Retro Television Review: Baywatch 1.3 “Second Wave”

Posted on October 25, 2025 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.

Trouble comes to Malibu!

Episode 1.3 “Second Wave”

(Dir by Scott Brazil, originally aired on October 13th, 1989)

Jimmy Roche (Daniel Quinn), an old friend-turned-enemy of Eddie’s, is in Malibu and he and his gang are eager to give Eddie a hard time. When Eddie tries to rescue a man in the water, Jimmy trips him and then plays keep-away with Eddie rescue can. Dang, these guys are hardcore!

Eddie doesn’t want to tell anyone about his past, even after Jimmy files an assault complaint against him. (Eddie was provoked into throwing a punch.) Jimmy threatens to robs Gina and Craig unless Eddie gives him some money. Eddie agrees to meet with Jimmy but then tells the cops. Garner Ellerbee decides to set up an undercover sting, which basically means that Garner stands next to Eddie while Eddie waits for Jimmy to show up. Somehow, Jimmy figures out what’s going on. Looks like Eddie will just have to beat Jimmy up on the beach and prove that he’s no longer a delinquent from Philadelphia.

That would be an intense storyline, if not for the fact that Jimmy himself comes across as being kind of a wimp. I mean, a young David Spade is a member of his gang! Eddie allows himself to be intimidated by a young David Spade! Think about that. This storyline just made Eddie seem kind of dumb,

Meanwhile, a young Mariska Hargitay gave a terrible performance as Lisa (hey!), the daughter of the head of the country club. Lisa (!) decided to pursue a romance with the country club’s lifeguard, Trevor, as a way of upsetting her father. When Lisa (!) jumped into the ocean to make a point (though I’m not sure what point), Trevor rescued her. However, Lisa (!) later went into shock because she still had water in her lungs. Trevor was able to get her to the hospital in time but he learned an important lesson about not being a cocky lifeguard.

“The county lifeguards know about secondary drowning,” he’s told.

Okay, so why wouldn’t Trevor know about that? The whole idea behind Trevor’s character is that he was a hotshot lifeguard in Australia before he came to California. So, is the show implying that he wasn’t trained in lifeguard basics in Australia because given how famous Australia is for its beaches, I find that hard to believe.

Anyway, after she recovers Lisa (!) announces that she’s going back to New York and Trevor realizes that she was only using him to make her father angry. Trevor stops by Baywatch HQ and talks to Mitch and admits that he doesn’t enjoy working as a lifeguard. Lifeguard Jill Riley gives him a sympathetic look. It looks like they’re falling in love but I’ve seen this series before so I already know that Jill is going to get eaten by a shark and Trevor is going to vanish after a few more episodes.

This episode could have used a shark.

We love you, Roboshark!

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 1.1 “In Deep”

Posted on October 11, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Hobie’s a snitch!

Episode 1.1 “In Deep”

(Dir by Peter H. Hunt, originally aired on September 22nd, 1989)

Hobie, you idiot!

Mitch’s young son is spending the summer with his father and he’s supposed to be concentrating on summer school. Instead, he hanging out with two older guys, Scott (Christopher Murphy) and Ron (Lance Gilbert), and basically letting himself be used as a slave in return for jet ski lessons.

Mitch is not a fan of jet skis. They’re unregulated and they’re dangerous, he says. As if to prove Mitch’s point, Scott collides with a windjammer! The woman on the windjammer is killed. (Craig and Eddie pull her body out of the ocean, which is the type of sad thing that Baywatch would eventually stop featuring.) Hobie, realizing Scott is guilty, tries to find the evidence to prove it and nearly gets himself killed as a result. Fortunately, Mitch is able to save him and Scott is arrested. I have to say that, after this episode, I kind of found myself agreeing with Mitch’s ex-wife. The beach is too dangerous!

Meanwhile, Craig caught Eddie sleeping in his lifeguard tower and realized that Eddie, who I assume is getting paid to be a lifeguard, doesn’t have a home. Did he ever have a home? Has he been sleeping on the beach all this time? How did he apply for Lifeguard School without an address? Anyway, Craig takes Eddie back to his Venice loft, where Craig’s wife (now played by Holly Gagnier, replacing the pilot’s Gina Hecht) decides that they should let Eddie rent their storage room. It’s even got a view of the beach, if you ignore all the other buildings in the way and instead just find that one unobstructed alley to look down. (Actually, Eddie finding and looking down that alley was cute and likable. He was so excited!) I have to say that, for a lawyer, Craig’s loft really sucked. It was pretty impressive for a lifegaurd, though.

The other big development this week is that Garner Ellerbee (Gregory Alan Williams) made his first appearance as the beach cop who hates sand. (Then why become a beach cop?) He and Mitch appear to be old friends. Little do they know that they will eventually open up a detective agency together.

This episode was predictable but the cast was super likable. The earnestness of it all carried the day.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Baywatch Nights 2.22 “A Thousand Words”

Posted on December 10, 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, we wrap up Baywatch Nights.

Episode 2.22 “A Thousand Words”

(Dir by Tracy Lynch Britton, originally aired on May 16th, 1997)

After two seasons of gangsters and monsters, Baywatch Nights ends with yet another haunted house story.

Well, technically, it’s actually a haunted restaurant. Diamont drags Ryan and Mitch to an abandoned restaurant that is said to be haunted. Accompanying them is a researcher into the paranormal, Sarah (Kathy Tragesar). Sarah explains that the restaurant has a long history of strange occurrences. Diamont explains that, recently, two women have been killed and a man left in a coma after entering the restaurant. Diamont thinks that it’s a poltergeist. Mitch, as usual, is skeptical.

*sigh*

Seriously, why is Mitch still a skeptic? I’ve gone into this before but it continues to bother me. After everything that Mitch had seen and experienced over this season, why does he still refuse to believe in the supernatural? Even Agent Scully eventually admitted that Mulder had a point.

Anyway, Ryan vanishes and finds herself in another dimension where she’s menaced by the knife-wielding murderer (John Snyder). The murderer is driven by his relationship with his mother, whose portrait hang around the restaurant and whose painted facial expression changes depending on how determined her son is to kill. (That was actually a nice touch.) Mitch puts a call into his old friend (and season one co-star), Garner Ellerbee. Garner shows up with psychic named Kira (Jazmin Lewis) and soon, Kira is in the other dimension as well….

Long story short, the poltergeist is eventually defeated. Kira and Ryan come back to our world. Mitch says that he loves Ryan. He and Ryan share an embrace and start in on some really passionate kissing. (Woo hoo!) The show ends.

The main problem with this episode is that Mitch and Ryan didn’t really get to do that much. For the most part, Kira did all the work and the episode so focused on her that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was meant to be a sort of backdoor pilot for a proposed series about Kira. As well, the killer poltergeist is scary when he first appears but he becomes progressively less scary as the episode goes on. By the end of the episode, he’s just kind of whiny. As a series finale, this was definitely a bit underwhelming.

That said — hey, Mitch and Ryan kissed! Seriously, I’ve been waiting for that moment ever since I first started reviewing this show. No matter what else one might say about Baywatch Nights, David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon had great chemistry together. I won’t necessarily miss reviewing this show but I will miss seeing the two of them together.

In the end, Baywatch Nights was a pretty uneven show but it was definitely fun. I think it had potential but I’m going to guess it was doomed by being a part of the Baywatch franchise. People who didn’t like Baywatch weren’t going to watch a version of the show that took place at night. People who did like Baywatch were undoubtedly disappointed by the lack of red swimsuits. The ratings went down. Judging from the final few episodes, the production budget got seriously cut. The Hoff and Harmon were fun to watch but their chemistry couldn’t save the show.

Well, that completes Baywatch Nights! Retro Television Reviews is going on a holiday break but, on January 7th, I will start reviewing a new show in this timeslot! Until then, happy holidays to all the lifeguards out there.

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

Posted on April 16, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 1.20 “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 1.18 “Vengeance”

Posted on March 19, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Baywatch Nights get uncomfortably violent as a crazed killer escapes from prison and targets everyone responsible for putting him away in the first place.

Episode 1.18 “Vengeance”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on April 20th, 1996)

A psycho murderer named Johnny Larkin (Robert Dryer) escapes from prison and kills everyone who he blames for his conviction. He shoots a bailiff in the head. He beats the judge to death with his own gavel. He shoots the jury foreman and dunks his dead body into a fish tank. His latest target? The cops who arrested him, Lea Broussard (Dominique Jennings) and her former partner, Garner Ellerbee. It falls to Garner, Mitch, and Ryan to stop him.

Yikes! My main thought on this episode of Baywatch Nights was that it was unusually violent for the show. The episode opens with Johnny beating the judge to death and then its followed by a lengthy scene of Lea staring at the blood-drenched blanket covering the judge’s body and it just keeps going from there. The jury foreman begs for his life and says that he was just doing his civic duty and, as he died, it occurred to me that no one volunteers for jury duty. The man’s life is ended because he was randomly selected to serve. By the time Johnny was attempting to drown Lea, I found myself wondering about the families of all the people who had been killed and how their lives would be forever changed. It didn’t make for very pleasant viewing and it made the scenes of Mitch and Ryan flirting feel very awkward and out-of-place. I know that I’ve complained about Baywatch Nights leaving behind its noir inspirations to become an imitation of Baywatch but this episode goes too far in the other direction. Baywatch Nights should be a fun detective show, not a disturbing hour of televised horror.

I will give the show some credit for making Johnny Larkin into a genuinely scary villain. Robert Dryer played Johnny with just the right of amount of ruthless madness. That said, how stupid was Johnny to leave a newspaper clipping about his trial with the judge’s dead body? Basically, Johnny announced his guilt and that he was seeking to kill everyone who had anything to do with him getting convicted the first time. Way to lose the element of surprise, Johnny.

Anyway, this episode just wasn’t any fun and, as a result, I really don’t have much to say about it. If there’s anything that a show like Baywatch Night should never do, it’s taking itself seriously. This is a series that was made to be parodied and it is at its best when it hints that it’s in on the joke. Hopefully, next week’s episode will be better!

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 1.15 “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.