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.

It’s time for another stupid trip to L.A.

Episode 4.5 “Overkill”

(Dir by Sara Rose, originally aired on August 23rd, 1998)

Jamie is learning martial arts from Master Soo Han (Yoshi Jenkins).  When she is saved from a group of muggers by a fellow classmate named Kyle (Matty Liu), she starts to fall in love with him.  Soon, he is teaching her how to be a better fighter.  For some reason, Jamie doesn’t tell Kyle that she’s a cop.  That makes things awkward when Kyle realizes that 1) the man who killed his mother is a student in the class and 2) Kyle is being groomed to be a government assassin.

I’ve always said that you can tell when a show has cast a professional athlete in a guest role because the athlete is always the worst actor in the episode.  That was certainly the case here.  At first, I was sure that Matty Liu was a professional martial artist.  It turns out that he’s actually a pro surfer but still, my point stands.  It doesn’t matter how many camera tricks or jump cuts the show uses to make Liu look like a badass, he’s still an amazingly stiff actor.  The scenes of him and Jamie falling in love don’t work because he’s not capable of showing any emotion, let alone love.

Speaking of love, Chris is still mad that her husband didn’t select her to be promoted to sergeant.  When she discovers a murder victim, she impresses Homicide Detective Thomas (Carl T. Evans) by figuring out that the victim died from a — wait for it — broken neck.  WOW!  Amazing deduction, Chris!  I mean, how difficult is it to spot a broken neck?  Even though Chris is neither a medical examiner nor a detective, Thomas invites her to fill in for a sick Homicide detective.  Chris accepts.

TC’s not happy about that!  Actually, TC’s never happy.  He’s been in charge of Pacific Blue for five episodes now and he hasn’t smiled once.  He has spent a lot of time glaring.  In fact, both he and Cory spend most of their time glaring at other people now.  I guess that’s what you do when you’re in charge,  management by glaring.

Finally, Bobby and Spazz compete over — wait a minute, I got a name wrong there.  What is Spazz’s real name?  Is it Granger?  Yeah, okay, sorry about that.  Bobby and Granger serve as body guards for a French actress (Lydie Denier), who claims that she’s being stalked.  Bobby has seen all of her films but she’s more attracted to Spazz, for some reason.  Sorry, Bobby!  I would have picked you.

Anyway, this was one of Pacific Blue’s dumbest episodes yet.  Chris is even more whiny than usual.  TC and Cory are useless.  Jamie and Kyle’s fight scenes are edited in such a way that one gets dizzy trying to follow them.  This episode featured bad acting and worst direction,  No wonder Chris wants to transfer to Homicide.