Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.5 “Excessive Force”

Posted on November 4, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

Earlier tonight, I was thinking I might get to bed early as a way to battle my depression over the election in New York City. Then I suddenly remembered that I still had to review this stupid show.

Episode 3.5 “Excessive Force”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on September 7th, 1997)

A bank is robbed in Santa Monica so Chris and Victor ride their little bicycles really fast to the scene of the crime. Victor gets shot in the behind and he spends the rest of the episode with everyone laughing about the fact that it’s excruciatingly painful for him to sit down. (Wow, what a great group of people.) Chris shoots one of the robbers in the neck so he swears revenge on her.

Meanwhile, Palermo’s ex-wife is married to an abusive police detective. She briefly moves back in with Palermo, they end up going at it on the couch, and their daughter gets upset.

As is almost always the case with this show, it’s hard to get involved in the human drama because all of the humans are pretty dull. Chris ends up staying at TC’s apartment for her own safety and there’s a lot of “will-they-or-won’t-they” tension but it doesn’t add up to anything because TC is boring and Chris is equally boring so who cares? Meanwhile, Lt. Palermo just comes across as being the volleyball coach from Hell.

Oddly, this episode had a really impressive guest cast. Dey Young played Palermo’s ex-wife. Cliff de Young played her new husband. John Hawkes — as in future Oscar nominee John Hawkes — played the brother of the guy who wanted to kill Chris. Even Dorian Gregory, from the weird second season of Baywatch Nights, showed up as an FBI agent. The guest stars were the lucky ones. None of them had to pretend to be excited about riding a bicycle.

What a silly show.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.4 “Blood For Blood”

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bike patrol is busy!

Episode 3.4 “Blood For Blood”

(Dir by Gary Winter, originally aired on August 24th, 1997)

Last week, Pacific Blue attempted to deal with Rave Culture.

This week, it’s Hip Hop Culture!

Rapper Gangster 47 (Ross Leon) is gunned down while leaving a concert. Gangster 47’s daughter (Meagan Good) is convinced that the hit was ordered by Gangster 47’s rival, Trigger Dog (Ten’l Brunson). Now, I will just admit right now that I’m having a hard time writing this review because I can’t type out the name Trigger Dog without laughing. Even though everyone says that Trigger Dog’s feud with Gangster 47 was all for show, Gangster 47’s daughter is determined to shoot Trigger Dog.

Fortunately, noted gangsta rap fan Chris Kelly is on the case. Seriously, Chris is portrayed as being a fan of Gangster 47. Over the course of the previous 38 episodes, we have seen absolutely nothing about the very white and the very uptight Chris that would lead us to believe that Chris would be a fan of anything other than military marches but this episode opens with her rolling her eyes when TC says that rap isn’t real music. Chris tells TC that he needs to realize there’s more to music than the Bee Gees. Ouch! You tell him, Chris. And seriously, take that, Bee Gees! How Deep Is You Love now, huh!?

Chris and TC have been assigned to protect Gangster 47. Why exactly the bike patrol is protecting a celebrity who has been getting death threats — as opposed to real cops and real bodyguards — is never really addressed. Gangster 47’s daughter hates cops. When Gangster 47 is gunned down in a drive-by, it seems like his daughter has a point. Gangster 47 isn’t killed but he is in the hospital.

The show’s producers obviously figured out that it would be a little bit awkward for the show’s almost entirely white cast to be dealing with a case involving two gangsta rappers so we meet a supercool black detective named — I’m not making this up — Wishbone (Derek Morgan). Wishbone mainly exists to clasp hands with TC and to back-up Chris, as if the show is saying, “See? These two aren’t as dorky as they seem. Wishbone likes them!” With Wishbone’s help, they come to realize that Gangster 47 was shot by a white man and Trigger Dog is innocent.

The white man is a serial killer named Strob (Todd Cattrell) who is apparently trying to bring about the Biblical apocalypse by murdering celebrities or something. TC spots him on the beach but, in order to chase after him, he has to get on his bike and this leads to urgent close-up of TC dialing the combination of his bike lock. Hey, TC, if you had a car, you would have already arrested Streob by now!

While this is going on, Victor’s girlfriend, Linda (Vaitiare Hirshon) has witnessed a murder and, if she testifies, she may have to go into the witness protecting program! That’s a big deal but, of course, Palermo acts as if it’s nothing because Palermo never seems to get that people actually have lives outside of whatever he needs at any given moment. Victor doesn’t want to lose Linda. Conveniently, the murderer pulls a gun on Victor, which gives Victor the perfect excuse to gun him down. Palermo’s like, “Did he shoot first?” and Victor says, “Sure.” Victor then asks Linda to marry him.

Personally, I just find it interesting that, with all the crime happening in Santa Wherever This Show Takes Place, it just takes five people on bicycles to catch all the bad guys. I mean, if that works in Santa Monica, maybe it’ll also work in New York after Mamdani is elected. Let’s hope so!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.3 “Rave On”

Posted on October 21, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bike cops go undercover and essentially end up looking like a bunch of cops working undercover.

Episode 3.3 “Rave On”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on August 17, 1997)

The bike cops go undercover!

If that’s not funny enough, they go undercover as ravers.

I swear, you haven’t really laughed until you’ve laughed at the sight of the extremely stiff stars of Pacific Blue hanging out at a rave and giving each other secret signals whenever they spot anyone doing drugs. Chris’s drink gets roofied and, as someone who has experienced that in real life, I appreciated that the show was trying to warn its viewers about leaving their drinks unattended. Seriously, if my friends hadn’t been looking out for me that night, it scares me to think about what probably would have happened. Still, good intentions can’t disguise just how unconvincing Darlene Vogel’s performance was.

Palermo spends this entire episode saying that the parents of teens who go to raves and take drugs should be prosecuted and jailed. Then Palermo discovers that his sixteen year-old daughter (Johna Stewart-Boden) has been attending raves and, while she hasn’t intentionally taken any drugs, she’s stood by while her friends have. Palermo does not arrest himself. He does not throw himself in jail. He does not look in the mirror and smirk and say, “Oh yeah, buddy, your parent-of-the-year.” In other words, Lt. Palermo is a big, freaking hypocrite.

The bike cops break up the rave scene but the music will never die.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.2 “Ties That Bind”

Posted on October 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bike patrol continues to be largely ineffective.

Episode 3.2 “Ties That Bind”

(Dir by Sara Rose, originally aired on August 10th, 1997)

TC is excited because Jeff Pierce has moved to Santa Monica. I had no idea who Jeff Pierce was but the show explained that he was some sort of professional bike rider. Even if Jeff Pierce hadn’t been credited as “himself,” I would have guessed that he was a professional athlete just by how bad of an actor he was.

Pierce needs help retrieving his pink competition shirt. TC and Victor help him out. That was nice of them. Pierce challenges the thief to a race and the thief is so excited about getting to race Jeff Pierce that he doesn’t even mind when he gets arrested at the finish line. He even gets an autographed picture of Jeff Pierece!

Meanwhile, Gloria Allred also appears as herself. She appears as an advocate for a group of women who are protesting the release and the return of former serial killer Conway Henriksen (Marc Riffon). Conway has spent ten years in a mental hospital and he says that he’s now reformed. However, after he gets harassed by some of his former victims (apparently, he didn’t kill everyone) and his house house is set on fire, Conway snaps and kidnaps Cory’s best friend, Billie (Rainer Grant). Conway thinks that Billie is his abusive mother and he starts quoting from the Bible and the overacting gets a bit embarrassing. Finally, Conway shoots himself.

Now, this storyline had potential. Conway was sincere in his desire to start his life over again but the harassment campaign pushed him over the edge. Unfortunately, because this is Pacific Blue, the idea of the people trying to protect their neighborhood from a serial killer pushing the guy into becoming just that was left largely unexplored. Instead, everyone just breathes a sigh of relief after Conway shoots himself.

Finally, Chris’s real father (Kent McCord), shows up at headquarters and explains to Chris that, despite what her mother told her, he didn’t actually die in Vietnam. Instead, he’s been working as a commercial pilot and now he wants to get to know Chris. Chris, of course, acts like a total bitch about it, especially after she discovers that he’s married and that Chris has a teenage half-sister who is as much of a sullen brat as she is. Still, Chris eventually forgives her father for having a life and the episode ends with Chris and her real father going sky-diving. This episode missed an opportunity to have Gloria Allred and Jeff Pierce join them in jumping out of the plane. That would have been classic Blue.

It’s just another day in L.A.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.1 “Inside Straight”

Posted on October 7, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Everyone’s book for another season of bicycles and law-breaking.

Episode 3.1 “Inside Straight”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on August 3rd, 19997)

One night, while on a date with Chris, TC spots a man holding a gun. TC draws his own gun and yells at the man to drop his weapon. The man turns around. He fires so TC shoots and the man goes down. It turns out that the man was an undercover narcotics detective with a spotless record.

TC is suspended and the bike patrol basically stops doing their job and instead proceed to harass the dead man’s wife and his partner until they discover that the wife and the partner were having an affair and, conveniently, the cop was actually shot by someone who happened to be standing behind TC. It seems like simple forensic evidence (like the amount of bullets on the scene) should have proven that without the bike patrol even getting involved but I guess the cops in Malibu or wherever this show takes place are extremely incompetent.

Meanwhile, the poker game of mobster Joseph Tataglia (Joseph Campanella) gets held up, The thief is a degenerate gambler who tries to frame TC’s older brother, Teddy (Andy Buckley — how, it’s David Wallace from The Office!). The real thief is easily exposed and captured. I’m not really sure what the point of this story was. Tataglia last appeared during the first season but this episode acts as if he’s been a continual presence in the show for the past two seasons. I imagine viewers were confused as to who he was or why he had so much pull with Palermo.

There’s a scene where TC is subjected to an intense interrogation from Internal Affairs and I have to admit that it made me laugh because TC and Palermo were wearing their dorky bicycle cop uniforms while being yelled at by someone in a suit.

Another scene features Victor and Cory telling Chris and TC that there’s a huge crowd waiting to see the movie that they want to see. Victor says TC might have to flash his badge to get tickets. Police arrogance is annoying in general but it’s even worse coming from people who ride bicycles.

It appears that nothing had changed with the start of a new season.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.22 “Rumpelstiltskin”

Posted on September 30, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the second season ends.

Episode 2.22 “Rumpelstiltskin”

(Dir by John B. Moranville, originally aired on April 20th, 1997)

Rumpelstiltskin. That’s the nickname that FBI agent Tim Stone (David Lee Smith) has given to expert counterfeiter Laszlo Parkes (Josh Richman). Laszlo and his three associates — Sheila (Heidi Lenhart, who was Jenny Garrison on California Dreams), Lana (Diana Barrington), and Bree (Jennifer Sky) — are passing the fake money all around Santa Monica. Laszlo is planning on scoring a big drug deal. Meanwhile, Bree and her boyfriend (Tim Griffin) are planning on taking out Laszlo.

Agent Stone requests that Cory and Chris be assigned to work with him. It soon become apparent that Stone has more in mind than just work. Chris likes Stone but Stone like Cory. When Chris find out that Stone and Cory slept together, she throws a fit. I’ve noticed that Chris really only has to modes on Pacific Blue. Either she’s disturbingly robotic and unconcerned with civil liberties or she’s getting mad about something and threatening to go all-Fatal Attraction on somebody. I’ve also noticed that the show’s writers are incapable of imagining Chris or Cory in a situation where they don’t end up falling for whoever they’re working with.

The funniest part of this episode was when word came in of a shoot-out so all the cops jumped on their bicycles and rode over to the scene. Seriously, a guy was taking fire and instead of jumping in a car and speeding over there, everyone decided to ride their bicycles. Somehow, the bike cops were able to take down the mob and also arrest Laszlo. I always wonder how they get people to the jail after they arrest them. Do they chain them to the bicycle or something?

After the shoot out, Tim and Cory enjoyed a romantic sunset and Tim promised that he would return soon.

And so ended the second season!

Wow, the second season sucked. Here we are, about to start season 3, and I’m still struggling to tell everyone apart. Chris and Cory still don’t have a personality. Everyone still looks silly on their bicycles. This show grows more pointless with each episode.

Next week …. we’ll start season 3!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.21 “The Last Ride”

Posted on September 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, wild things are happening in Malibu.

Episode 2.21 “The Last Ride”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on April 13th, 1997)

Mahmoud (Shaun Toub) has promised everyone that he will be going straight as soon as he completes his community service. However, we all know better than to trust Mahmoud! It turns out that he’s gotten involved in an elaborate con job to sell Malibu Pier to some naive investors. Oh, that Mahmoud!

What was that? What did you ask? Oh, who is Mahmoud?

I asked that exact same question when I watched this episode. I had no idea who Mahmoud was or why exactly he was at the center of an episode of a show about bicycle cops. Chris and Cory did show up occasionally to harass him but, still, it really did seem like Mahmoud belonged on a different show. After this episode ended, I did a search of my previous reviews and discovered that Mahmoud actually has appeared on the show before. As a vendor on the beach, he sold Chris a necklace that made her neck turn green. But that was about eight episodes ago and it was a rather minor subplot, all things considered.

As for Mahmoud in this episode, he was annoying. His dialogue was overwritten, his story felt cartoonish, and Shaun Taub’s overacting didn’t help things. Still, it’s interesting to think that the regular characters were so boring that the show’s writers decided they would rather do a show about a minor supporting character than actually try to come up with anything for Chris and Cory to do.

The episode’s other subplot actually does feature the bicycle cops. Victor’s childhood friend has been released from prison and is now the head of a violent car theft ring. Victor is forced to deal with his own guilt over being a juvenile delinquent as he and TC try to take down the car thieves. This was pretty standard stuff but it did feature one scene that was just stupid enough to be entertaining. With the car thieves opening fire on them, Victor and TC ride their bikes straight toward the thieves. Eventually they both stand up on their still-moving bikes and, leaning forward against the handle bars, they start shooting their guns back at the bad guys. Somehow, they’re able to do this and aim well-enough to take out the car thieves while also keeping their bikes rolling forward. (TC does get shot but it turns out the bullet only grazed his forehead. “He’ll just have a headache for a while,” Chris says. Yeah, I would think so.) This is one of those moments that would have been really badass if not for the fact that Victor and TC were still wearing their dorky bike cop uniforms during it. The blue shorts, the white polo shirts, the bicycle helmets — sorry, you just can’t look cool when you’re wearing all that. Nice try, guys!

Next week, season 2 ends!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.20 “Bad Company”

Posted on September 16, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Palermo is the peace maker. *snicker*

Episode 2.20 “Bad Company”

(Dir by Corey Michael Eubanks, originally aired on April 6th, 1997)

In Santa Monica, there are two gangs.

One gang is group of white bikers. The other gang is a group of black men who spend all of their time playing basketball. The two groups hate each other but they all respect Lt. Palermo. Palermo previously brokered a peace between the two group. However, the peace is now threatened because someone has been tagging up both gang’s territories. The two gangs are about to go to war, despite Palermo riding his bicycle all over town….

*snicker*

I’m sorry, I can’t help but laugh. Listen, I know that gangs and gang culture are no laughing matter. But this episode features angry gang meetings that are broken up by Palermo riding up on his bicycle and talking tough to everyone. Palermo looks ridiculous with his shorts and his polo shirt and his Schwinn bicycle. “Palermo’s the peace maker!” What’s Palermo going to do if someone breaks the peace? Chase him on his bicycle?

It turns out that a gun dealer (Daniel Quinn) is trying to kickstart his business by starting a gang war. He’s not very good at his job because the gangs soon team up with the — *snicker* — bike patrol to him down.

Meanwhile, when Victor’s friend is killed after an underground fighting match by an associate of the gun dealer’s, Victor goes undercover to catch him. Elvis (David Lander), the bike engineer who used to be a member of the regular cast, witnessed the murder and he finds himself being pursued by the gun dealer. Don’t worry, Elvis! The bike patrol is looking out for you! Mixing the broad humor of David Lander’s performance as Elvis with a storyline about how gangs are destroying communities and getting innocent people killed was a decision that really didn’t pay off. “Increase the peace and now laugh at this guy with an exaggerated accent.”

This episode was a pretty good example of why Pacific Blue’s main weakness was always its premise. This episode featured a lot of scenes of the members of the bike patrol looking serious and barking out orders. It’s hard to be intimidated by someone wearing shorts and riding a bicycle.

The title of this episode is Bad Company. In the end, the truly bad company rode a Schwinn.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.19 “Lost and Found”

Posted on September 9, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bike cops screw up another case.

Episode 2.19 “Lost and Found”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on March 2nd, 1997)

I’ve often felt that the most interesting thing about Pacific Blue is witnessing just how totally incompetent the bicycle cops really are.

This episode centers around a girl who has run away from home. Chris and Palermo are holding her at the station and they release her to the first guy who shows up claiming to be her father. They don’t bother to ask the man for any sort of proof that he’s her father. They don’t even ask to see his ID. Instead, they just let her go with him.

Guess what? That guy wasn’t her father!

Her actual father shows up a little while later and, needless to say, he’s pretty pissed off. Instead of apologizing or in any way accepting accountability for screwing up, Palermo and Chris snap at the guy to calm down and then say that they’ll track down his daughter. What’s funny is that we’re supposed to be on the side of the bicycle cops because the father is angry and yelling. Well, the father has every right to be angry and yelling. THE IDIOTS LET HIS RUNAWAY DAUGHTER LEAVE WITH THE FIRST GUY WHO SHOWED UP!

Now, the show later reveals that the father was abusive and that his daughter ran way because he was beating her. Yeah, he’s not a good father and he should lost custody of his daughter. That doesn’t make the bicycle cops any less incompetent, though! It just amuses that this show continually tries to convince us that we should take these people seriously as cops but every episode seems to feature them making some sort of terrible mistake. This show really seems to think that, as long as Chris is shooting people the death glare, that means she’s not responsible for any of her screwups.

This episode also featured a subplot in which Cory tried to protect her no-good brother from some hitmen. She did a better job with her storyline than Chris and Palermo did with the case of the runaway. Maybe Cory should be in charge.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.18 “Full Moon”

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it all about bicycles and sex.

Episode 2.18 “Full Moon”

(Dir by Scott Lautanen, originally aired on February 23rd, 1997)

This week, Pacific Blue gives us the erotically-charged story of two people with no personality falling for each other. Don’t worry, though. Even though Chris and TC both put in for transfers so that they won’t violate Palermo’s “No Doing It On The Job” policy, they eventually realize that they’re not actually in love. After TC kisses Chris and they prepare to move into the bedroom, Chris suddenly says that she can tell that TC feels like he’s “about to have sex with your sister,” and TC nods, as if that’s a feeling that he’s extremely familiar with.

TC and Chris fall for each other while investigating a series of ATM robberies. The two robbers (Robert Kerbeck and Felicity Waterman) were at least convincingly sleazy. Cory kills one of the robbers. How humiliating it must be to be killed by someone who rides a bicycle for a living!

Meanwhile, Palermo was shocked to discover his name was in a madame’s little black book. Palermo, you hypocrite! Put that man in jail! But then it turned out that madame (played by Charlie Spradling) just put random names in the book so that she could use it for blackmail. That was pretty clever of her. Still, I find it hard to believe that anyone, outside of the bike patrol, would have had the slightest idea who Palermo was.

This was another episode that failed because not only are the characters not interesting but they’re all pretty much indistinguishable. Chris and Cory at least have differing hair colors. But, from a distance, Palermo, TC, and Victor all might as well all be the same guy. If you told me that this episode was actually about Palermo falling in love with Chris, I’d have to believe you because Palermo and TC are pretty much impossible to tell apart. Human drama only works when the characters are recognizably human.

Agck! That’s mean! Oh well, it’s late….