of what you saw on TV was very neat and fast-paced and polished. 'Twin Peaks' showed that it's OK to slow things down a bit, to have open-ended story lines, to bring the feeling of real life into it."

Amick was still a teenager when she landed the role of Shelly, a waitress at the local Twin Peaks diner, who embodies both small-town innocence and bad-girl sexiness. The role was challenging, Amick says, particularly when it came to the scenes of abuse. Looking back, though, she wouldn't want to have played anyone else on the show.

"I'm very independent and driven, personally, so it was hard at first for me to understand why she'd put up with the abuse," Amick said. "It took me awhile to realize that not every woman is able to just leave that kind of situation. Over time, I grew to love the character."

Amick has remained active in television, playing recurring roles on such shows as "E.R." and "The Gilmore Girls." But she says she's never had an experience as rewarding as the one she had with "Twin Peaks."

"After working with David (Lynch), I thought every other job would be like that," she said. "I was wrong. With him, there was always this wonderful feeling that anything could happen."