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.

This week, Victor gets a plot.

Episode 2.4 “Bangers”

(Dir by Charles Siebert, originally aired on September 14th, 1996)

Victor del Toro, who often doesn’t get to do much on this show, finally gets a storyline of his very own.  Unfortunately, it involves trying to keep a young man for his old neighborhood from joining a gang.  One thing that you can always count on whenever you watch any sort of cop show from the 90s, if there’s a Latino cop in the cast, he’s going to have to keep someone from joining a gang.  It was one of the biggest cliches on the 90s.

And don’t get me wrong.  Gangs are a reality in America and they are a problem.  At the same time, though, is there a reason why every time a Latino appeared on a show like this, they always seemed to either be in a gang or on the verge of joining a gang?  Not every Latino family is poor, not every young Latino male is struggling with the pressure to join a gang, and for that matter, not every Latino with a tattoo is a member of a street gang.

While Victor dealt with the gangs moving into the neighborhood, Chris and Corey decided to rent an apartment together.  Needless to say, things didn’t go well.  Corey reveals that she is hyperorganized and likes to keep every surface in the apartment clean and spotless.  (I don’t really see what that’s a problem.)  Chris is revealed to be a slob who hangs her clothes around the kitchen and who pours a box of cereal out on the floor because she’s tired of Corey always cleaning.  Isn’t Chris supposed to be a hotshot fighter pilot?  I mean, up until this episode, there was absolutely nothing about her character that would suggest that she was incapable of picking up her clothes.  I would think that, being a member of the Air Force, she would actually have had some sort of discipline drilled into her.  It’s kind of like how soldiers still tend to stand at attention even while visiting their families.  Anyway, this storyline ends with Chris throwing food around the apartment and Corey grabbing a pair of scissors and attacking Chris’s laundry …. wait, what?  I’m sorry, this is psychotic behavior.

Don’t worry, though.  Chris and Corey share a laugh about it and agree to remain friends but not roommates.  Uhm, Chris …. Corey took a pair of scissors to your clothes.  I mean, I don’t like sloppy people either but I generally don’t try to destroy their possessions.

Of course, the main problem with this episode is the same problem that all of the episodes have had.  They’re cops on bikes!  They wear shorts and polo shirts and they spend all of their  time insisting that they’re real cops even though it’s obvious that they aren’t.  Real cops don’t ride bicycles with baskets on the back.

This episode did not leave me with much confidence in California law enforcement.