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

Posted on February 20, 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 Youtube!

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.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Baywatch Nights 1.12 “Thin Blood”

Posted on January 30, 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, an detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Youtube!

You guys know the drill. Thanks to the Vicodin I took earlier, I spent Tuesday in a bit of a daze. So, I’m running late with my review of Baywatch Nights. Fear not! Here it is:

Episode 1.12 “Thin Blood”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on February 10th, 1996)

Ryan’s sister has come to Los Angeles!

Charlie McBride (Laura Harring) claims that she’s just in town to see her sister but Ryan has her doubts. Charlie has always been the irresponsible member of the family and Ryan can only watch helplessly as Charlie and Mitch pursue a tentative romance. Since this is a Baywatch spin-off, that means that Charlie and Mitch spend a lot of time on jet skis. It’s not true love unless you get on the jet skis. Charlie also takes the time reveal that Ryan could have been a model and a pageant winner if she hadn’t abandoned everything to be a private eye. To that, I say, “Well, yeah. She’s Angie Harmon.”

However, it turns out that Ryan was correct. Some New York criminals are in town, searching for the money that they claim Charlie stole from them. They’re even willing to kidnap Ryan and hold her hostage until they get their money back. Once again, it’s up to Mitch and Garner to do their thing and rescue Ryan. Interestingly enough, they manage to do so pretty easily. This is one of those episodes where the bad guys are so incompetent that they are pretty much doomed from the start. David Hasselhoff may have captured them but Billy Warlock and Erika Eleniak probably could have done the job just as easily. Hell, I bet Parker Stevenson could have done it. Maybe even Kelly Ward.

Anyway, the emphasis here is on Ryan and her feelings of resentment towards her sister and her feelings for Mitch. Though it was pretty much abandoned once the show became an X-Files rip-off during the second season, the first season of Baywatch Nights really tried to play up the will they or won’t they aspect of Ryan and Mitch’s relationship. There really wasn’t much suspense about that. Angie Harmon and David Hasselhoff had a likable chemistry but it was a brother/sister type of relationship. There was nothing romantic about it, at least not in 49 of the 50 states. Ryan liked Mitch but she also knew she could do better. That was why Ryan was such a cool character.

This was a pretty forgettable episode, one that was really only interesting for a chance to see Laura Harring play the same type of role she would later play to far different effect in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. It’s late so I’m going to leave it at that. Baywatch Nights needs to hurry up and bring on the aliens and the vampires or the sea monsters!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Baywatch Nights 1.11 “Takeover”

Posted on January 23, 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, an detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Youtube!

This week, Baywatch Nights reboots for the first time and gets a brand new opening.

Episodes 1.11 “Takeover”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on February 3rd, 1996)

This week’s episode opens with Mitch arriving at Nights early in the morning. Ryan and Garner are waiting for him and so are all of the club’s waitresses. Some expositional dialogue establishes that Lou Raymond has sold Nights to “D.M. Marco.” The waitresses are waiting to see if they still have jobs. Ryan, Garner, and Mitch are waiting so that they can re-sign a lease for their detective agency….

Eleven episodes into the first season and Baywatch Nights has already rebooted itself! It’s usually not a good sign when a show drastically changes its format or starts writing out old characters and replacing them with new people. Usually, when this happens, it’s because the show’s rating have suddenly declined and the producers are desperately trying to inject some new life into things. It’s never a good sign when something like this happens before the first season is even halfway finished.

As Mitch waits, a blonde wearing a short but not particularly flattering blue dress steps into the club. Mitch assumes that she’s a waitress and starts hitting on her. Ha ha! Joke’s on you, Mitch! She’s Donna Marco (Donna D’Errico) and she’s your new landlord and a new regular on the show! Mitch is stunned to discover that women can be successful in business. This kind of goes against everything that the viewer has previously learned about Mitch but whatever. It’s a reboot! It’s a new world! And now Mitch is apparently one of those guys who is left with his mouth agape over the idea of a woman being the boss.

As for this week’s case, it’s also about business. Someone is targeting the executives of a company called Rancor. Two of those executives went to high school with Mitch so he’s not going to let anyone kill them. That said, a lot of executives who don’t have a previous Mitch connection do end up dying. In fact, this episode has the highest body count of Baywatch Nights so far. At first, Mitch assumes that the murders are being orchestrated by a corporate raider who wants to take over the business and who has apparently never learned how to buy stock. But instead, the murderer turns out to be a blonde executive named Nicki (Sandra Hess), who blames the company for death of her father. Despite her murderous ways, there are some sparks of romance between Nicki and Mitch but that comes to an end when Nicki blows herself up while trying to take out the final Rancor executive.

This was a weird episode, as the pacing felt off and the story was far more violent than any of the ones that came before it. At one point, Mitch gets a favor from an IRS agent by promising him a date with Donna and that just felt really icky. There’s another extended scene where both a businessman and the show’s cameraman spends several minutes leering at Ryan’s legs and again, it just felt off. Previously, the show had never been shy about showing off Angie Harmon’s legs and, speaking as someone who enjoys showing off her own legs, there’s nothing wrong with that but, in this particular episode, it crosses the line from being appreciative to being tacky. One could tell that the show’s producers brainstormed and couldn’t come up with anything better than, “Let’s make Baywatch Nights more like Baywatch!”

What’s sad is that Baywatch Nights really didn’t need a reboot. The first ten episodes were, for the most part, fun and entertaining in their vapid way. This episode, though, feels like it’s begging for attention and that’s never a good look. Don’t worry, though. Not all reboots are bad, as we’ll see in another 11 episodes. That is when we will reach season 2 of Baywatch Nights.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Baywatch Nights 1.10 “Kind of a Drag”

Posted on January 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, an detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Youtube!

Episode 1.10 “Kind of a Drag”

(Dir by Bernard L. Kowalski, originally aired on December 2nd, 1995)

Someone is putting on a dress and a rubber Richard Nixon mask and attacking drag performers! After one performer is pulled out of the ocean (“It’s a wig!” a lifeguard shouts after pulling off the performer’s blonde hair), Mitch, Garner, and Ryan are hired to discover what’s going on.

They suspect that the attacker could be Duncan Valentine (Stuart Fratkin), the son of a former sitcom star who is trying to put together a movie about her life. (His mother’s catchphrase was, “Wait until your father comes home!”) Needless to say, someone is going to have to go undercover as a drag performer to catch the killer. Which means that it’s time for Ryan to give Mitch a makeover!

Garner also goes undercover as Whoopi Goldberg but we don’t really get to see much of him in his red dress and wig.

While Mitch is performing a song, the assailant in the Richard Nixon mask shoots him! No worries. Mitch is wearing a bullet-proof vest. What does worry me is that the assailant then heads to the dressing room but no one bothers to call the police or follow him down there. Are they trying to catch this guy or not? Instead, everyone gathers around Mitch to make sure that he’s okay. Eventually, Ryan does say, “Call 911,” but I’m not sure why you would wait so long to do that when there’s a gun-toting maniac in the same building as you.

Anyway, it turns out that Duncan is innocent. Instead, the assailant is revealed to be a drag performer who is upset that he wasn’t cast as Duncan’s mother in the biopic.

This episode was …. actually, considering that it’s from the 90s, it could have been worse. Yes, a good deal of the show is taken up with scenes of David Hasselhoff struggling to walk in heels and revealing that no one has ever taught him the right way to sit down while wearing a short skirt. (Ryan really should have given him some advice as far as that’s concerned.) And yes, Mitch’s girlfriend did happen walk in on Mitch while he was wearing a dress. (Fortunately, she’s thrilled to discover that Mitch is getting in touch with his feminine side.) And yes, the villain did turn out to be a deranged drag performer who apparently believed that he actually was Duncan Valentine’s mother. However, for the most part, the show did treat the other drag performers with respect and it didn’t attempt to play the attacks on them for laughs. Mitch, Garner, and Ryan treat them like they would any other clients. In 1995, that was probably the best anyone could expect.

Next week, the show undergoes the first of many format changes!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Baywatch Nights 1.9 “Blues Boys”

Posted on January 9, 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, an detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Youtube!

This week, Mitch considers the blues!

Episode 1.9 “Blues Boy”

(Dir by Reza Badiyi, originally aired on November 25th, 1995)

Lyle Logan (Michael Preston) is a 13 year-old musical prodigy who plays a guitar on the Malibu Pier with his guardian, Ned Simon (Greg Wrangler). Seven years earlier, Lyle witnessed the murder of his father by his Uncle Willie (Nathan Cavaleri). Now, Uncle Willie has just been released from prison and he’s searching for Lyle because he believes that Lyle knows where his father stashed the money from a robbery.

Uncle Willie has his men abduct Ned, planning on using him for leverage to get to his nephew. Lyle approaches Mitch and hires the detective agency to track Ned down. However, Mitch, Ryan and Garner are more interested in learning the truth about Lyle’s background. Though Lyle at first refuses to open up and even tries to run away when Mitch asks him about his background, Lyle eventually comes to trust the group. Together, they save Lyle from Uncle Willie. As for the stash of money, it’s in a first aid kit that breaks apart when it’s tossed into the ocean. The money watches up on the beach, where everyone goes crazy trying to grab some for themselves.

This was a pretty simple episode. In fact, it was a struggle to come up with 200 words to say about the plot. There’s not a lot going on, beyond Lyle running up and down the pier and Uncle Willie-looking evil. The only thing that kept this from being an episode of Baywatch was the presence of Angie Harmon and the lack of red bathing suits. In many ways, this episode highlights one of the biggest problems for Baywatch Nights. Far too often, the show just feels like a detective-themed episode of Baywatch (a show that actually did feature several detective-themed episodes both before and after the Baywatch Nights experiment). This episode, for instance, barely features any scenes that take place at night. Mitch does most of his investigating during the day, which is when he really should be working as a lifeguard.

The episode’s inability to escape the shadow of its parent show is exemplified by a scene that occurs about halfway through the episode. We get an extended sequence in which Ryan, Garner, and Mitch listen to Lyle play his guitar and they all have flashbacks to their past. Ryan’s memories deal with being the daughter of a navy officer. Garner remembers tossing a football back and forth with his father. And Mitch …. well, Mitch just has Baywatch flashbacks. It’s one of those silly, overly earnest scenes that one expects to find any production starring David Hasselhoff. (And the montage is, of course, scored by the Hoff singing a song.) Still, it’s hard not to notice that, while Ryan and Garner both have a past, Mitch just has another television show.

The episode ends with Lyle meeting and playing with B.B. King. Hopefully, B.B. adopted the kid. Seriously, he had been through a lot.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Baywatch Nights 1.8 “Balancing Act”

Posted on January 2, 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, an detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on Youtube!

This week, we discover how it all began!

Episode 1.8 “Balancing Act”

(Dir by Gus Trikonis, originally aired on November 18th, 1995)

The eighth episode of Baywatch Nights opens with Ryan and Garner on a stakeout. It’s the middle of the day and they’re waiting for someone carrying an envelope full of evidence. Mitch is nowhere to be seen, which actually makes sense. I mean, Mitch is still working as a lifeguard. Over the past seven episodes, I’ve often wondered how Mitch can work full-time as both a detective and a lifeguard captain. This episode finally acknowledges that Mitch actually does have another job.

Garner and Ryan start talking about the first that they met and how they came to be partners in a detective firm. It’s flashback time! The flashbacks are to the show’s previously unaired pilot. What’s funny is that, even though Garner is the one who is telling the story, the flashbacks are all narrated by Mitch. I know that Garner and Mitch were extremely close friends during the early seasons of Baywatch but I didn’t realize they could actually hear each other’s thoughts.

Flashback Mitch explains that both he and Garner were wondering if there was anything more to life than their jobs. Garner wanted to be more than just a beach cop. Mitch was wondering if maybe there was something more out there than just being a lifeguard. One day, when Mitch on vacation from his lifeguarding job, Mitch decided to accompany Garner to investigate a mysterious boat that had been showing up around the marina. It was during the investigation that Mitch and Garner first met Ryan. Ryan had paid $25,000 for a private detective agency in California, just to discover that the agency was not the high class operation that the previous owner, Nicky Pine (Philip Bruns), claimed it was. However, before Ryan could confront him, Nicky was apparently killed by a group of criminals who wanted a valuable bracelet that Nicky owned. Except the bracelet, which he gave to Ryan, was actually a fake and Nicky wasn’t actually dead and….

Ugh, this is complicated. Seriously. I hate to admit that I couldn’t follow the plot of an episode of Baywatch Nights but this plot had so many nonsensical twists and turns that I pretty much gave up on trying to make sense of it all. The important thing is that Garner got fed up with the police and quit, Mitch realized that he wanted to be a private eye, and Ryan got to be totally awesome as usual. At one point, Ryan explained to Mitch that she was tough because she was from Dallas. Woo hoo! You tell him, Ryan!

Because this was a pilot, there were a few examples of early installment weirdness. Troy Evans showed up as a police detective and one got the feeling that he was originally envisioned as being a recurring character. Lisa Stahl’s Destiny was nowhere to be seen but there was a character named Andy (Linda Hoffman) was acted quite similarly to Destiny. Even Nicky and his girlfriend, Rose (Jeanette O’Connor), seemed to be set up to become semi-regular characters. Obviously, there was some retooling done after this pilot was produced.

Anyway, this episode’s plot is impossible to follow but the California scenery is lovely, which I think is the most that anyone could realistically demand from any show from the Baywatch universe. Having now watched the pilot, I’m glad that the show went forward with just Mitch, Garner, and Ryan as regulars. They’re a good team.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Baywatch Nights 1.7 “Pressure Cooker”

Posted on December 26, 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, Mitch, Ryan, and Lou are held hostage!

Episode 1.7 “Pressure Cooker”

(Dir by Gus Trikonis, originally aired on November 11, 1995)

Episode seven of Baywatch Nights opens with Mitch and Garner, once again, whining about their job. They have been hired to work undercover in a fried chicken restaurant that has been robbed five times. Garner wears a chicken costume and greets the customers. Mitch works in the kitchen. This is not the type of work that Mitch and Garner had in mind when they decided to become part-time private investigators.

In his opening voice over, Mitch says that sometimes, you have to do what you have to do to pay your bills. Here’s the thing, though. Mitch is a lifeguard. He’s not just a lifeguard but he’s one of the top lifeguards in California. So, no, he doesn’t need to work as a private eye to pay his bills. I don’t care how much Mitch complains about the job. I think he just secretly enjoys working as a cook in a fast food restaurant. And good for him, if that’s the case! Myself, I like fried chicken and I respect anyone who cooks it for a living.

Eventually, the scummy Sosa brothers show up at the restaurant and try to rob the place. Garner and Mitch are able to stop the robbery but they only manage to capture one brother, Manny Sosa (Cliff Dorfman). Duke (Joseph Spencer) and Nick Sosa (Rich Werner) escape.

Later, Duke and Nick show up at Nights, which is the nightclub that doubles as the office of the detective agency. Because it’s the afternoon, Nights is not open to general public but that doesn’t stop Duke and Nick from taking Mitch, Ryan, and Lou Raymond (Lou Rawls) hostage. (Lou is the owner of Nights. Despite the fact that Lou Rawls was prominently featured in the opening credits of each episode, this is only his second appearance on the show.) Duke demands that Manny be released from prison or he’s going to start shooting hostages!

While they wait out the situation, Lou plays the piano and sings a song while Duke dances with Ryan. Meanwhile, Garner waits outside the club with the police and the press. Eventually, reporter Stormy Walters (Sandra Dee Robinson) is invited to enter the club with her crew so that she can interview Duke and get some footage of him dancing with Ryan. Garner puts on a fake beard and pretends to be Stormy’s sound guy.

As soon as Mitch sees Garner, he nudges Ryan and says, “It’s Garner!” Even though Mitch whispers, it still seems like a reckless thing to point out when there’s two gun-toting maniacs in the club. Fortunately, the Sosa brothers are pretty stupid so Mitch, Garner, and Ryan are able to give them a beat down. Unfortunately, before the situation is resolved, both Lou and Garner are shot but, apparently, not seriously.

This episode …. eh. As I’ve said elsewhere on this site, I am just not a fan of shows about hostage situations. As soon as the Sosa brothers show up at the club, the narrative momentum comes to a grinding halt and all that’s left is 30 minutes of sweaty losers pointing guns at people and shouting. It gets a little boring. As well, the Sosas were so stupid that, even when they were shooting people, it was difficult to take them seriously as dangerous criminals. They were just idiots.

Next week, we get the origin story as we learn how Mitch and Garner came to work with Ryan in the first place!

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!