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 YouTube!

This week, it’s all about the voodoo!

Episode 2.7 “Curse of the Mirrored Box”

(Dir by Jon Cassar, originally aired on November 10th, 1996)

Mitch is contacted by Celia (Tracey Ross), the mother of a girl named Annie who Mitch once saved from drowning.  (Ryan is a bit dumbfounded that Mitch apparently keeps in contract with the people that he has saved as a lifeguard and, to be honest, so am I.  I mean, I bing watched Baywatch two years ago and Mitch saved a lot of people!)  Annie (Maria Celedonio) is now a rebellious teenager and has apparently joined a Voodoo cult!

(Seriously, Annie, way to repay Mitch for saving you from the ocean!)

Mitch and Ryan’s attempts to free Annie from the cult bring them into conflict with the leader of the cult, Papa Doc (Adam Lazarre-White).  Papa Doc puts a voodoo curse on Mitch and, as a result, the episode is full of moments in which Mitch goes into a glassy-eyed trance.

For the most part, not much happens in this episode.  It doesn’t take Mitch and Ryan that long to track down the cult and it also doesn’t take them that long to track down a voodoo priestess (Kiki Shepard) who can help them battle Papa Doc.  It’s a bit of slow episode and it’s portrayal of voodoo and its practitioners reaches back to every cliche and stereotype imaginable.  There’s a lot of dancing.  There’s a lot of altars.  There’s a lot of close-ups of Papa Doc chanting.  Basically, it’s Live and Let Die in Malibu, without the swagger of Yaphet Kotto, the charm of Roger Moore, or the otherworldly beauty of Jane Seymour.

But no matter!  The episode works because you haven’t lived until you’ve seen David Hasselhoff pretend to be possessed by a voodoo priest.  The Hoff has never been a particularly subtle actor.  That’s always been a part of his charm.  When you combine his natural style with scenes of him shaking, bugging out his eyes, and trying to shake the evil spirts out of his head, you have a Hasselhoff performance for the ages.

It makes for an entertaining episode, even if it’s not one of the show’s more memorable ones.  Hasselhoff’s possessed performance saves the day.  It’s amazing what a little magic and a voodoo doll can do.

One final note: After being absent for the last few episodes (albeit still listed in the opening credits), both Donna D’Errico and Eddie Cibrian appear in this episode.  Neither really gets to do much, reminding us once again that the show’s writers were never really sure what to do with either Donna or Griff.  Dorian Gregory (who played Daimont) does not appear, which is odd as it seems like Daimont would have been the first person that Ryan would have called once it become obvious that Mitch was cursed.  Seriously, what’s the point of being friends with a mysterious occult expert if you can’t find him when you need him?