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!

Yep, it’s another late review.  Sorry, I was exhausted last night.

Episode 1.16 “The Curator”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on March 9th, 1996)

When Garth Youngblood (Steven Culp) threatens to shoot himself in her lifeguard tower, Caroline Holdren (Yasmine Bleeth) begs him not to and tells him that he not only has a lot to live but his name isn’t half as stupid as he thinks that it is.  Deciding that Caroline is in love with him, Garth turns into a full-on psycho, the type of guy who chases Caroline across the beach, puts Lifeguard Newman (Michael Newman) in the hospital, flirts with Donna, and ultimately ends up locking Caroline in a cage made to resemble an apartment, much as what happened to Billy Pilgrim in Slaughter-House Five.

Caroline turns to Mitch and his detective agency for protection. Of course, as head lifeguard, Mitch is already Caroline’s boss so he already should be looking out for her.  Unfortunately, even after Garth is arrested, he’s released after he explains that he forgot to take his Prozac.  (That’s the actual excuse that they give!  Never mind that everyone’s favorite lifeguard, Newmie!, is in the hospital because Garth smashed his head through a window.)  Garth is given a restraining but, because Caroline works on the beach, it’s easy for Garth to watch her while standing 100 feet away.

Now, on the plus side, Steven Culp was believably creepy as Garth and this episode had no fear of embracing the storyline for all of the macabre melodrama that it could.  Yasmine Bleeth also does a good job portraying Caroline’s growing fear as Garth grows more and more unstable.  As an actress on Baywatch, I’m sure she had to deal with a lot of real-life Garths and, speaking as someone who has been stalked, I appreciated that both Bleeth and the show itself took her fears seriously.  The scene in which Caroline runs across the beach with Garth in pursuit was far more effective and scary than you would ever expect to find on an episode of Baywatch Nights.

That said, this episode highlighted one of the big problems with the second half of Baywatch Night‘s debut season.  This was essentially just an episode of Baywatch, with the extra addition of Angie Harmon flirting with Mitch and Eddie Cibrian’s Griff standing the background.  (I guess Griff is a part of the detective agency now.)  Baywatch Nights originally started as a show about Mitch spending his nights as a private investigator but this episode took place largely during the day and featured Mitch as a lifeguard.  Baywatch Nights without the nights is just Baywatch.

Fear not, though!  We’re just a few episodes away from one of the most radical reboots in television history!