Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 11/1/26 — 11/7/26

Posted on November 7, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

With Horrorthon completed, I spent a lot of time watching reality shows and true crime docudramas this week. Here’s a few thoughts on what I watched:

1st & Ten (Prime)

I reviewed 1st & Ten here!

The Amazing Race (CBS, Wednesday Night)

I wrote about The Amazing Race here. I’m totally rooting for Matt & Michelle and I will miss Doug & Dylan. I’m a bit tired of Anne-Marie & Riley and their self-righteous attitude.

Bar Rescue (Weekdays, Paramount)

I watched quite a few episodes on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. As I’ve mentioned before, Bar Rescue helps me to relax. I’m not sure why.

Baywatch (Tubi)

I reviewed Baywatch here!

CHiPs (Prime)

I reviewed CHiPs here!

Crime Story (Prime)

I wrote about Crime Story here!

Dragnet (Prime)

I purchased and watched my two favorite episodes on Wednesday, the talk show episode and the night school episode. After sitting through the results of the midterms, it was fun to watch Jack Webb put those hippies in their place.

The Greatest Event In Television History (Prime)

I needed a laugh so I watched all four episodes of this on Thursday night. The Simon & Simon episode is my favorite.

Hunter (Prime)

I watched and reviewed this week’s episode here!

ID Special Report: The Long Island Serial Killer (HBOMax)

I watched this special on the Long Island Serial Killer on Sunday. It didn’t really provide much new information but, then again, I think it was also a few years old. I’d forgotten how obnoxious Nancy Grace could be.

Johnny Garage (YouTube)

I reviewed this unsold pilot here!

The Love Boat (Paramount Plus)

I reviewed this week’s episode here!

Maury (Weekday Afternoons, The CW)

It’s amazing to me that Maury is no longer in production but the reruns live on. How would you feel if you turned on the TV and saw yourself from ten years ago, sitting on Muary’s stage? Anyway, on Tuesday, I watched an episode of Maury and killed a few brain cells. Hopefully, I won’t need them for anything.

Night Flight (NightFlight+)

On Friday night, I watched an episode about some Los Angeles-based bands about which I had previously never heard.

No Big Deal (YouTube)

This is a British sitcom that was made entirely with AI. The only thing that was not done by AI was the script but it was so predictable and the jokes fell so flat that it might as well have been. The whole thing played out like a very stiff and rather soulless cartoon. The AI actors looked like talking mannequins.

Pacific Blue (Prime)

I reviewed Pacific Blue here!

Private Eyes West Coast (Monday Night, The CW)

I watched an episode of this show because I was genuinely curious as to what actually airs on the CW nowadays. Private Eyes West Coast is a Canadian show. It stars Jason Priestly and Cindy Sampson as two private detectives. It was actually a pretty cute show. Priestly and Sampson had a really likable chemistry. I might to start setting the DVR.

St. Elsewhere (YouTube)

I wrote about St. Elsewhere here!

Saved By The Bell (Prime)

My review of this week’s episode will be dropping in about 30 minutes.

Saved By The Bell: The New Class

I reviewed this week’s episode here!

Sledge Hammer! (Prime)

I wrote about Sledge Hammer here!

The Steve Wilkos Show (Weekday Afternoons, The CW)

I watched an episode on Tuesday, largely because I was surprised to discover that the CW was still a thing. Steve’s guest took a lie detector test. The results were inconclusive. The guest agreed to take another test in the future but then ghosted the show and Steve’s crew.

Survivor (Wednesday Night, CBS)

I wrote about Survivor here.

The Synanon Fix (HBOMax)

This Rory Kennedy-directed docuseries took a look at how Synanon went from being a trendy drug rehab program to becoming a dangerous cult. As I mentioned further down in my review of The Way Down, I usually have mixed feelings about cult docudramas but The Synanon Fix was fascinating.

Taken: Natalee Holloway (Netflix)

The latest Netflix true crime docudrama featured a lot of interviews but not much new information. Each episode was only 30 minutes long so I have to wonder why they divided this into multiple episodes instead of just turning it into a two-hour documentary.

The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin (HBOMax)

This was a cult docudrama. Cult docudramas are very popular right now. They all tend to argue that anyone — even an intelligent person — can become a member of a cult. Personally, I have to disagree. I think cults mostly appeal to stupid people who don’t have the confidence necessary to believe in themselves so, instead, they just believe in everything else. Anyway, I watched this docuseries on Sunday and had absolutely no respect for the majority of the people interviewed.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 3.5 “Pier Pressure”

Posted on November 7, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch, which ran on NBC and then in syndication from 1989 to 2001. The entire show can be viewed on Tubi.

This week, Hobie and Summer learn an important lesson about hanging out with the wrong people.

Episode 3.5 “Pier Pressure”

(Dir by Gus Trikonis, originally aired on October 12th, 1992)

This week’s episode is called — wait for it — “Pier Pressure.” Ha! Get it?!

Both Hobie and Summer find themselves dealing with peer pressure on the beach. Summer meets two popular girls from Malibu Beach High, where she’ll soon be taking classes. Courtney Brimmer (Elizabeth Berkley) is rich and spoiled and probably addicted to pep pills. When Summer catches Courtney and her friend drinking on the beach, Summer tells them to stay out of the water. Technically, she could have had them arrested for underage drinking, but that would have made high school a little rough. Anyway, Courtney ignores Summer and nearly drowns. Summer saves Courtney’s life and tells Mitch that Courtney was drinking. Courtney accuses Summer of being a liar. Courtney brings up the fact that, earlier in the episode, Summer thought she had a date with Slade, but it turned out Slade just invited her to his surfing competition so she could see him compete. Slade pops up and says that Courtney was drinking and that he did have a date with Summer but “I blew it.” Courtney is humiliated, and I’m sure she will not take her anger out on Summer once school begins. Should high school students be working as lifeguards? Probably not.

Meanwhile, Hobie witnesses a fight between Tony Valentino (Jason Marsden) and Andy Van Pelt (Mike Simmrin), two slightly older kids. Unfortunately, Hobie doesn’t see who actually started the fight. Also, the fight took place outside the liquor store that Mitch specifically told him to stay away from. Both Tony and Andy pressure Hobie to tell the police that the other boy started the fight. This is yet another episode that features Hobie running for his life. Hobie is barely 12 and I’ve lost track of the number of times he’s nearly gotten killed on this show. He’s got to be the most traumatized kid ever.

This episode felt like it was made for the kids, in that it had a pretty simple message about not giving in to peer pressure, and Pamela Anderson, Alexandra Paul, and David Charvet were nowhere to be seen. The episode itself felt a bit off, but Saved By The Bell fans will be excited — so excited! — to see Elizabeth Berkley playing a bitchy mean girl. Courtney thought she was going to get Jimmy Slade to lie for her, but that’s not the Jimmy Slade way.

Next week: Summer starts high school with Matt Brody.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 3.4 “Rookie of the Year”

Posted on October 31, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Brody and Summer go through rookie school!

Episode 3.4 “Rookie of the Year”

(Dir by Gus Trikonis, originally aired on October 5th, 1992)

This week’s episode follows Matt Brody and Summer Quinn through rookie school as they compete for Rookie of the Year. The winner gets to choose a beach assignment. Eddie Kramer won the honor in his class. Brody has a shot this year, but only if he can beat arrogant Clint Chandler (Race Nelson) in the Gauntlet, a grueling race across the beach and through the ocean.

The episode gives us a few questions to ponder.

Will Brody overcome his rebellious attitude and the disapproval of his wealthy father (Dirk Benedict)?
Will Summer find the courage to make the pier jump?
When C.J. and Stephanie discover that they share an ex-boyfriend, and that he rented his old apartment to both of them, will they be able to live together?

The answer to all three questions is yes. If you didn’t instinctively know that, you have obviously never watched Baywatch.

Brody comes close to dropping out of rookie school, until Mitch tells him he reminds him of a young hothead who had a problem with his dad. “Eddie Kramer?” Brody says. Mitch shakes his head. “About a foot taller.” (Mitch means himself. Brody still deserves some credit for clocking that he is basically Eddie Kramer with a rich dad.)

C.J. may be into crystals and Stephanie may be down-to-earth and practical, but they still make their odd-couple dynamic work.

And Summer may be scared of jumping off the pier, but she does it after encouragement from C.J. and Brody. Brody wins Rookie of the Year not just because he beat Clint in the Gauntlet, but because he helped Summer make the jump.

Meanwhile, it is announced that Guido Torzini (Buzz Belmondo), a guy with a pencil-thin mustache who has been hanging around headquarters whether anyone asked him to or not, will be Baywatch’s official maintenance engineer. Congratulations, Guido, whoever you may be.

This was an episode built out of montages. The rookies run into the water. The rookies run out of the water. Sometimes they do it in slow motion. It was thoroughly predictable, but the beach was lovely and the ocean was inviting.

There was nothing at all challenging about this episode.

And sometimes that’s just fine.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 3.3 “Tequila Bay”

Posted on October 24, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, two new regulars join the cast.

Episode 3.3 “Tequila Bay”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on September 27th, 1992)

Despite not having graduated from lifeguard school yet, Brody is given an undercover assignment by Mitch. Someone has been attacking surfers who try to surf the waters off Tequila Bay, and Brody is sent in to find out who is responsible.

Gee, who could it be? How about that gang of angry-looking teenagers standing on the rocks and glaring as Matt and another surfer, Jimmy Slade (Kelly Slater), greet each other in the water? It is pretty easy to see that the gang is trying to keep other surfers off “their” beach. What I find strange is that the gang consists of about seven people, but only two of them are carrying surfboards. What are the other five getting out of this?

As for Jimmy Slade, he is a philosophical surfer who thinks the water belongs to everyone. He lives in a van. He does not have a phone, but he does have a board, and his life is all about the waves. When he sees Brody paddling in the ocean, he greets him not as a potential rival but as a fellow surfer. And when the evil surf gang tries to run Brody and Slade off, Slade throws a few hard punches of his own.

Jimmy Slade is played by Kelly Slater, a professional surfer who joined Baywatch for its third season. In the Summerfest special, Slater said he joined the cast because he wanted to introduce surfing to the world. I have read a more recent interview in which he says he joined at the urging of his agent and regretted it almost immediately. Not only did fellow surfers give him a hard time about selling out, but Slater also read a script for an episode that featured a surfboard-stealing octopus.

And indeed, Slater gives a performance in this episode that suggests he had already figured out acting was not for him. He delivers his lines stiffly and without much personality. Slater himself abandoned acting after his time on Baywatch. He is a far better surfer than an actor.

Slade does agree to teach Summer how to surf, though the Tequila Bay gang again tries to ruin things by putting barbed wire in the ocean. Slade ends up with a few bad cuts, but it looks as if he will also get a girlfriend. As for the gang, they are arrested by Garner and Mitch.

Meanwhile, the new lieutenant shows up at Baywatch to replace the promoted Captain Thorpe. Mitch is stunned when his new boss turns out to be Stephanie Holden (Alexandra Paul), a woman with whom he once had a torrid affair. She broke his heart when she failed to meet him at Catalina. How badly did she hurt Mitch? Badly enough that he tells Ben he feels like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Wow, Mitch. Overdramatic much?

Overdramatic is the word for David Hasselhoff in this episode. If the first two seasons featured Hasselhoff as an easygoing beach bum, this one features him as an angry, emotionally wounded ex-lover. Unfortunately, Hasselhoff is at his least convincing when he is playing anger. He comes across as petulant. Alexandra Paul may not play Stephanie with much depth, at least not in her first episode, but you still feel sorry for her, because Mitch is being such a jerk.

However, when Stephanie and Mitch work together on the beach to save a drowning man, Mitch realizes that Stephanie is good at her job. He has been asked to write a letter to Captain Thorpe about whether Stephanie should be assigned to Baywatch. Mitch writes that she should definitely be his boss. Could this mean love for Mitch? Let’s hope so!

This episode was way too overdramatic to be taken seriously. The Tequila Bay gang was made up of some of the least intimidating baddies ever to show up on Baywatch. Seriously: the ocean is for everyone.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 3.1 and 3.2 “River of No Return”

Posted on October 17, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we start the third season!

Episodes 3.1 and 3.2 “River of No Return”

(Dir by Douglas Schwartz, originally aired on September 14th, 1992)

The third season of Baywatch begins with Mitch learning of the death of his uncle, an eccentric old prospector who always claimed that he was going to find gold. Mitch and Hobie decide to head to Northern California to investigate, and Eddie and Shauni agree to join them. For Eddie, it’s a chance to have one last adventure with Mitch before he heads off to Australia as part of the lifeguard exchange program. For Shauni, it’s a chance to reveal to Eddie that he knocked her up. For the show, it’s a chance to introduce CJ Parker (Pamela Anderson), a river guide who plays the saxophone and who gives good relationship advice.

Yes, this episode was Pamela Anderson’s first appearance on Baywatch. It turns out that, before she was a sax-playing river guide, CJ was a lifeguard, and Mitch would love it if she would return to the beach. Oddly, even though everyone already knows CJ, no one has ever mentioned her before. Considering that she was apparently a legendary lifeguard, you would think that she would have been mentioned in the past.

However, before CJ can return to the beach, she has to help Mitch and the gang find the gold mine that Mitch’s uncle found shortly before he died. Unfortunately, Drew (Bill McKinney) and Lonny (Mickey Jones), two no-good rednecks, also want to find the mine.

Meanwhile, back at the beach, Summer Quinn (Nicole Eggert) and her mother, Jackie (Susan Anton), have moved to Los Angeles to get away from Jackie’s abusive ex, Jed (Geoffrey Scott). Jed follows them but, fortunately, he’s put in his place by Matt Brody (David Charvet), a rich kid who is hoping to become a lifeguard. Like all of the other prospective lifeguards, Matt Brody is curious about “Bobby Quinn,” who is new to California and who was apparently a champion swimmer back in Pennsylvania. At the lifeguard try-out, Summer tells Matt that Summer is just a nickname and her first name is actually Roberta.

This two-part episode largely exists to introduce Pamela Anderson, Nicole Eggert, and David Charvet as regulars. All three of them do pretty well for their first episode. They all seem like they actually want to be there, which is quite a contrast to Billy Warlock and Erika Eleniak, both of whom have subsequently been pretty vocal about not being happy with the direction the show took during the second season. Of course, as soon as Eggert and Charvet show up, it’s easy to see that there’s no longer going to be room for Warlock and Eleniak. So, it’s not a shock when this episode ends with Shauni and Eddie marrying and leaving Baywatch.

This was a good way to start the season. Yes, the whole gold mine thing was a bit silly, but it gave David Hasselhoff a chance to do the earnest action hero thing, and it also introduces Pamela Anderson, who—in this episode at least—comes across as being surprisingly natural and down-to-earth in the role of CJ.

Next week, Matt goes undercover and meets even more new characters!

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 3.0 “Summerfest Special”

Posted on October 10, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the third of Baywatch begins with a special!

Episode 3.0: “Summerfest Special”

(Originally aired September 13, 1992)

“Hi, I’m David Hasselhoff, here to welcome you to the Summerfest special.”

The third season of Baywatch starts not with a story about Mitch Buchannon and his fellow lifeguards, but with a breezy special about the California lifestyle and what viewers can expect from the upcoming season. David Hasselhoff stands on the beach in his Baywatch uniform and earnestly talks about how important lifeguards are and how the show is all about celebrating their heroism.

“Life’s a beach,” Hasselhoff says, “and everyone’s life is at the beach.”

“We’ll be back with the latest in barely legal swimwear!” announcer Sean “Hollywood” Hamilton says as the special goes to commercial. Yes, that is the actual line.

In between shots of beachgoers in bikinis, the Summerfest Special features interviews with the cast members joining Baywatch in season 3. Susan Anton talks about being dramatically taller than her on-screen daughter, Nicole Eggert. David Charvet is introduced as “Baywatch’s newest bad boy.” Alexandra Paul says that maybe her character and Mitch will hook up, then laughs. Kelly Slater says that he’s not really an actor, but he joined the cast to show the world what “surfing is all about.” Pamela Anderson says that she’s looking forward to playing a “metaphysical character” because she’s very metaphysical herself. Gregory Alan Williams, who is being promoted to regular status in season 3, talks about saving a bystander during a riot because “I don’t like mobs.”

In between even more shots of beachgoers in bikinis, Hasselhoff talks about his music career and says that Baywatch is a show the entire family can watch. He adds, “Skimpy apparel is a part of the appeal.” This is followed by a montage of women in bikinis.

The Summerfest Special isn’t streaming on Tubi or Prime, but it is available on YouTube. The version I watched included all of the commercials that aired with the show. There weren’t any pharma commercials, which I appreciated. In America, we don’t really realize how bombarded we are with commercials for medicine with potentially deadly side effects until we get a chance to watch a complete broadcast from a time when no one in their right mind would think of advertising prescription medication on television.

Instead, I got a lot of commercials for local businesses and special musical compilation albums. There was a commercial for a Dodge dealership that bragged about how their vehicles came with airbags. In the middle of a commercial for a gospel album, a preacher said, “Who the hell left the gate open?” and everyone in the church cheered. A woman quit her job with confidence because of her Secret deodorant. “I’ll borrow my mother’s scarf,” a young woman who reminded me of myself declared, “but my mother’s tampons? No way!” A bunch of teen soccer players announced they’d rather drink “Sunny D” than “soda” or “purple stuff.” I’m from the South, so it always sounds weird to hear people refer to Coke as soda. It’s even weirder to see people preferring an orange drink to it.

If I seem to be spending a lot of time on the commercials, that’s because they felt like little mini time machines. Watching them was like taking a 30-second trip back to the early ’90s. As for the rest of the special, it was essentially a lengthy commercial for Baywatch and bikinis, but everyone interviewed seemed to be in a really good mood. They were having fun, and that’s the important thing.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.22 “Summer of ’85”

Posted on October 3, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, season 2 comes to an end!

Episode 2.22 “Summer of ’85”

(Dir by Michael Berk, originally aired on May 18th, 1992)

This was the second-season finale, and it is an odd note to end on. David Hasselhoff is billed and never appears. Baywatch without Mitch is already a strange choice for a season finale; making the hour an Eddie-and-Shauni murder-mystery-slash-old-flame reunion makes it stranger. Tom McTigue’s Harvey has a prominent role in this episode but Hasselhoff, the show’s center of gravity is missing, and you feel it.

As for the plot: frustrated by life on a cramped boat and partly at Harvey’s urging, Shauni drags Eddie to a psychic named Rosalind (the one and only Toni Basil!). Eddie is a skeptic. When Rosalind tells him he will soon meet his first true love, Eddie says that Shauni already is. Rosalind disagrees.

Soon afterward, Eddie spots a woman sketching on a sailboat who looks painfully familiar. He is sure she is Lorna Cosgrove (Michelle Rogers). Eddie was fifteen when he first met her while vacationing at a friend’s place on Nantucket. Lorna asked if she could paint him. He agreed. Eventually he lost his virginity to her but, later that night, he saw an older man at her door, got jealous and never spoke to her again.

When Eddie approaches the woman, she denies being Lorna and calls herself Caitlin. The next day, she pays a boy to deliver a copy of the painting to Eddie’s tower. That not only proves she is Lorna; it also proves she was a terrible painter. I have seen motel art more impressive than her portrait of Eddie fishing.

Shauni is suspicious, and with good reason. There is a warrant for Lorna’s arrest. The same night Eddie slept with her, her husband was shot, and Lorna was the prime suspect. Can Eddie prove she is innocent?

That continuity, for those who care about that sort of thing, in this episode is a mess. In “Point of Attack,” Eddie claimed he did not even see the ocean until he was nineteen. The first season established that he was Philadelphia street kid who grew up in the foster system. And yet, in this episode, here he is at fifteen, on Nantucket, fishing, posing, and losing his virginity in a beach house. As well, this episode plants Shauni and Eddie on a houseboat, with Shauni announcing that they have to get an apartment. The previous episode, “Game of Chance,” had just moved her onto that boat after a fight with her father. Earlier in the season, though, the show had already treated them as live-in partners, sometimes in an apartment. Continuity be damned, I guess. It’s almost as if the show’s writers just didn’t care.

In the end, Baywatch without Hasselhoff is pointless. That said, Toni Basil is amusing as Rosalind. This is definitely a case of a performer giving a better performance than the material deserved.

That closes the first syndicated season of Baywatch, and the second season of the series overall. For the most part, season 2 was dumb and fun. The best episodes used Hasselhoff’s innate earnestness. The worst got too cutesy, especially “Now Sit Right Back and You’ll Hear a Tale,” the one where Eddie dreams he is on Gilligan’s Island. Billy Warlock and Erika Eleniak were both adequate as Eddie and Shauni, but neither was happy with the show’s turn once it entered syndication, and that unhappiness often showed.

Next week, we start season 3!

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.21 “Game of Chance”

Posted on September 26, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Harvey has a gambling problem.

Episode 2.21 “Game of Chance”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on May 11th, 1992)

Harvey (Tom McTigue), the lifeguard who always appears in the opening credits but rarely does anything in the actual show, actually gets a storyline in this episode.

Harvey is on a boat in the ocean, taking part in a floating poker game. Mitch kayaks out to the game so he can tell Harvey to “fold” and get to work. Harvey, however, has a great hand. He wins everyone’s money. Unfortunately, a masked man then shows up and steals all the money for himself. (Whoever put this poker game together should have splurged a little on security.) Mitch and Harvey investigate the robbery and eventually discover that the thief owns an amphibious jeep. This leads to a less-than-exciting chase scene and Hasselhoff making jokes about a talking car.

Meanwhile, Shauni is frustrated because her father doesn’t approve of her dating Eddie. Even after Eddie saves Shauni’s older sister from drowning, her father continues to look down on him. Shauni finally decides to defy her father and move in with the man she loves. This would be really touching except for the fact that Shauni and Eddie have supposedly been living together for a while now. Just last week, someone asked Shauni what it was like to live with Eddie. I’m going to guess that this episode was originally meant to air earlier in the season but, for some reason, got pushed to the back.

This was all pretty silly, and the script itself felt like something left over from the first season, when Shauni was still a spoiled princess, Eddie was a rough-edged former delinquent, and John Cort was the resident trouble-making lifeguard.

Next week, the second season comes to an end.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.20 “The Big Spill”

Posted on September 19, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, someone has turned a lagoon into a death trap!

Episode 2.20 “The Big Spill”

(Originally aired on May 4th, 1992)

This week, Lane Brody returns!

Now, if you’re like me, your initial reaction to that is to say, “Who?” When I first saw Lane Brody (played by Jeff Lester) at Baywatch Headquarters, I found myself wondering why everyone was so happy to see him, because I didn’t have the slightest idea who he was. For once I decided to do some research instead of just making a wild guess as to what was going on.

What I found is a little messier than the episode implies. Jeff Lester had appeared once in season 1, in “Old Friends”—but as Lance Jarvis, a different character. This episode presents Lane as a former Baywatch lifeguard turned environmental activist and as Mitch’s old friend. The writers seem to have assumed viewers would greet him like a returning regular and be immediately invested in his story. One has to admire the show’s confidence, if nothing else.

In this episode, Lane is established as being a member of Green Force, a group of environmentalists who take “direct action” against hunters and oil companies. Mitch agrees with Green Force’s belief in protecting the environment, but he feels that their tactics are counterproductive. When Hobie and his friend Brenda (Patricia Supancic) get sick after a dip in a polluted lagoon, Mitch reconsiders his stand.

Lane is convinced that the lagoon was polluted by Transicon Industries. When he sneaks into a Transicon chemical plant to look for evidence, he’s attacked by the company’s goons and then framed for polluting the lagoon himself. With Lane out of commission, it’s up to Mitch and Shauni to break into the plant and find the evidence. Fortunately, Ben Edwards has some wave runners they can use to make their escape. Everyone at Baywatch is united in their love for Lane Brody.

This was another action-oriented installment of Baywatch. The message is sincere, but the villains are such caricatures that it’s hard to take the show seriously. It ends with Mitch and a recovering Hobie surfing in the ocean. It’s a nice moment of bonding.

Finally, I have no proof of this, but I find it interesting that this episode seems to indicate Lane Brody was willing to return to Baywatch, and that season 3 then introduced a new lifeguard named Matt Brody. As far as I know, Lane and Matt weren’t related, but it still wouldn’t surprise me if Matt was originally going to be Lane. Again, that’s all just speculation on my part. It could also just be that someone on the show liked the last name Brody.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.19 “The Lost Treasure of Tower 12”

Posted on September 12, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Harvey gets to do something.

Episode 2.19 “The Lost Treasure of Tower 12”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on April 27th, 1992)

After a season of appearing in the opening credits and rarely anywhere else, Harvey (Tom McTigue) finally gets a storyline. Because Mitch is going on a camping trip, he has Harvey replace him as the teacher of a windsurfing class. Harvey is excited because the students all attend a local girls’ school. That would presumably mean they’re teenagers, while Harvey appears to be in his thirties.

As Ben correctly deduces, Harvey has no idea how to windsurf. This becomes obvious as soon as Harvey and Ben meet the bikini-clad students on the beach. (Harvey tells all the girls to write down their phone numbers. Again: the girls are teenagers, and Harvey is definitely not.) After watching Harvey struggle with the basics, the students start to walk away. Ben steps up and announces that he can teach them. What follows is a montage of the girls windsurfing while a dejected Harvey stares straight at the camera.

That’s the B-plot. The A-plot features Michael Bendetti as Ian, a poet who lives on the beach and finds a box of stolen jewels a thief buried in the sand. Ian uses the jewelry to bankroll his courtship of Shauni. (Ian has a crush.) The thieves aren’t happy about that.

This episode just felt off. With his obsessive crush on Shauni, Ian comes across as a stalker, and yet I think we were supposed to be charmed by how relentless he was. There’s even an extended fantasy sequence in which Ian imagines dancing with Shauni under a chandelier suspended above the beach. Meanwhile, the main thief is so cruel that he throws the episode out of whack. It’s hard to reconcile a scene of Newmie and Eddie pulling a dead body out of the ocean with the lightweight humor of Harvey trying to windsurf.

This episode confirms something I’ve suspected from the moment I started reviewing this show. The early seasons of Baywatch worked best when they focused on David Hasselhoff’s somewhat corny but undeniably earnest portrayal of Mitch Buchannon. Whenever Hasselhoff isn’t in an episode (or appears in just one scene), the cynicism at the heart of the show — and the emptiness of its style-heavy approach — is much harder to ignore.

In short, Baywatch needed the Hoff.