Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

I was warned about this episode.

Episode 1.3 “Miss Malibu”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on October 25th, 1998)

Wow, check out these two douchebags!

On the left, we’ve got Scott, who is supposed to be the studious brother.  On the right, we’ve got Jason, who is supposed to be the cool brother.  It can be difficult to keep the two of them straight, even though they don’t really resemble each other physically.  The problem is that neither really has much of a personality, beyond taking off their shirt and staring at girls.

Their father is going to convention in Las Vegas so he leaves the twins in charge of the restaurant.  Why would he do that?  We’re only three episodes in Malibu, CA but every episode so far has featured these two idiots doing something stupid with the restaurant.  Does the restaurant not have an assistant manager who could run the place?

Before leaving, their father tells Scott and Jason to be sure to feed the fish in the restaurant’s aquarium.  Dumbass Scott (or maybe it was Jason) is so distracted by Samantha and her friends that he accidentally dumps a bunch of bacon bits into the aquarium and kills a goldfish.  Scott and Jason assume that they’ve killed their father’s favorite fish, Goldie.  They’re worried that their father is going to be mad at them.  Personally, I think they should think about the fact that they killed an animal that was depending on them to do the bare minimum to keep it alive.

Maybe they can buy a new fish!  The only problem is that the goldfish was an extremely rare breed and it will cost them $500 to get a new one.  How can they raise $500?  Maybe they should take it out of the restaurant’s cash registers.  Maybe they should pawn some of their expensive belongings.  Maybe they should ask their rich friend Murray for a loan.  Maybe they should just tell their Dad the truth because, sadly, fish do die.  They can leave out the fact that they murdered the fish, if they want.

Instead of doing any of that, they decide to throw a fake beauty contest.

WHAT!?

They’ll charge every one an entry free and advertise the contest as coming with a $500 prize.  But, since Jason, Scott, and Murray will be the judges, they’ll just announce that Sam is the winner and then Sam will give them back the prize.  Seriously, this is the plan they come up with.  Out of everything that they could have done, this is what they do.

Here’s why this is a dumb plan.  To let people know about the fake Miss Malibu contest, they have to print up signs.  They have to find time to hang up the signs around town.  They have to print up entry forms.  In fact, if they’re going to get enough people to enter to raise $500, they’re going to have to print up and copy a lot of entry forms.  They’re going to have to rent out a spot on the beach to hold the contest.  They’re going to have to install a lighting and sound system for the pageant.  It’s going to cost them way more than just $500 to hold a fake beauty contest.  If they have $500 for this, why don’t they have $500 for a new fish?

Sam is reluctant to go along with the plan so Scott and Jason, as if they weren’t already unlikable enough, lie to her and tell her that their father is a recovering alcoholic and losing the fish will cause him to start drinking and driving again.  Seriously, what the Hell?  Sam agrees to enter the pageant but then the plan hits another snag when Sam has an allergic reaction to her tanning lotion and her face turns orange.  Jason and Scott decide to asks Stads to enter as their ringer.  When Stads says she doesn’t like the way beauty pageants demean women, Scott removes his shirt and shows off his muscles until Stads agrees to help.  Wow, Scott — way to take advantage of the fact that a really nice person has a crush on you.  WHAT A DOUCHEBAG!

Anyway, I feel like I’ve already wasted too much time on this so I’ll cut to the chase.  The pageant does not raise enough money to pay for the new fish but Stads once again demeans herself and pretends to be Jason and Scott’s younger sister when she asks the fish salesman to give them the replacement fish at a lower price.  (Does Stads have any self-respect?)  Scott and Jason put the new fish in the aquarium but then it turns out that Goldie wasn’t the fish that died.  Instead, Goldie is a big gray fish that their father named after Goldie Hawn.

Wow, funny.

You may have guessed I did not care much for this episode.  The main problem is that Jason and Scott are so incredibly unlikable that it’s impossible to root for them.  They did the wrong thing, they exploited their friends, and they didn’t even really seem to appreciate the fact that Stads abandoned her principles to help them out.  Zach Morris and even California Dreams’s Sly Winkle would have at least felt a smidgen of guilt.  But Jason and Scott are just jerks.

Ugh, what a terrible 23-minute viewing experience!

Will next week be better?  Probably not.