Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, an detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Youtube!
You guys know the drill. Thanks to the Vicodin I took earlier, I spent Tuesday in a bit of a daze. So, I’m running late with my review of Baywatch Nights. Fear not! Here it is:
Episode 1.12 “Thin Blood”
(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on February 10th, 1996)
Ryan’s sister has come to Los Angeles!
Charlie McBride (Laura Harring) claims that she’s just in town to see her sister but Ryan has her doubts. Charlie has always been the irresponsible member of the family and Ryan can only watch helplessly as Charlie and Mitch pursue a tentative romance. Since this is a Baywatch spin-off, that means that Charlie and Mitch spend a lot of time on jet skis. It’s not true love unless you get on the jet skis. Charlie also takes the time reveal that Ryan could have been a model and a pageant winner if she hadn’t abandoned everything to be a private eye. To that, I say, “Well, yeah. She’s Angie Harmon.”
However, it turns out that Ryan was correct. Some New York criminals are in town, searching for the money that they claim Charlie stole from them. They’re even willing to kidnap Ryan and hold her hostage until they get their money back. Once again, it’s up to Mitch and Garner to do their thing and rescue Ryan. Interestingly enough, they manage to do so pretty easily. This is one of those episodes where the bad guys are so incompetent that they are pretty much doomed from the start. David Hasselhoff may have captured them but Billy Warlock and Erika Eleniak probably could have done the job just as easily. Hell, I bet Parker Stevenson could have done it. Maybe even Kelly Ward.
Anyway, the emphasis here is on Ryan and her feelings of resentment towards her sister and her feelings for Mitch. Though it was pretty much abandoned once the show became an X-Files rip-off during the second season, the first season of Baywatch Nights really tried to play up the will they or won’t they aspect of Ryan and Mitch’s relationship. There really wasn’t much suspense about that. Angie Harmon and David Hasselhoff had a likable chemistry but it was a brother/sister type of relationship. There was nothing romantic about it, at least not in 49 of the 50 states. Ryan liked Mitch but she also knew she could do better. That was why Ryan was such a cool character.
This was a pretty forgettable episode, one that was really only interesting for a chance to see Laura Harring play the same type of role she would later play to far different effect in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. It’s late so I’m going to leave it at that. Baywatch Nights needs to hurry up and bring on the aliens and the vampires or the sea monsters!
Through the Shattered Lens 