Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.22 “Heat Rays”

Posted on April 16, 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, season one comes to a close.

Episode 1.22 “Heat Rays”

(Dir by Peter Roger Hunt, originally aired on May 18th, 1996)

The first season wraps up with an episode that doesn’t really add up too much.

As was typical of the latter half of this show’s first season, this episode actually tells two separate stories. In the first one, Donna is stopped while driving at night by three panicked people on a bridge. They say that their friend is in the water below. Donna jumps into the ocean, just to discover that it was all a trick to steal her car.

Donna floats around for a while. She passes the time by talking to herself. To be honest, she holds up surprisingly well for someone who is stranded in the middle of the ocean. Eventually, a boat stops to help her. Unfortunately, the two men on the boat are drug dealers and, when they’re both shot by a bunch of guys on a bigger boat, it’s up to Donna to save them and get them to dry land.

That may sound like an intriguing storyline but, oddly enough, it gets abandoned fairly quickly. I kept waiting for Donna’s storyline to somehow intersect with the other storyline but it never did. No one even thought to say, “Hey, where’s Donna?” If I was Donna, I would be pretty mad about that.

As for the other storyline, it features Mitch, Garner, and Ryan investigating a series of murders and attempted murders that all involve the members of an old surf band called The Heat Rays. It ultimately turns out that they’re being targeted by the daughter (Christa Sauls) of a woman (played by Judy Geeson) who was raped by several members of the band.

Again, that may sound like a storyline that has the potential to be intriguing. And there is an interesting subtext to the story, as Mitch and Garner are forced to admit that their favorite band wasn’t as innocent and wholesome as they chose to remember. But, in typical Baywatch Nights fashion, the story was a bit too predictable to really work. It was easy to figure out who the murderer was because there was really only one suspect from the start.

This episode had a violent streak just felt out of place. Baywatch Nights, in both its first season and its supernatural-themed second season, was essentially a goofy detective show starring David Hasselhoff. Having multiple people die over the course of one episode just didn’t feel right for such a lightweight show. Some shows are meant to be violent. Some shows are at their best when they embrace their inherent silliness. Baywatch Nights is the latter type of show.

So much for the first season. Unfortunately, the show never really found a consistent identity or style during the first season. However, that would change with the second season.

We’ll find out how next week!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 1.21 “A Closer Look”

Posted on April 9, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Mitch has yet another old friend who needs help!

Episode 1.21 “A Closer Look”

(Dir by Bernard L. Kowalski, originally aired on May 11th, 1996)

Another old friend of Mitch’s had a problem.

Seriously, how many old friends does Mitch have and why are all of them always getting involved in something dangerous? And why is it always Mitch’s responsibility to help them out? I mean, doesn’t Mitch ever just want to tell them to take care of their own problems? Mitch isn’t Superman, after all. He’s a middle-aged guy who is already struggling to balance his day job with his night job. STAND UP FOR YOURSELF, MITCH!

Anyway, Dewey Morgan (Gary Collins, looking like Robert Redford in All Is Lost) is worried that his model wife, McKenna (Lisa Schad), has been replaced by an imposter. As he explains it, she’s been different ever since she returned from a health spa. She looks the same but there’s just all sorts of little differences. It’s the type of things that only an intimate acquaintance — like a husband, for instance — would notice.

Mitch is skeptical. He thinks that maybe Dewey is just upset because McKenna has recently left him and is now finding success as a model. Still, Mitch decides to investigate because Dewey is an old friend. It’s never really made clear how Mitch and Dewey became friends in the first place but Dewey does spend a lot of time in a wet suit and on a surf board. So, I guess having a shared love of having a mid-life crisis on a beach is the bond that holds Mitch and Dewey together.

Personally, I think it would have been interesting if Mitch and Ryan had discovered that McKenna actually was McKenna and Dewey really was some sort of unbalanced stalker. That would have been a nicely unexpected twist and it would also have forced Mitch to reconsider his loyalty to all of his old friends. It would have given the show a chance to say something about the dangers of a beach bum having a mid-life crisis. But that’s just not the Baywatch Nights way. It turns out that the real McKenna is dead and the woman claiming to be Dewey’s wife is an imposter.

Usually, I enjoy melodramatic nonsense like this but this episode featured both a murder and an attempted murder and all of that violence felt somewhat out-of-place. Baywatch Nights works best as goofy fun. Having people actually die kind of takes away from the goofiness and it makes me wonder how Mitch is holding up mentally. I mean, he just wanted to make some extra money as a private investigator. Instead, he’s being regularly exposed to the worst that humanity has to offer.

The first season is nearly over and that’s good because, as this rambling review might indicate to the careful reader, I’m getting kind of bored with it. The second season is a lot of fun because Mitch and Ryan spend 22 episodes dealing with aliens, vampires, and Vikings! But, before we can get to all that, there’s one more first season episode to go.

We’ll deal with it next week.

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 Review: Baywatch Nights 1.19 “Epilogue”

Posted on March 26, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Griff gets a storyline! Who? Oh yeah, Griff! He’s like the photographer who hangs out at the detective agency sometimes. He was played by Eddie Cibrian and he was listed in the opening credits so I guess he was supposed to be a major character, despite never doing or even saying anything.

Anyway, on to this week’s episode….

Episode 1.19 “Epilogue”

(Dir by Reza Badiyi, originally aired on April 27th, 1996)

Griff is concerned about his old friends, RJ (Jared Murphy) and Rene O’Gill (Julianne Morrs). Their mother has just recently died and Rene suspects that she was murdered by their stepfather, Robert Houston (Ben Murphy). RJ, meanwhile, is a junky for both adrenaline and amphetamines and his girlfriend, Candy (Carmen Electra), seems like she might be a bad influence. Both RJ and Rene are due to receive a good deal of money from their trust funds and, if anything happened to them, that money would go to Robert.

Wanting to learn the truth about her mother’s death, Rene hires Mitch and Ryan to investigate. Because Mitch is a terrible private eye, he decides to have Donna go undercover to discover if Robert is hiding anything. Keep in mind that Donna does not work for the detective agency, has got a club to run, is already training to become a lifeguard, and has absolutely no investigative experience. And, of course, it turns out that there really wasn’t any need to have Donna go undercover because, just as Mitch is terrible at investigating stuff, Robert is terrible at covering up the fact that he’s a murderer.

How does Mitch solve this case? When he discovers that someone has been calling Rene’s answering machine and getting her messages without her knowledge, Mitch says, “Dial Star 69.” That’s the extent of Mitch’s detective work in this episode.

(Answering machines and Star 69, could this show be any more of a product of the 90s?)

The main problem here is that the episode revolves around Griff and his romantic feelings for Rene but since Griff is a character who has only appeared in a handful of episodes and never really made much of an impression, it’s hard to really get either emotionally or mentally involved with his story. When RJ is killed during a jet ski race, Griff gets upset and blames Robert but again, we don’t know Griff, we don’t know RJ, and we don’t know Robert.

The best that can be said about this episode is that it features some fun flirtation between David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon, though not nearly enough. Probably the most interesting thing about this episode is that it tries to be noticeably more racy than previous episodes and the editing often feels so abrupt that it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there was a more explicit version of the episode made for Europe. Carmen Electra plays a femme fatale here and she does do a good job of being playfully evil. Later, she would join the cast of regular Baywatch, playing a different character who didn’t murder anyone.

Next week …. oh, who knows? I just want to get to the second season already. That’s when all the aliens and undead Vikings start to show up.

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

Posted on March 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 1.16 “The Curator”

Posted on February 28, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

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 Review: Baywatch Nights 1.13 “Payback”

Posted on February 6, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week …. eh, I don’t know. This is a messy episode. Geraldo Rivera is in it for some reason.

Episode 1.13 “Payback”

(Dir by Reza Badiyi, originally aired on February 17th, 1996)

This episode was a mess. It’s hard to know where to even start.

In a reminder that Baywatch Nights, during the second half of its first season, was trying to be more like the show it was spun off from, this episode begins with an extended sequence featuring a woman in a yellow bikini. She swims. She walks along the beach. She washes the sand out of her hair in one of those beach showers. And then an unseen person shoots her in the neck and the camera lingers on her body for an uncomfortable amount of time. The mix of sex and violence doesn’t feel particularly appropriate for a show that, at its best, is essentially just a goofy detective show.

After this opening, we are presented with Ryan and Mitch at some sort of party. Ryan has just come back from Catalina and, just as I would do, she took some Dramamine so she wouldn’t get car sick. Unfortunately, she has a little bit too much champagne at the party and is soon in a daze. Mitch takes her back to his place where Ryan demands to know why he’s never tried to “jump all over” her. Ryan then strips down to her underwear and ends up in Mitch’s bed.

Mitch, it should be said, is a total gentleman and sleeps on the couch. But, the next morning, he decides that it would be fun to keep Ryan in suspense as to whether or not they had sex the night before.

To any men reading: DO NOT DO THIS!

Seriously, this joke is totally out of character for Mitch. For that matter, it’s a bit out of character for Ryan as well. (Everything we’ve learned about Ryan would suggest that she would be smart enough to know better than to mix Dramamine and champagne.) David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon did have a likable chemistry. It’s a shame that the show tried to rush things with stuff like this instead of letting it develop naturally.

As for the show’s plot, there are actually two cases. The lesser of the two features Garner helping out a young photographer named Griff Walker (Eddie Cibrian). Griff accidentally got a picture of a model’s murder and he’s worried that murderers are after him. Garner confronts the model’s ex and tells him to back off on trying to intimidate Griff. It’s a weird plotline that was obviously only included to introduce the character of Griff. (This is the third episode to feature Cibrian in the opening credits but the first to actually feature his character.)

Meanwhile, a reporter named Albert Romero (Geraldo Rivera …. yes, the one and only) comes to Mitch after some mobsters kidnap his wife, Bobbie (Meilani Paul). Bobbie was previously being used to smuggle drugs. Now, they want to use her to smuggle a bomb. Fortunately, the mobsters are pretty dumb and Mitch is easily able to thwart them. Unfortunately, this storyline features a lot of Geraldo. As anyone who has ever watched him do anything can tell you, Geraldo Rivera is a person who is incapable of sounding natural or sincere. Everything about him is calculated and over-rehearsed and that certainly comes through in his performance here. Only Geraldo Rivera could make overacting boring.

As I said, this was a messy and way too busy episode. It’s also one that nearly sabotaged the most appealing part of the show, Ryan and Mitch’s friendship. I can’t wait until the UFOs and the sea monsters and the Vikings show up during the second season.

Horror on TV: Baywatch Nights 2.11 “Possession” (dir by David W. Hagar)

Posted on October 30, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Tonight’s bonus episode of televised horror is an episode of Baywatch Nights that deals with something that every lifeguard eventually has to deal with: demonic possession.

Well, actually, it’s not so much demonic possession as its dead serial killer possession but it’s still definitely not a good thing. That’s especially true when it’s a friend and/or co-worker getting possessed. I mean, it’s never fun to end a relationship but having to end it because someone managed to get possessed …. I just don’t see how you live that down.

And, before anyone gets the wrong idea, Hasselhoff is not the one who gets possessed. It would have been fun if he had been but no. Sorry.

This episode originally aired on February 2nd, 1997.