Twin Peaks: FWWM on Bravo - Sutherland and Isaak?

SPOILERS for the film and the series to follow…

So I’m watching Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which I’d recorded off Bravo a few days ago. Now, admittedly, I haven’t seen the film since its theatrical release a decade ago, but I’m pretty sure I remember that the film opens with Kiefer Sutherland and Chris Isaak’s FBI agents being put on the Theresa Banks murder and clashing with local law enforcement. (Then, there was this very creepy bit with Cooper staring at some security monitors.) But the film I recorded starts out with a brief scene of Dale Cooper mentioning that the agents sent on the Banks investigation had failed (and one of them disappeared) and then moves right in to the last days of Laura Palmer. I can understand that Bravo needed to cut the nude scene at the skanky canadian dive, but why chop off this important set-up which featured no nudity that I can recall and which was (according to most of the reviews I’ve googled up) the best part of the film?

–Cliffy

You’re not imagining. The prologue also had a cameo by David Lynch, Lil’s “Blue Rose” message, the disappearance of David Bowie, and most importantly, Agent Desmond’s discovery of Teresa Banks’ ring. I didn’t see Bravo’s version, but they may have just done it for no other reason than for brevity. The first segment was at least 20 minutes long if I remember correctly. None of the original characters except Cooper are in the prologue. Too bad though - I loved the prologue.