Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.9 “Cutting Edge”

Posted on July 7, 2026 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 Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, TC goes surfing!

Episode 4.9 “Cutting Edge”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on October 18th, 1998)

When an up-and-coming surfer named Kenny Slaughter (Reed Ferichs) is pressured by a corrupt surf board salesman named Rip Cutter (Matt Battaglia), TC befriends Kenny. He and Kenny go surfing. They discuss the philosophy of catching a great wave. “Are you sure you’re a cop?” Kenny asks.

Uhmm, Kenny …. are you kidding? TC is the most uptight guy on the beach. Everything about him screams “cop.”

This episode is an example of something that happened quite frequently with Pacific Blue. One of the bike cops would befriend someone and the viewer would be left to wonder how that could have possibly happened. Friendship usually requires a modicum of likability and that’s something that no one on this show seems to have. Whether it’s Chris saying, “Just doing my job,” after nearly running someone down with her bicycle or Cory rolling her eyes every time that she has to deal with anyone younger than her, there are literally no likable bike cops. Even this episode features Cory complaining about the attitude that Kenny gave her when she arrested him while he and Rip were having a fight on the beach. It’s hard not to notice that almost every episode features Cory complaining about someone’s attitude. It’s a bit of a cliche but it’s true. If everyone you meet is a jerk, that means that you’re the jerk.

TC assigns Monica to work undercover in Rip’s surf shop. This means that Monica has to frequently come over to TC’s apartment to give him updates. Because TC can’t tell anyone that Monica is working undercover, Chris gets suspicious about why Monica is always coming over. Chris and Cory being paranoid about Monica has been going on for nine episodes now and I think that, narratively, it might be a good idea to just move on from it. It wasn’t that interesting to begin with and, at this point, Chris and Cory are just coming across as being overage mean girls.

Anyway, this episode actually felt like an abandoned Baywatch storyline. TC’s no surfer.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.8 “Heat In The Hole”

Posted on June 23, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Chris is finally sent to prison.

Episode 4.8 “Heat In The Hole”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on October 11th, 1998)

This is the dumbest episode of Pacific Blue yet and that’s really saying something.

The incarcerated are being murdered at the local women’s prison so, of course, a bicycle cop is sent in undercover. Actually, two bicycle cops are sent in. The homicide squad wants Chris to go in and pretend to be a prisoner. TC gets jealous of the hunky homicide detective who is in charge of the case so he assigns Bobby to go undercover as a prison guard and keep an eye on Chris.

This is one of those women’s prisons where everyone is young and attractive (no meth addicts here!) and apparently the official uniform is a tank top. It doesn’t take long for Chris to establish herself as being tough and willing to fight. Every prisoner comes to respect her, which is important because, when a riot breaks out, Chris reveals she’s a cop and that she needs the help of the prisoners.

And the prisoners are cool with that.

Seriously.

“Ignore the cop part,” someone says, “Think of how she’s treated us!”

That’s the power of being a bicycle cop. You can show up in a prison, beat people up for two days, betray everyone’s confidence, and the prisoners will still forgive you for …. reasons, I guess.

Needless to say, if you’re an undercover cop in prison, do not reveal the truth in the middle of a prison riot. That might work on Pacific Blue but it’s probably the dumbest thing you can do in real life.

While TC is sitting around at home worried, Monica sees this as her chance to make a move on him. Considering that TC and Chris haven’t stopped arguing since they impulsively got married in Vegas, maybe Monica isn’t really the problem here. I know that we’re supposed to be rooting for TC and Chris but neither one of them is particularly likable. I would not want to go out on a couples date with them.

At the end of this episode, two corrupt prison guards are arrested. Chris leaves the prison. TC pretends to be happy about it.

This was a dumb episode.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.7 “Damaged Goods”

Posted on June 16, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bike cops are it again.

Episode 4.7 “Damaged Goods”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on October 4th, 1998)

Bobby has a new girlfriend named Annie (Tracy Hutson). Bobby says that he’s in love with her. Meanwhile, Granger is in lust with Annie’s best friend, Jo (Shannon Elizabeth, in an early role). After Granger sleeps with Jo, Jo tells him that he owes her $200. It turns out that both Jo and Annie get paid to have sex. Meanwhile, Annie’s roommate is found dead below a 6-story window.

Chris is convinced that Annie’s roommate was murdered. TC and Cory disagree. TC is especially angry because he thinks Chris is spending too much time hanging out with her friends in Homicide. Oddly enough, none of those friends show up in this episode. As well. no one from the Vice Squad shows up to investigate the campus prostitution ring. Instead, this is yet another episode where it somehow all falls to the bicycle cops.

Monica goes undercover and joins Jo and Annie’s therapy group, where Dr. Alicia Alper (Joyce Hyser) teaches that prostitution is empowering. Soon, Jo recruits Monica to work as a an escort. Or, at least, I think it was Jo. This episode is edited in such a haphazard way that it was hard to keep track of what was actually going on.

This episode finds Cory worrying about how she’s going to survive as a single mom. Her ex-boyfriend, Doug (Owen McKibben), returns and says that he wants to be in the baby’s life. Cory says that it’s been over a month since Doug reacted to the news of her pregnancy by walking out on her. Doug threatens to sue for the right to be a part of the baby’s life. Cory has a miscarriage. She says it was due to the stress Doug put her under. Doug says that it was due to Cory still working a very physically demanding and rough job despite being pregnant. I felt so bad for Cory in this episode, especially since the only person (other than Doug) who bothered to visit her in the hospital was Chris, who is pretty much incapable of feeling or showing emotion.

Anyway, it turns out that Annie’s roommate was murdered by a client and then the client was murdered by Dr. Alper. However, when the bike cops arrest her, several other woman all walk up and declares that Dr. Alper is innocent because they killed the client. However, Dr. Alper confesses. Bobby breaks up with his girlfriend. That’s probably for the best. Everyone knows Bobby should be with Monica.

This episode …. oh God. I mean, it tried to liven things up a little. There were a lot of intense interrogation scenes and a lot of jump cuts that were apparently meant to create tension. We would watch Chris ask a question and then jump to someone in a totally different room answering an unrelated question. It was very showy but it wasn’t very effective. These folks aren’t hard-boiled detectives. They’re bicycle cops.

Seriously, where were the real detectives?

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.5 “Overkill”

Posted on May 26, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s time for another stupid trip to L.A.

Episode 4.5 “Overkill”

(Dir by Sara Rose, originally aired on August 23rd, 1998)

Jamie is learning martial arts from Master Soo Han (Yoshi Jenkins). When she is saved from a group of muggers by a fellow classmate named Kyle (Matty Liu), she starts to fall in love with him. Soon, he is teaching her how to be a better fighter. For some reason, Jamie doesn’t tell Kyle that she’s a cop. That makes things awkward when Kyle realizes that 1) the man who killed his mother is a student in the class and 2) Kyle is being groomed to be a government assassin.

I’ve always said that you can tell when a show has cast a professional athlete in a guest role because the athlete is always the worst actor in the episode. That was certainly the case here. At first, I was sure that Matty Liu was a professional martial artist. It turns out that he’s actually a pro surfer but still, my point stands. It doesn’t matter how many camera tricks or jump cuts the show uses to make Liu look like a badass, he’s still an amazingly stiff actor. The scenes of him and Jamie falling in love don’t work because he’s not capable of showing any emotion, let alone love.

Speaking of love, Chris is still mad that her husband didn’t select her to be promoted to sergeant. When she discovers a murder victim, she impresses Homicide Detective Thomas (Carl T. Evans) by figuring out that the victim died from a — wait for it — broken neck. WOW! Amazing deduction, Chris! I mean, how difficult is it to spot a broken neck? Even though Chris is neither a medical examiner nor a detective, Thomas invites her to fill in for a sick Homicide detective. Chris accepts.

TC’s not happy about that! Actually, TC’s never happy. He’s been in charge of Pacific Blue for five episodes now and he hasn’t smiled once. He has spent a lot of time glaring. In fact, both he and Cory spend most of their time glaring at other people now. I guess that’s what you do when you’re in charge, management by glaring.

Finally, Bobby and Spazz compete over — wait a minute, I got a name wrong there. What is Spazz’s real name? Is it Granger? Yeah, okay, sorry about that. Bobby and Granger serve as body guards for a French actress (Lydie Denier), who claims that she’s being stalked. Bobby has seen all of her films but she’s more attracted to Spazz, for some reason. Sorry, Bobby! I would have picked you.

Anyway, this was one of Pacific Blue’s dumbest episodes yet. Chris is even more whiny than usual. TC and Cory are useless. Jamie and Kyle’s fight scenes are edited in such a way that one gets dizzy trying to follow them. This episode featured bad acting and worst direction, No wonder Chris wants to transfer to Homicide.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.3 “Seduced”

Posted on May 12, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bicycle cops clean up Malibu.

Episode 4.3 “Seduced”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on August 9th, 1998)

Last week, I said that it appeared that the Pacific Blue recruits were no longer living in their funky loft. Well, it turns out I was wrong. This episode opens with Granger at the funky loft, hosting a party. Unfortunately, the party comes to an abrupt end when Granger tries to play an adult movie on his totally hip VCR. Uh-oh — it turns out that the lead actress in Barely Legal is the 16 year-old sister of one of Granger’s (dead) friends!

(She’s also played by Alison Lohman, a reminder that everyone had to start somewhere.)

Granger and Bobby Cruz set out to take down Malibu’s adult movie underground. TC agrees to help by telling Jamie Strickland to go undercover as a film student who needs a job. Strickland says that she’ll do it but she’s not going to have sex on camera. However, once she reaches the set, the sleazy director decides to put her in the film. Strickland calls Cory. Cory says, “We can’t pull you out now.”

Really? You can’t? Why are bicycle cops even going undercover?

Meanwhile, Playpen magazine offers Monica money to pose for them. They offer even more money if Monica can get the other women of Pacific Blue to pose as well. Needless to say, the other women of Pacific Blue are not willing to pose and they talk about how demeaning Playpen is for women. (Cory, who is pregnant but not showing, is at least tempted.) But the show still features a lengthy montage of Monica’s photoshoot. This show always tries to have it both ways.

This episode probably would have worked better if Granger was actually an interesting character but he’s not. It also would have helped if we knew anything about Strickland’s character, beyond the fact that she’s super-competent, but we don’t. Even the veteran characters — TC, Chris, and Cory — don’t really have any personality. Thankfully, this season has got Mario Lopez playing Bobby Cruz like A.C. Slater on a bicycle and Shanna Moakler, playing Monica as a scheming agent of chaos. Only Lopez and Moakler seem to to have really understood what type of show they were on.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.2 “Treasure Hunt”

Posted on May 5, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, cliffhangers are abandoned and emotions run wild.

Episode 4.2 “Treasure Hunt”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on August 2nd, 1998)

When last we checked in with Pacific Blue, we had a bit of cliffhanger going on. Bobby Cruz was still considering whether or not to become a bicycle cop. Detective Monica Harper was preparing to go back to her usual department. And TC had just announced to Strickland and Granger that he wasn’t sure whether or not they would be continuing as bike cops.

Well, apparently, that all got worked out between episodes. Strickland and Graner are still bike cops and they no longer appear to be living in that funky loft they were occupying during the previous episode. Bobby is now a bike cop. And Monica is a bike cop too because apparently, she got transferred to Pacific Blue. She explains to Bobby that she goes wherever she’s sent but she’s not real happy about being a bike cop. Hey, Monica, we’ve already got a whiny character on this show. We don’t need another.

That whiny character — and yes, it is Chris Kelly — wants to be a sergeant. So does Cory. Both Chris and Cory take the sergeant’s exam. Chris scores higher, though only by five points. However, TC offers the sergeant’s position to Cory. Chris, of course, whines about his decision. TC replies that Cory’s been with the department longer and, unlike Chris, she’s never been written up for having a bad attitude. TC feels that Cory will be a better role model for the new recruits and he’s probably right. I mean, one of the few consistent things about Pacific Blue has been that Chris is generally thin-skinned and fairly rude to the people that citizens that she’s supposed to be protecting. Chris is the bike cop who always seemed to be annoyed whenever she actually has to talk to anyone who doesn’t ride a bicycle.

One reason that is not mentioned for TC not promoting Chris is that Chris and TC are now married and I have to wonder how it would look if TC’s first action as commander was to promote his wife. Honestly, how are TC and Chris even working together now? This seems like a textbook case of conflict of interest.

As for the rest of the show, Strickland killed her first bad guy. Shaken after shooting a convenience store robber, Strickland goes to a bar and gets drugged! It turns out that someone is slipping GHB into the drinks on the boardwalk. Could it have something to do with two obnoxious radio hosts who are broadcasting from the pier? Bobby Cruz is not happy when he discovers that his 15 year-old sister is apparently a fan of their program….

Yes, Bobby Cruz is a Mexican-American bicycle cop from a tough neighborhood who is very protective of his younger sister. Wasn’t that Victor Del Toro’s character as well? Being from Texas, I’ve always been very aware of how television has always stereotyped any character who happens to have a Spanish last name. With Pacific Blue, it looks like they just crossed out Victor Del Toro’s name in their scripts and wrote in Bobby Cruz instead.

Finally, Monica is looking for a new apartment. Cory tries to keep Monica from finding out that there’s an apartment available in her building because …. Cory’s a bitch, maybe? I don’t know. It’s very out-of-character for Cory. How is Cory going to be a sergeant if she gets this upset and petty over a new person being assigned to Pacific Blue?

Oh! Also, Cory’s pregnant! So far, only Chris knows. Why would anyone tell Chris anything? Chris is like hella mean….

Wow, a lot happened in this episode! In fact, I’d say almost too much happened in this episode. One got the feeling that the show’s writers wanted to focus on the newer members of the squad but, at the same time, they knew they had to come up with something for Chris to whine about. In the past, Pacific Blue often felt understuffed. This episode was definitely overstuffed.

Something is going to have to give.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.1 “Glass Houses”

Posted on April 28, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we start season 4!

Episode 4.1 “Glass Houses”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on July 26th, 1998)

The fourth season of Pacific Blue opens with many changes.

Palermo and Victor have retired. Cory is now dating Doug Fraser (Owen McKibbin). At the start of the episode, Cory and Doug accompany TC and Chris to Vegas, where they are married by — you guessed it! — an Elvis impersonator.

TC is now in charge of Pacific Blue and, while Chris and Cory both make plans to take the sergeant’s exam, TC focuses on bringing in some new blood. At the police academy, he recruits two recent graduates — hyper-competent Jaime Strickland (Amy Hunter) and edgy rebel Russ Granger (Jeff Stearns). He asks and gets undercover cop Monica Harper (Shanna Moakler) transferred to Pacific Blue so that she can go undercover to break up a meth operation at the local college. Everyone is shocked when Monica turns out to be young and blonde. Were they expecting a 40 year-old undercover college student?

Not happy about having to ride a bicycle, Russ decides to insert himself into Monica’s undercover operation. Monica and Russ meet the two main dealers, Quincy (Joe Michael Burke) and Cherry (Michelle Beauchamp). They discover that they’re getting their drugs from a chemistry professor (Robin Thomas). What they don’t do is make an arrest. Quincy and Cherry murder the professor and escape after setting off a bomb in the chemistry lab.

TC is not happy with his new cops. In fact, the episode ends with him telling them that he has doubts about whether or not to keep them at Pacific Blue. Fortunately, we the viewers know that they’ll be okay because they are all now listed in the opening credits.

Also listed in the opening credits is Bobby Cruz (Mario Lopez), the campus cop who drags Monica out of the laboratory right before it explodes. Bobby has a history. He was a member of the LAPD but, disgusted by the anti-Mexican racism that he saw, he became a campus cop instead. (Where I went to college, the campus cops were the biggest joke around.) TC offers Bobby a chance to be a member of Pacific Blue. Bobby says that he’ll think about it. We all know that means yes.

And that’s a good thing because this show could definitely use more Mario Lopez! In fact, the only reason I started reviewing this stupid series was because I knew Mario would be joining the cast eventually. Let’s hope Mario’s magic starts to make things better soon!

As for this episode, it was …. well, it wasn’t good. Other than Lopez, none of the new characters really made much of an impression. But, I am an optimist. I have hope.

Never give up hope.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.22 “Best Laid Plans”

Posted on April 21, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, season 3 comes to an end.

Episode 3.22 “Best Laid Plans”

(Dir by John B. Moranville, originally aired on April 19th, 1998)

Heh heh …. they said laid.

The third season finale of Pacific Blue finds everyone at a crossroads, almost as if the showrunners weren’t sure who would be back for the fourth season so they wanted to make sure that everyone had an excuse to leave. There’s a lot of personal drama in this episode and I guess it would be compelling if any of these people were the least bit likable or sympathetic.

Victor Del Toro is being investigated by Internal Affairs and he spends the majority of the episode telling people that he suspects that he’s going to lose his job.

Cory is dumped by her long-distance boyfriend and leaps into a new relationship with some guy she accidentally punched at a bar. (She was trying to hit his friend, who was being pretty obnoxious at the time.)

Chris takes a pregnancy test and it’s positive. TC asks her to marry him. Despite the fact that Chris was previously hoping TC would ask her to marry him, Chris says no because …. well, because Chris is the worst. No, actually, it’s because Chris doesn’t want TC to marry her just because he feels like he has to. Chris and TC have separate scenes where they imagine how wonderful it would be to have a baby and how annoying it will be once the baby grows up to be a bratty teenager. But then Chris finds out that it was a false positive.

Palermo, meanwhile, is burned out. He’s feeling old. He wants to do more than just look at crime scenes. Plus, he’s having sex with a 22 year-old (played by Saved By The Bell: The Next Class’s Sarah Lancaster) and he’d rather do that then go to work.

Sadly, Palermo does have to go to work. A gang of criminals is breaking into people’s home and carving letters on their foreheads. (The letters correspond to their last name — Edwards gets an E and so on.) It turns out that the leader of the gang blame Palermo for his mother’s death and is spelling out P-A-L-E-R-M-O. The bad guys are always one step ahead because a member of the gang (Ginny Shcrieber) is working as a receptionist at Pacific Blue headquarters. Do they not do background checks before hiring people?

Palermo does catch the guy, though only after several people have been permanently scarred. Once again, you have to wonder why the bike cops are the only people working these cases. Add that the end of the episode, Palermo announces he’s going to Italy.

That’s one down and four more to go! Who will be around for season 4?

We’ll find out next week!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.21 “Till Death Do Us Part”

Posted on April 14, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a loved one dies.

Episode 3.21 “Till Death Do Us Part”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on April 12th, 1998)

When two robbers invade a high-end clothing store and shoot a security guard, they also accidentally shoot and kill Linda, Victor’s fiancée. In fact, Linda was trying on a wedding dress when she was shot. She was accompanied by Chris. In typical Pacific Blue style, even though Victor is the one who has just lost his fiancée, Chris also gets a chance to tell everyone that it’s also something that she’ll never recover from because she was the one who was actually there when it happened. Chris is so upset that she initially refuses to even change her clothes, even though they’ve been splattered with Linda’s blood. The show seems to think that this makes Chris into a strong character. Personally, I think it makes her someone who is so self-centered that she even has to make the death of someone else’s fiancée all about her. I can only imagine how Victor feels seeing Linda’s blood all over Chris’s shirt.

As for Victor, he goes on a rampage, tearing up Santa Monica until he finds the man who shot Linda. Victor ignores regulations. He breaks rules. He nearly shoots the killer in a parking lot and his partner Cory promises to back him up if he pulls the trigger. In the end, Victor is not a cold-blooded murderer. He allows the killer to be arrested. He tells the killer that he can’t wait to witness his execution. (Good luck, Victor. You’re in California!) But, as the episode ends, it’s mentioned that Internal Affairs is going to want his badge.

(Apparently, that will be dealt with in next week’s episode, which is also the season three finale.)

Watching this episode, I can found myself asking myself if all the other cops in Santa Monica have been fired. I didn’t see anyone other than the bicycle cops investigating the robberies or the shootings. I didn’t see anyone from Homicide looking into Linda’s murder. Instead, the entire episode was full of people trying to look tough while wearing bicycle shorts.

It just can’t be done!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.20 “With This Ring”

Posted on April 7, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, infedility is in the air.

Episode 3.20 “With This Ring”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on April 5th, 1998)

When Cory and Victor find a dead man on the beach, all of the evidence seems to indicate that he was killed as a result of an extramarital affair. His widow previously hired a detective agency to test his fidelity. His killer forced his own wedding ring down his throat. Someone is killing cheaters.

So, of course, Palermo has Cory and Victor go undercover as a married couple.

This isn’t the first episode of Pacific Blue to feature the bike cops going undercover. It’s actually something that has happened fairly frequently during the third season. On the one hand, it gets the characters off of those stupid bicycles. On the other hand, why would a bunch of bike cops be investigating crimes? Bicycle cops are like any other uniformed cop. Their job is to keep general order, issue tickets, and secure crime scenes until the actual detectives can show up. The bicycle cops are police officers but they’re not detectives. At least, that’s the way it works in the real world. In the world of Pacific Blue, the Malibu PD apparently doesn’t have a plainclothes department and all of the work is done by the same 5 bicycle cops.

While Cory and Victor go undercover, TC tries to deal with the fact that his parents are splitting up, He really struggles with the news of their upcoming divorce. TC is also in his mid-30s. Once you’re closer to 40 than 30, you should be able to handle your parents splitting up with a modicum of maturity. The only good thing about this storyline is that wonderful Andy Buckley made one of his far-too infrequent appearances as TC’s older brother.

This episode ended with TC and Chris promising each other that, in 35 years, they would still be together. Those will probably be the 35 most boring years of anyone’s lives.

This was another forgettable episode. At least there’s only two episodes left this season. And starting with season 4, Mario Lopez arrives as a new member of Pacific Blue! It can’t happen soon enough.