Kelly Slater – Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch, which ran on NBC and then in syndication from 1989 to 2001. The entire show can be viewed on Tubi.

This week, two new regulars join the cast.

Episode 3.3 “Tequila Bay”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on September 27th, 1992)

Despite not having graduated from lifeguard school yet, Brody is given an undercover assignment by Mitch. Someone has been attacking surfers who try to surf the waters off Tequila Bay, and Brody is sent in to find out who is responsible.

Gee, who could it be? How about that gang of angry-looking teenagers standing on the rocks and glaring as Matt and another surfer, Jimmy Slade (Kelly Slater), greet each other in the water? It is pretty easy to see that the gang is trying to keep other surfers off “their” beach. What I find strange is that the gang consists of about seven people, but only two of them are carrying surfboards. What are the other five getting out of this?

As for Jimmy Slade, he is a philosophical surfer who thinks the water belongs to everyone. He lives in a van. He does not have a phone, but he does have a board, and his life is all about the waves. When he sees Brody paddling in the ocean, he greets him not as a potential rival but as a fellow surfer. And when the evil surf gang tries to run Brody and Slade off, Slade throws a few hard punches of his own.

Jimmy Slade is played by Kelly Slater, a professional surfer who joined Baywatch for its third season. In the Summerfest special, Slater said he joined the cast because he wanted to introduce surfing to the world. I have read a more recent interview in which he says he joined at the urging of his agent and regretted it almost immediately. Not only did fellow surfers give him a hard time about selling out, but Slater also read a script for an episode that featured a surfboard-stealing octopus.

And indeed, Slater gives a performance in this episode that suggests he had already figured out acting was not for him. He delivers his lines stiffly and without much personality. Slater himself abandoned acting after his time on Baywatch. He is a far better surfer than an actor.

Slade does agree to teach Summer how to surf, though the Tequila Bay gang again tries to ruin things by putting barbed wire in the ocean. Slade ends up with a few bad cuts, but it looks as if he will also get a girlfriend. As for the gang, they are arrested by Garner and Mitch.

Meanwhile, the new lieutenant shows up at Baywatch to replace the promoted Captain Thorpe. Mitch is stunned when his new boss turns out to be Stephanie Holden (Alexandra Paul), a woman with whom he once had a torrid affair. She broke his heart when she failed to meet him at Catalina. How badly did she hurt Mitch? Badly enough that he tells Ben he feels like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Wow, Mitch. Overdramatic much?

Overdramatic is the word for David Hasselhoff in this episode. If the first two seasons featured Hasselhoff as an easygoing beach bum, this one features him as an angry, emotionally wounded ex-lover. Unfortunately, Hasselhoff is at his least convincing when he is playing anger. He comes across as petulant. Alexandra Paul may not play Stephanie with much depth, at least not in her first episode, but you still feel sorry for her, because Mitch is being such a jerk.

However, when Stephanie and Mitch work together on the beach to save a drowning man, Mitch realizes that Stephanie is good at her job. He has been asked to write a letter to Captain Thorpe about whether Stephanie should be assigned to Baywatch. Mitch writes that she should definitely be his boss. Could this mean love for Mitch? Let’s hope so!

This episode was way too overdramatic to be taken seriously. The Tequila Bay gang was made up of some of the least intimidating baddies ever to show up on Baywatch. Seriously: the ocean is for everyone.

This week, the third of Baywatch begins with a special!

Episode 3.0: “Summerfest Special”

(Originally aired September 13, 1992)

“Hi, I’m David Hasselhoff, here to welcome you to the Summerfest special.”

The third season of Baywatch starts not with a story about Mitch Buchannon and his fellow lifeguards, but with a breezy special about the California lifestyle and what viewers can expect from the upcoming season. David Hasselhoff stands on the beach in his Baywatch uniform and earnestly talks about how important lifeguards are and how the show is all about celebrating their heroism.

“Life’s a beach,” Hasselhoff says, “and everyone’s life is at the beach.”

“We’ll be back with the latest in barely legal swimwear!” announcer Sean “Hollywood” Hamilton says as the special goes to commercial. Yes, that is the actual line.

In between shots of beachgoers in bikinis, the Summerfest Special features interviews with the cast members joining Baywatch in season 3. Susan Anton talks about being dramatically taller than her on-screen daughter, Nicole Eggert. David Charvet is introduced as “Baywatch’s newest bad boy.” Alexandra Paul says that maybe her character and Mitch will hook up, then laughs. Kelly Slater says that he’s not really an actor, but he joined the cast to show the world what “surfing is all about.” Pamela Anderson says that she’s looking forward to playing a “metaphysical character” because she’s very metaphysical herself. Gregory Alan Williams, who is being promoted to regular status in season 3, talks about saving a bystander during a riot because “I don’t like mobs.”

In between even more shots of beachgoers in bikinis, Hasselhoff talks about his music career and says that Baywatch is a show the entire family can watch. He adds, “Skimpy apparel is a part of the appeal.” This is followed by a montage of women in bikinis.

The Summerfest Special isn’t streaming on Tubi or Prime, but it is available on YouTube. The version I watched included all of the commercials that aired with the show. There weren’t any pharma commercials, which I appreciated. In America, we don’t really realize how bombarded we are with commercials for medicine with potentially deadly side effects until we get a chance to watch a complete broadcast from a time when no one in their right mind would think of advertising prescription medication on television.

Instead, I got a lot of commercials for local businesses and special musical compilation albums. There was a commercial for a Dodge dealership that bragged about how their vehicles came with airbags. In the middle of a commercial for a gospel album, a preacher said, “Who the hell left the gate open?” and everyone in the church cheered. A woman quit her job with confidence because of her Secret deodorant. “I’ll borrow my mother’s scarf,” a young woman who reminded me of myself declared, “but my mother’s tampons? No way!” A bunch of teen soccer players announced they’d rather drink “Sunny D” than “soda” or “purple stuff.” I’m from the South, so it always sounds weird to hear people refer to Coke as soda. It’s even weirder to see people preferring an orange drink to it.

If I seem to be spending a lot of time on the commercials, that’s because they felt like little mini time machines. Watching them was like taking a 30-second trip back to the early ’90s. As for the rest of the special, it was essentially a lengthy commercial for Baywatch and bikinis, but everyone interviewed seemed to be in a really good mood. They were having fun, and that’s the important thing.