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, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on You tube!

Mitch, Griff, and Ryan search for an amphibian hybrid.

Episode 2.2 “The Creature”

(Dir by David W. Hagar, originally aired on October 6th, 1996)

The Creature of the title is a young blonde woman (played by Shelli Lether) who has spent her entire life locked away in a secret lab.  One night, a security guard decides that he wants to get to know The Creature better.  The Creature responds by killing both him and his co-worker.  She escapes from the lab, running into the California night.

Mitch and Ryan are brought to the lab by the mysterious Diamont Teague, who explains that he’s not sure what was going on at the lab but whatever was housed in the building has escaped.  Mitch leaves to track down the Creature.  (He recruits Griff to help him out.)  Meanwhile, Ryan stays at the lab and looks through magnifying scopes and studies slides and computer read-outs and eventually, she figures out that the lab was the focus of a DNA experiment.  The creature is half-amphibian and half-human.

“Can we do that?” Mitch asks when Ryan calls him.

“Apparently so,” Ryan calmly replies.

(Seriously, Ryan’s so cool.)

It also turns out that Mitch and Griff are not the only people who are searching for the Creature.  There are also a group of soldiers that are determined to track down the Creature, destroy it, and cover up the fact that it was created in the first place.  Mitch, needless to say, is not happy about that.  Mitch is a lifeguard and, as a lifeguard, he believes in guarding every life, even the life of a humanoid amphibian who murders anyone who approaches her.

And, if this was Baywatch, Mitch probably would have saved the Creature.  But this is Baywatch Nights and the night is darker than the day.  The Creature gets blown up in a tunnel but it appears that all of the soldiers get blown up with her.  Take that, Feds!  As for Mitch, he gets out of the tunnel just in time and makes a slow motion jump as the explosion erupts behind him.  A chastened and mournful Mitch then announces that he’s going home as the sun rises over the horizon.  Hey, Mitch — don’t forget to call Ryan and let her know that she can leave the lab.

After last week’s disappointing second season premiere, The Creature is the first classic episode of Baywatch Nights‘s supernatural season.  The action moves quickly and through multiple locations.  (The Creature may not know much about the world but she’s still drawn to a club.)  The story is ludicrous enough to be entertaining.  Shelli Lether is surprisingly sympathetic as the murderous Creature.  Even Hasselhoff throws his heart into his attempts to convince the soldiers not to destroy the Creature.  This episode was fun and dumb in a very likable way.

Next week, Mitch battles another sea monster!