Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 4.12 “Home Fires Burning”

Posted on September 8, 2025 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 Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Prime!

It’s arson and basketball on CHiPs!

Episode 4.12 “Home Fires Burning”

(Dir by Charles Bail, originally aired on February 1st, 1981)

Two arsonists (David Hayward and Michael Cavanugh) are setting RVs on fire as a part of an insurance scam. One man (Jack Kruschen) who hires the arsonists is horrified when their carelessness leads to a security guard getting seriously injured. If the guard dies, the man is looking at serious jail time! (Luckily, the guard doesn’t die and apparently, everyone just forgets about sending his boss to jail.)

Luckily, Baker is there to help track the arsonists down. Ponch, on the other hand, is busy putting together a Highway Patrol basketball team. It’s hard not to notice how much time the Highway Patrol spends on stuff like basketball, dirt bike competitions, and drag car racing. Somehow, Ponch has gone from being the department’s screw-up to now being the guy who is automatically given all of the responsibility. It’s the Ponch Show and everyone knows it.

This episode was directed by veteran stuntman Charles Bail and it does have some spectacular stunts. (A car jumping through an exploding RV was my favorite.) And let’s be honest. I could sit here and spend hours talking about CHiPs became the Ponch Show during the fourth season and how the rest of the cast was underutilized. And I would be totally correct. But the stunts and the car crashes are the main appeal of this show and this episode featured several examples of each.

As such, this was a good episode.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.17 “Code of Silence”

Posted on March 12, 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 You tube!

This week, the stars align and David Hasselhoff finally meets …. THE YAKUZA!

Episode 1.17 “Code of Silence”

(Dir by Charles Bail, originally aired on March 16th, 1996)

While her mother has a desperate conversation on a nearby payphone, young Mariko (Nicole Iiada) wanders onto the beach and spots a sea gull who has gotten tangled up in a fishing net. Fortunately, Mitch Buchannon drives up in his red Baywatch jeep and is able to set the sea gull free. Unfortunately, no sooner has the sea gull flown away then a bunch of Yakuza pull up and promptly kidnap Mariko’s mom.

Is there a detective in the house?

Why, yes, there is!

Well, kinda….

This is yet another episode of Baywatch Nights in which Mitch gets involved in a case as a result of being a lifeguard as opposed to being a private investigator. Indeed, if not for the presence of Angie Harmon, there would be little to distinguish this from an episode of Baywatch. While watching the last few episodes of Baywatch Nights‘s first season, you really can tell that the producers were desperate to bring over the audience that was watching just plan Baywatch. If the first half of the first season was all about David Hasselhoff wearing suits and providing hard-boiled narration, the second half is more about getting everyone onto the beach as quickly as possible.

As for this week’s case, it turns out that the kidnapped woman is a geisha who has a computer disk that the Yakuza wants. While the members of the Yakuza are busy threatening her with all sorts of violence, Mitch is teaming up with her grandfather (played by Soon-Tek Oh) and trying to discover where she’s being held. When Garner and Mitch find out about the Yakuza’s secret headquarters, they launch an assault. You might think that this would be difficult, seeing as how the members of the Yakuza are all ruthless martial artists. Well, it turns out that karate is no match for Mitch’s fists. The ancient art of combat falls before the power of the Hoff.

Somewhat inevitably, the episode ends with Mitch being given two samurai swords by Soon-Tek Oh. When Mitch says that he can’t accept such an expensive gift, Soon-Tek Oh says that no one gets the swords as a gift. Instead, they must be earned by truly displaying the spirit of the samurai. Mitch looks truly touched while Angie Harmon suppresses a laugh.

David Hasselhoff vs. The Yakuza! Well, we all knew it was going to have to happen at some point. That said, I don’t think the Hoff was dealing with first-grade Yakuza. It seems like the Yakuza sent the B-team to California. Well, that was their mistake. It didn’t take much effort for the Hoff to track them down and defeat them and in fact, it felt almost too easy. The Yakuza probably thought the Hoff would be too busy recording a new album to care. Again, their mistake.

Never underestimate the Hoff!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.15 “Thief In The Night”

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Baywatch Nights want to make sure that you know it’s a show about a lifeguard.

Episode 1.15 “Thief In The Night”

(Dir by Charles Bail, originally aired on March 2nd, 1996)

This week, we find Mitch actually doing some lifeguard work for once. I would say that about 35% of the episode features Mitch in his red swim trunks and either hanging out at his tower or at Baywatch Headquarters. At one point, Donna even mentions that, along being a club owner, she’s also training to become a lifeguard. It feels as if the show’s producers are literally standing off-camera, yelling, “This is a Baywatch show! We’re sorry for not doing more Baywatch stuff during the first half of the season! Please start watching!”

As for this week’s case, Mitch, Garner, and Ryan are hired by the snooty yacht club to investigate who has been breaking into their boats and stealing valuable things. The head of the yacht club is Jeri Ross (Kristine Meadows), who is so snooty that she hires Mitch and Garner and then starts to immediately complain about them investigating the yachts. Still, Mitch needs the paycheck, though I’m not sure why since he already has a full-time job as a senior lifeguard.

Mitch figures out that the thief is a scuba diver but he still can’t figure out who the person could be. Perhaps that’s because Mitch keeps referring to thief as being a “he,” when the thief is actually Nina Cutter (Christiana D’Amore), a former Olympic-class swimmer who is now trying to raise money to pay the lawyers who are trying to overturn the embezzlement conviction that landed her brother in prison! Seriously, Mitch, get with the times! Women are just as capable of robbing a yacht as men. Myself, I’ve never robbed a yacht but if I ever felt like doing so, I imagine I could do it just as well as anyone else who has a morbid fear of swimming in the ocean.

Nina sees Mitch investigating the crime and she decides that maybe it would be fun to meet and date him. When Mitch is pulling out of Baywatch HQ, Nina rollerblades behind his truck and pretends to get knocked to the pavement. Mitch jumps out with his first aide kit but he doesn’t jump out in slow motion, which I think was a missed opportunity on the part of the show.

Mitch does fall for Nina but, once he figures out that she’s the thief, he still captures her and sends her to jail. On the bright side, he also saves her from drowning after she hits her head on the bottom of passing boat. Still — what the Hell, Mitch? When did you become so judgmental? What if her brother really is innocent?

This episode was pretty boring. When Mitch wasn’t hanging out at his lifeguard tower, he was underwater in a wet suit and, as anyone who has watched a 60s diving film can tell you, there’s nothing more boring then watching people float around in wet suits. It didn’t help that all the diving scenes took place at night so I really had to strain my already hyperopic eyes to even get a vague idea of what was happening in that dark water. As well, there really wasn’t much chemistry, romantic or otherwise, between Nina and Mitch.

Seriously, I can’t wait for the supernatural episodes to finally start!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.14 “Backup”

Posted on February 13, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Eddie Kramer returns!

Episode 1.14 “Backup”

(Dir by Charles Bail, originally aired on February 24th, 1996)

Visiting his former home for re-certification, former Baywatch lifeguard Eddie Kramer (Billy Warlock) is patrolling the ocean when he comes across a boat that’s on fire and sinking. Two people on a dinghy yell that someone is still on the boat. Eddie boards the boat and doesn’t see anyone. The two people on the dingy continue to insist that someone is on the boat, even as Eddie dives off of it.

Along with Baywatch regular Newman (Michael Newman, the real-life model for Mitch Buchanan), Eddie searches the now sunken boat. And, to his shock, he finds a dead man on the boat. Eddie does a classic “Nooooooooo!” but, being underwater, no one can hear him.

With everyone blaming him for the accident, Eddie continues to insist that no one was alive on the boat when he first checked. Eddie’s old friend and mentor, Mitch Buchanan, decides to investigate the case himself and he soon figures out the truth. The dead man did drown but he was already dead by the time the boat sank! But who wanted to kill him?

It’s actually not much of a mystery as there are only two suspects and it is established early on that they’re working together. In fact, they talk about how they committed the murder before Mitch even figures out that it was a murder so say goodbye to any suspense. The truth of the matter is that the storyline was less about the mystery and more about trying to boost the ratings by reminding everyone that this was a Baywatch show. It might have been more effective if the show had made use of a top-tier Baywatch co-star (David Charvet, Pamela Anderson) as opposed to bringing back Billy Warlock, who hadn’t been on the show for a few seasons before his guest turn here. But then again, bringing on a “current” co-star would have begged the question of “Why do we need a new show to watch a story from the old show?”

There’s a second storyline, in which a man (Barry Pearl) is concerned that his mistress (Valerie Wildman) has hired a hitman to kill him. Garner, Ryan, and Lou all stakeout the mistress and discover that she doesn’t actually want to go through with the plot and that her original plan was to kill the man’s wife. The man is so overjoyed to discover that his mistress wanted to kill his wife that he literally jumps for joy. This was a weird storyline but at least it featured the characters doing real detective work for once.

This was a breezy and entertainingly dumb episode. This is perhaps the first episode to feature every member of the main cast doing something and there was a nice feeling of comradery amongst the regulars. That said, the episode ended with Mitch pointing out that they had solved all the cases and then asking, “What do we do now?” Uhmm …. how about you go to your other job, Mitch?

Seriously, I don’t know how Mitch balances everything.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Baywatch Nights 1.6 “976 Ways To Say I Love You”

Posted on December 19, 2023 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, Ryan goes undercover!

Episode 1.6 “976 Ways To Say I Love You”

(Dir by Charles Bail, originally aired on November 4th, 1995)

The sixth episode of Baywatch Nights opens with Mitch and Garner doing a surveillance job on someone. They are sitting out in their car and watching their target and talking about how much they hate having to work surveillance.

One thing that I’ve noticed about the first few episodes of Baywatch Nights is that Mitch and Garner both seem to spend a lot of time complaining about their job. It’s a bit odd because it’s not like there’s any reason why they have to work as private detectives. Garner could rejoin the police department if he wanted to. Mitch actually has another full-time job as one of the top lifeguards in California. There’s nothing that says they have to spend their nights doing surveillance. (In fact, I’m not even sure how Mitch is balancing being a lifeguard with being a private eye.) I mean, if it’s such a bother being a private eye, just don’t do it anymore!

The surveillance subplot doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the episode. (It’s mostly just there so the episode can feature a joke about Garner and Mitch getting dusted by a crop duster that happens to fly over their convertible.) Instead, the majority of this episode deals with Mitch, Garner, and Ryan helping Addy (Heather Campbell), a former phone sex operator who was scammed by her boss and who is now apparently being stalked by someone who is trying to murder everyone who was involved with Addy’s former career. This is one of those cases that doesn’t really add up to much but it does provide Garner with a chance to do some real detective work and abandon his idea to abandon crime fighting and open a chicken franchise.

(Seriously, that’s what Garner was planning on doing.)

The investigation also leads to Ryan putting on a blonde wig and going undercover as a phone sex operator. Watching this episode, I got the feeling that the entire pitch was, “Angie Harmon says sexy things on the phone,” and the plot was basically developed around that one idea. It should be said that Angie Harmon actually does a pretty good job playing up Ryan’s irritation with having to go undercover. The way she rolled her eyes whenever some mouth-breather started to talk to her told us everything we needed to know about the experience. Unlike her whiny partner, Ryan did what she had to do to solve the case and good for her! Really, this entire series should have just been Ryan kicking ass and solving crimes. Garner and Mitch are just taking up space.

Along with Angie Harmon’s work as Ryan, this episode was also distinguished by the performance of Robert Ginty as the owner of the phone sex company. Ginty was wonderfully sleazy as a businessman who made no apologies for how he made his money. As well, Police Academy fans will probably be happy to see Michael Winslow, as a surveillance technician who imitates static.

The episode was not bad, even if it wasn’t particularly memorable. Ryan did a good job and again proved herself to be the best private eye in California. Seriously, though, Mitch and Garner need to stop crying so much. If you don’t want to do detective stuff, don’t become a detective!