Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.5 “Circle of Fear”

Posted on May 21, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, something is stalking Ryan!

Episode 2.5 “Circle of Fear”

(Dir by Bruce Kessler, originally aired on October 27th, 1996)

This episode opens with a blonde woman performing some sort of strange, witchcraft-related ceremony in the middle of the woods, spinning around until she apparently dies. The next morning, Diamont Teague approaches Mitch and asks him to head out to the woods and investigate the scene of the ceremony.

As I watched Diamont talk to Mitch about witchcraft, it occurred to me that the Baywatch Nights format change that occurred between the end of season one and the start of season two led to some unanswered questions. For one thing, where has Garner disappeared to? Are Mitch and Ryan still private eyes or are they now just hobbyists? (We haven’t seen them in their office since this season started.) Even more importantly, who is Diamont and how does Mitch know him? Why is Diamont continually asking Mitch and Ryan to investigate every strange thing that happens in Malibu? Does Diamont work for the government or is he just someone who is obsessed with the paranormal? Where does Diamont live? Where is Diamont from? Why can’t Diamont ever investigate anything on his own? Why does he always tell Mitch and Ryan to do it? At the start of the season, Diamont pretty much just showed up out-of-nowhere but everyone on the show acts as if he’s been around forever.

At the site of the witchy ceremony, Mitch and Ryan find the remains of an altar and a burned book. A trip down to the local occult library reveals that the book is an ancient magical text. Ryan buys an edition of the book and she takes it home with her. Sitting alone in her new apartment, Ryan finds herself mysteriously compelled to read aloud from the book. That turns out to be a mistake as Ryan soon finds herself being followed by a spirt that apparently wants to possess her and causes harm to come to anyone who annoys her, including a flirtatious waiter and an obnoxious plumber. Can Mitch and Ryan drive the spirit out of Ryan’s apartment without Ryan losing her security deposit?

I enjoyed the episode, even if I’m still not quite clear on why Mitch and Ryan are taking orders from Diamont. After being underutilized over the past few episodes, Angie Harmon steps into the spotlight here and she gives a strong performance, especially in the scenes where she’s first realizing that an unseen spirit is manipulating her and her actions. Harmon’s down-to-earth style provides a nice match to David Hasselhoff’s more “dramatic” style of acting. (Indeed, there’s a part of me that thinks this series would have lasted longer if it had dropped the Baywatch connection and instead focused on Angie Harmon solving mysteries and battling ghosts, goblins, and ghouls.) Baywatch Nights seemed to really hit its stride with this episode.

Next week, Mitch and Ryan travel into the past!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.2 “The Creature”

Posted on April 30, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.20 “Rendezvous”

Posted on April 2, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Mitch and the Gang screw up another easy case.

Episode 1.20 “Rendezvous”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on May 4th, 1996)

Mitch, Ryan, and Garner are hired to track down Bradley Thurman (John Sanderford), a former top executive who embezzled over twenty million dollars and then, with the help of plastic surgery, went into hiding. Thurman has come to California to track down his wife and child, both of whom are in the witness protection program. They are told that, if they help to capture Bradley, they will be entitled to 20% of whatever money is recovered.

“20% of 20,000,000,” Mitch says, dreamily.

“Or 20% of nothing,” Ryan adds, revealing that she at least understands that both this show and presumably Baywatch would be over if Mitch ever became independently wealthy.

Donna and and Griff help out with the case, despite the fact that neither one of them is a detective and they both already have jobs that should presumably keep them busy. I mean, Donna owns a bar and it seems like that would require a lot of work on her part. Instead, she’s always either training to become a life guard, pursuing a modeling career, and trying to help Mitch solve a case. If I was Donna, I would be concerned about the fact that I’m always being told to go flirt with the bad guys. It seems like a dangerous assignment to give to someone who isn’t actually a detective. Griff, as a professional photographer, at least has a skill that is regularly used in actual detective work.

Even though this episode’s story felt like a return to the type of plots that Baywatch Nights featured when it first premiered, it was still a rather inconsequential episode. Bradley Thurman was hardly a clever or even a menacing villain and the fact that he got as close to his wife and his child as he did had less to do with any skill on Thurman’s part and everything to do with Mitch just not being very good at his job.

Actually, why are Mitch, Ryan, and Garner such terrible detectives? Mitch’s problem is that he never seems to focus on the case at hand. Instead, he’s always trying to flirt with Ryan or looking out at the ocean to see if anyone’s drowning. Being a detective requires concentration and that seems to be something that Mitch struggles with. Garner, meanwhile, is a bit too cocky for someone who, despite appearing in the open credits, hardly ever actually appears on the show. But still, Ryan seems like she should have everything that it takes to be a good detective but, every show, she makes the same mistakes as Mitch and Garner. I think Ryan actually is a good detective. She’s just being dragged down by Mitch’s incompetence. I think if Ryan went off on her own, she’d have a lot more success.

Next week, Mitch helps an old friend who thinks his wife is an imposter!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Baywatch Nights 1.11 “Takeover”

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

This week, Baywatch Nights reboots for the first time and gets a brand new opening.

Episodes 1.11 “Takeover”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on February 3rd, 1996)

This week’s episode opens with Mitch arriving at Nights early in the morning. Ryan and Garner are waiting for him and so are all of the club’s waitresses. Some expositional dialogue establishes that Lou Raymond has sold Nights to “D.M. Marco.” The waitresses are waiting to see if they still have jobs. Ryan, Garner, and Mitch are waiting so that they can re-sign a lease for their detective agency….

Eleven episodes into the first season and Baywatch Nights has already rebooted itself! It’s usually not a good sign when a show drastically changes its format or starts writing out old characters and replacing them with new people. Usually, when this happens, it’s because the show’s rating have suddenly declined and the producers are desperately trying to inject some new life into things. It’s never a good sign when something like this happens before the first season is even halfway finished.

As Mitch waits, a blonde wearing a short but not particularly flattering blue dress steps into the club. Mitch assumes that she’s a waitress and starts hitting on her. Ha ha! Joke’s on you, Mitch! She’s Donna Marco (Donna D’Errico) and she’s your new landlord and a new regular on the show! Mitch is stunned to discover that women can be successful in business. This kind of goes against everything that the viewer has previously learned about Mitch but whatever. It’s a reboot! It’s a new world! And now Mitch is apparently one of those guys who is left with his mouth agape over the idea of a woman being the boss.

As for this week’s case, it’s also about business. Someone is targeting the executives of a company called Rancor. Two of those executives went to high school with Mitch so he’s not going to let anyone kill them. That said, a lot of executives who don’t have a previous Mitch connection do end up dying. In fact, this episode has the highest body count of Baywatch Nights so far. At first, Mitch assumes that the murders are being orchestrated by a corporate raider who wants to take over the business and who has apparently never learned how to buy stock. But instead, the murderer turns out to be a blonde executive named Nicki (Sandra Hess), who blames the company for death of her father. Despite her murderous ways, there are some sparks of romance between Nicki and Mitch but that comes to an end when Nicki blows herself up while trying to take out the final Rancor executive.

This was a weird episode, as the pacing felt off and the story was far more violent than any of the ones that came before it. At one point, Mitch gets a favor from an IRS agent by promising him a date with Donna and that just felt really icky. There’s another extended scene where both a businessman and the show’s cameraman spends several minutes leering at Ryan’s legs and again, it just felt off. Previously, the show had never been shy about showing off Angie Harmon’s legs and, speaking as someone who enjoys showing off her own legs, there’s nothing wrong with that but, in this particular episode, it crosses the line from being appreciative to being tacky. One could tell that the show’s producers brainstormed and couldn’t come up with anything better than, “Let’s make Baywatch Nights more like Baywatch!”

What’s sad is that Baywatch Nights really didn’t need a reboot. The first ten episodes were, for the most part, fun and entertaining in their vapid way. This episode, though, feels like it’s begging for attention and that’s never a good look. Don’t worry, though. Not all reboots are bad, as we’ll see in another 11 episodes. That is when we will reach season 2 of Baywatch Nights.

Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986, directed by Jerry Paris)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Police Academy 3 opens with a state in the middle of a fiscal crisis. Money has to be saved somewhere and the governor (Ed Nelson) has decided that it’s not necessary for the state to have two police academies. I am not sure why the governor would be the one to make that determination since the previous two Police Academy films established that the academies are run by the city but I guess I should remember that I’m watching a Police Academy film and not ask too many questions.

Which academy is going to be closed down? Will it be the academy run by Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes) or the one run by Commandant Mauser (Art Metrano, returning from the second film)? Mauser is willing to use any dirty, under-handed trick to keep his academy open. Meanwhile, Lassard has his most recent graduating class returning to instruct his latest batch of recruits. Can Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg) and Michael Winslow’s human sound effects machine save the academy?

When I watched Police Academy 3 this weekend, I was surprised to discover that it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. Maybe it’s because I watched it immediately after the first two films and my senses were dulled but Police Academy 3 turned out to be an amiable and enjoyably stupid comedy. It helped that two of the new recruits were played by Tim Kazurinsky and Bobcat Goldthwait. Returning to the roles that they first played in the second movie, Kazurinsky and Goldthwait make for a good comedic team. As for the rest of the Police Academy regulars, they all do their usual comedy bits like pros and without any fuss. It’s predictable and sometimes, funny.

Police Academy 3 was the first Police Academy film to have a PG-rating and, as a result, the jokes were still as juvenile and crude as the first two movies but, at the same time, Police Academy 3 seems to have made peace with the fact that it’s target audience was a bunch of adolescent boys dropped off at the theater by their mothers. Mauser is still regularly humiliated but no one gets a blow job while standing in front of a podium. This is a Police Academy for the entire family, assuming that your family is easily amused and not too demanding.

Police Academy 3 is a dumb movie and the recurring joke about policemen accidentally entering the Blue Oyster Bar is even less funny the third time that it’s used. There’s also a Japanese recruit who only seems to be included because, back in the 80s, American films were obsessed with making fun of Japan. Despite all that, Police Academy 3 is still not as bad as the usual Police Academy sequel.

But what about Police Academy 4? Check in tomorrow to find out if it’s also better than I initially remembered.

(It’s not.)

Police Academy (1984, directed by Hugh Wilson)

Posted on April 25, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

God help us, it has come to this. After a month and a half being locked down, Lisa and I watched the first two Police Academy movies last night.

The first Police Academy takes place in an unnamed city that appears to be in California. Due to a shortage of officers, the mayor has announced that the police academy will now accept anyone who wants to apply, regardless of their physical or mental condition. Naturally, this leads to a collection of misfits applying. Martinet Lt. Harris (G.W. Bailey) is determined to force all of them to drop out of the academy and he has a point because I wouldn’t trust Michael Winslow’s human sound effects guy to investigate any crimes that were committed in my neighborhood. What’s he going to do? Make silly noises while I’m trying to figure out who stole my car?

The leader of the recruits is Carey Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg). Mahoney is being forced to attend the academy because otherwise, he’ll have to go to jail for disturbing the peace. Police Academy is a film that asks you to believe that a character played by Steve Guttenberg has not only frequently been in trouble with the law but would also make a good cop. Guttenberg doesn’t really do a bad job as Mahoney. He’s a likable actor, even if his filmography has more duds than hits. But he’s still miscast in a role that demands someone like Bill Murray, who could be both tough and funny.

The other recruits include Bubba Smith as Hightower and David Graf as the insane gun nut, Tackleberry. Kim Cattrall is the rich girl who wants to be a cop and who falls in love with Mahoney. George Gaynes is Commandant Lassard, who is out-of-it but not as out-of-it as he would be in the sequels.

You have to wonder how many parents, in the late 80s and early 90s, allowed their children to rent the R-rated Police Academy from the local video store without realizing the the first Police Academy is considerably more raunchy than the later sequels. How did mom and dad react when they walked into the room and discovered their children watching Georgina Spelvin giving George Gaynes a blow job from underneath a podium? Or how about the scene where recruit George Martin (Andrew Rubin) is spied having a threesome in the girl’s dorm? The first Police Academy film is definitely made from the same mold as Animal House, Caddyshack, and Stripes. It’s just not as funny as any of those films.

However, it is funnier than every Police Academy film that followed it. There’s enough solid laughs to make the first Police Academy fun in a stupid way. For instance, just about every scene involving accident-prone Cadet Fackler (Bruce Mahler) was funny. Bubba Smith gets a lot of laughs just by being Bubba Smith in a stupid movie. It’s also hard not to love it when Cadet Hooks (Marion Ramsey) yelled, “Don’t move, Dirtbag!” Hell, I even laughed at the sound effects guy once or twice.

All of the Police Academy films are now on Netflix. Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment.