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

Posted on October 31, 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, 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!

Bonus Horror on TV: Baywatch Nights 2.12 “Frozen Out Of Time” (dir by Rick Jacobson)

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I share this 1997 episode of Baywatch Nights every October because it’s just wonderfully strange. Two 900 year-old Vikings have been unfrozen and are causing chaos in Los Angeles! Who can stop them?

David Hasselhoff, of course!

(You can read my review of this beautifully odd episode here. Valhalla!)

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 2.21 “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.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.18 “Sharks Cove”

Posted on September 5, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we meet Eddie’s never-before mentioned brother.

Episode 2.18 “Sharks Cove”

(Dir by Monte Markham, originally aired on April 20th, 1992)

Shauni’s friend Debbie Kent (Monica Lacy) throws a party on the beach with her boyfriend, Zack (Spencer Rochfort). When Debbie and Zack get in the water, Debbie suddenly yells out Zack’s name and is then apparently pulled below the surface by something. Zack runs back to the beach and says that a shark got Debbie.

Shauni, who is still haunted by Jill’s shark-related death in season one, insists on investigating this one on her own. She quickly figures out that Debbie faked her death because her father (Ernie Lively) was putting too much pressure on her to become a competitive, Olympic-class swimmer. It turns out that Debbie has just been hiding out in Zack’s trailer for the past few hours.

Meanwhile, Eddie decides to bring his older half-brother, Bobby (Blake Gibbons), to the beach. Bobby is schizophrenic and lives on a ranch, but his therapist thinks it would be a good idea for Bobby to spend the weekend with Eddie. Bobby ends up stealing a lifeguard outfit and running off. When Eddie eventually finds him, Bobby is on the edge of the pier, trying to rescue someone who isn’t really there. Bobby plunges into the ocean. Eddie saves his life, and hopefully he pays to get Bobby a new therapist, because this one obviously had no idea what she was talking about.

This was a strange episode. Baywatch previously established Eddie as a former juvenile delinquent from Philadelphia who came to Malibu to get away from the gang life. This episode features flashbacks of Eddie and his brother growing up in California, and Eddie is presented as the one who pays for Bobby to stay at the ranch, despite the fact that Eddie was previously portrayed as having come to California without a dime to his name. (Eddie even slept in his lifeguard tower until Gina and Craig agreed to take him in.) The first season also established that Eddie had a younger sister who drowned. In this episode, he has an older half-brother who was schizophrenic and, in the flashbacks, there’s no sign of a sister. Baywatch is not exactly a monument to continuity.

As for Debbie, she returns home and is forgiven by her father. Considering that lifeguards and police officers have been spending the last day or so searching for her, I assumed she would be in a bit more trouble than she was. Faking your own death is not something that I would recommend.

The Hoff was barely in this episode. Maybe it was his week off.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.17 “The Chamber”

Posted on August 29, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Mitch gets the bends (snicker)!

Episode 2.17 “The Chamber”

(Dir by Gregory J. Bonann, originally aired on March 2nd, 1992)

Mitch has a lot to think about. Summer is nearly over, and Gayle wants Hobie to return to Ohio for school. Craig, now living in Connecticut, sends Mitch a letter offering to help him get a job as a salesman. It would mean more money, but also a lot of traveling — and no more lifeguarding.

Mitch takes to the ocean in a kayak to clear his head. When he comes across a panicked boy on a boat, he learns that the boy’s father was scuba diving and is trapped 90 feet underwater. Mitch free-dives to free the father. Both men reach the surface, but they’ve both got …. THE BENDS!

The bends may have a silly name, but it’s a real condition, and it can be fatal. Because the father is in worse shape, he goes into the decompression chamber first. Mitch isn’t doing well either, so Baywatch rushes him back to the mainland and puts him in their own chamber. Then everyone waits for Mitch to recover.

And Mitch has flashbacks. Flashback after flashback. That’s right: this is a clip show. This is Baywatch at its cheapest. This is Baywatch showing clips that featured a totally different actor playing Hobie. Eventually, once the show runs out of clips, Mitch has a brief out-of-body experience — and then he wakes up.

This is Baywatch at its silliest, but it’s also David Hasselhoff at his most earnest. Say what you will about the show, Hasselhoff always seemed to take it very seriously. Or at least he did until Baywatch Hawaii. Luckily, that’s several seasons away.

Clip shows always feel like a wasted episode, but they’re also incredibly easy to review. This episode has that going for it.