Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

As my friend Mark tried to warn me, this show sucks!

Episode 1.2 “Surf Sale”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on October 18th, 1998)

Why am I doing this to myself?

That’s the question that I asked myself as I watched the second episode of Malibu, CA.  Why do I always decide to review the worst shows that I can find?  And when I call Malibu, CA the worst, that’s not an exaggeration.  The second episode, which I just watched, is 21 minutes of pure pain.  Producing bad television was, admittedly, Peter Engel’s trademark but not Malibu, CA goes beyond just being bad.  I mean, this is the first show that I’ve ever seen that makes One World seem brilliant by comparison.

The second episode finds Murray upset because a land developer is planning on tearing down The Surf Shack and replacing it with a luxury condo.  The Surf Shack is exactly what it sounds like.  It’s a shack that sells surfing equipment.  Murray appears to be the Surf Shack’s only employee.  Murray says that Surf Shack is his life.  The Surf Shack must be saved and Scott and Jason are going to help Murray because they think helping Murray will impress their next-door neighbor, Samantha.  Samantha is into causes and stuff.  Plus, Murray has been her friend since kindergarten.

Murray is also the son of a wealthy man so Jason and Scott suggest that Murray ask his father to buy the Surf Shack.  Murray says that he can’t because his father would then demand that Murray go to school, wear socks, and comb his hair.  With the Surf Shack doomed, Murray gets a job working as a dishwasher at Peter’s restaurant but then he nearly burns the place down after he accidentally knocks out the chef by throwing a dish in his direction.

Murray finally agrees to ask his father to buy the Surf Shack.  Murray is prepared to sell out.  But then Peter, to make his sons happy, buys the Surf Shack from Murray’s dad and then makes Murray the manager.  If Peter had the money to buy the Surf Shack, why didn’t they just go to him to begin with?

Meanwhile, Stats the Lifeguard, who desperately wants Scott to notice her, is harassed by Haji (Maulik Pancholy), a guy whose life she saved from drowning.  Haj is Indian so the whole joke here is that Haj has an accent and tends to say stuff like, “In my country, if you save someone’s life, you are destined to be together.”  However, Stats is in love with Scott and Haj isn’t willing to fight for her love because “It looks like he goes to the gym.”  Haj trips over another girl on the beach and decides that she is the one who saved his life.  I’m not sure why.

This was bad.  It’s hard to put into words how bad this episode was.  The storyline was stupid but that’s to be expected from a show produced by Peter Engel.  Instead, this episode was bad because 1) there wasn’t a single likable person in the episode (even Stats ended up being pretty rude to Haj) and 2) there did not appear to be a single person in the cast capable of reciting their dialogue without sounding like they were reading it off of a cue card.  The episode was bad because Murray’s issue with his dad seems to be that his dad expects his teenage son to actually go to school and not be a brain-dead washout.  The episode was bad because the Surf Shack itself sits on the ugliest and smallest part of the beach and it’s hard to understand why anyone would want to put a condo in that location.  (With mountains on either side, there’s really not any room for a condo.)  Finally, the episode was dumb because it had the same plot as the pilot: Developers want build something on the beach so Scott and Jason pretend to care in an effort to impress Sam.  Just as the pilot featured a disaster at Peter’s restaurant, this episode features a disaster at Peter’s restaurant.  It’s only the second episode and this show is already repeating itself.

Oh well!  At least there’s only 50 episode left….