Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.13 “Saving Serenity”

Posted on August 4, 2026 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.

This week, Del Toro returns!

Episode 4.13 “Saving Serenity”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on January 10th, 1999)

When last we saw former series regular Victor Del Toro (played by Marcos A. Ferraez), he was quitting the force after nearly being indicted for killing the man who killed his fiancée. In this episode, Victor finally returns to Santa Monica.

Victor has spent the last five months wandering. He now has bleached blonde hair and a serious drinking problem. When a robber attempts to hold up the bar where Victor is getting drunk, Victor struggles with him. The thief ends up getting shot. Victor grabs the thief’s gun and runs from the bar.

Victor is on the verge of shooting himself on the pier when he sees a woman named Carmen Rios (Angela Alvarado). Carmen reveals that she’s searching for her daughter, Serenity. Serenity was taken away by her biological father. Carmen wants to find her daughter and escape to Mexico with her. Victor agrees to help.

Victor shows up at the Pacific Blue headquarters and announces that he wants to rejoin the force. But, in reality, he just wants to steal the files concerning Serenity’s whereabouts. Later, Victor fakes a bomb threat at the main police station so that he can steal another casefile. TC, Chris, and Cory all reuses to believe that Victor could be involved in anything illegal. Bobby Cruz is convinced that Victor is the one who shot the robber at the bar.

And really, Bobby has reason to be concerned about Victor’s desire to return to Pacific Blue. Victor is a young, handsome Latino who overcame a rough childhood to become a respected bike cop and he’s extremely protective of his younger sister. Bobby, who was introduced after Victor left the show, is also a young, handsome Latino who overcame a rough childhood to become a respected bike cop and he’s also extremely protective of his younger sister. Because the show’s writers were too lazy to actually come up with a new character, Bobby basically is Victor. If Victor returns, the show won’t need Bobby around anymore.

Fortunately, for Bobby, Victor is dead by the end of this episode. He reunites Carmen and Serenity and then drags Serenity’s father out to the pier. Holding a gun to the father’s head, Victor forces the man to repeat the serenity prayer. Cory, TC, and Chris all have their guns drawn. “No!” they all shout in slow motion before opening fire. Victor plunges off the pier and hits the sand below.

OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED VICTOR!

Well, it depends on how you look at it. It turns out that none of them could actually bring themselves to shoot Victor. They just shot up in the air. And then Victor …. well, who knows? The show implies that Victor jumped but, from what I saw, it looks like he was startled and fell backwards. In other words, his friends may not have shot Victor but he might still be alive if they hadn’t fired.

Victor does indeed die at the end of this episode. Wow, Pacific Blue got dark! And I do have to admit that this is actually the best episode of Pacific Blue that I’ve watched so far. Admittedly, it’s a low bar to clear but the whole episode was just so melodramatic and over-the-top that it actually managed to hold my attention in a way that this show usually doesn’t. Those three slow motion shots of people shouting, “Noooooo!” in a row really were worth the price of admission.

So, Victor’s dead. But at least Bobby’s place on the team is secure.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.22 “Best Laid Plans”

Posted on April 21, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, season 3 comes to an end.

Episode 3.22 “Best Laid Plans”

(Dir by John B. Moranville, originally aired on April 19th, 1998)

Heh heh …. they said laid.

The third season finale of Pacific Blue finds everyone at a crossroads, almost as if the showrunners weren’t sure who would be back for the fourth season so they wanted to make sure that everyone had an excuse to leave. There’s a lot of personal drama in this episode and I guess it would be compelling if any of these people were the least bit likable or sympathetic.

Victor Del Toro is being investigated by Internal Affairs and he spends the majority of the episode telling people that he suspects that he’s going to lose his job.

Cory is dumped by her long-distance boyfriend and leaps into a new relationship with some guy she accidentally punched at a bar. (She was trying to hit his friend, who was being pretty obnoxious at the time.)

Chris takes a pregnancy test and it’s positive. TC asks her to marry him. Despite the fact that Chris was previously hoping TC would ask her to marry him, Chris says no because …. well, because Chris is the worst. No, actually, it’s because Chris doesn’t want TC to marry her just because he feels like he has to. Chris and TC have separate scenes where they imagine how wonderful it would be to have a baby and how annoying it will be once the baby grows up to be a bratty teenager. But then Chris finds out that it was a false positive.

Palermo, meanwhile, is burned out. He’s feeling old. He wants to do more than just look at crime scenes. Plus, he’s having sex with a 22 year-old (played by Saved By The Bell: The Next Class’s Sarah Lancaster) and he’d rather do that then go to work.

Sadly, Palermo does have to go to work. A gang of criminals is breaking into people’s home and carving letters on their foreheads. (The letters correspond to their last name — Edwards gets an E and so on.) It turns out that the leader of the gang blame Palermo for his mother’s death and is spelling out P-A-L-E-R-M-O. The bad guys are always one step ahead because a member of the gang (Ginny Shcrieber) is working as a receptionist at Pacific Blue headquarters. Do they not do background checks before hiring people?

Palermo does catch the guy, though only after several people have been permanently scarred. Once again, you have to wonder why the bike cops are the only people working these cases. Add that the end of the episode, Palermo announces he’s going to Italy.

That’s one down and four more to go! Who will be around for season 4?

We’ll find out next week!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.21 “Till Death Do Us Part”

Posted on April 14, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a loved one dies.

Episode 3.21 “Till Death Do Us Part”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on April 12th, 1998)

When two robbers invade a high-end clothing store and shoot a security guard, they also accidentally shoot and kill Linda, Victor’s fiancée. In fact, Linda was trying on a wedding dress when she was shot. She was accompanied by Chris. In typical Pacific Blue style, even though Victor is the one who has just lost his fiancée, Chris also gets a chance to tell everyone that it’s also something that she’ll never recover from because she was the one who was actually there when it happened. Chris is so upset that she initially refuses to even change her clothes, even though they’ve been splattered with Linda’s blood. The show seems to think that this makes Chris into a strong character. Personally, I think it makes her someone who is so self-centered that she even has to make the death of someone else’s fiancée all about her. I can only imagine how Victor feels seeing Linda’s blood all over Chris’s shirt.

As for Victor, he goes on a rampage, tearing up Santa Monica until he finds the man who shot Linda. Victor ignores regulations. He breaks rules. He nearly shoots the killer in a parking lot and his partner Cory promises to back him up if he pulls the trigger. In the end, Victor is not a cold-blooded murderer. He allows the killer to be arrested. He tells the killer that he can’t wait to witness his execution. (Good luck, Victor. You’re in California!) But, as the episode ends, it’s mentioned that Internal Affairs is going to want his badge.

(Apparently, that will be dealt with in next week’s episode, which is also the season three finale.)

Watching this episode, I can found myself asking myself if all the other cops in Santa Monica have been fired. I didn’t see anyone other than the bicycle cops investigating the robberies or the shootings. I didn’t see anyone from Homicide looking into Linda’s murder. Instead, the entire episode was full of people trying to look tough while wearing bicycle shorts.

It just can’t be done!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.20 “With This Ring”

Posted on April 7, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, infedility is in the air.

Episode 3.20 “With This Ring”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on April 5th, 1998)

When Cory and Victor find a dead man on the beach, all of the evidence seems to indicate that he was killed as a result of an extramarital affair. His widow previously hired a detective agency to test his fidelity. His killer forced his own wedding ring down his throat. Someone is killing cheaters.

So, of course, Palermo has Cory and Victor go undercover as a married couple.

This isn’t the first episode of Pacific Blue to feature the bike cops going undercover. It’s actually something that has happened fairly frequently during the third season. On the one hand, it gets the characters off of those stupid bicycles. On the other hand, why would a bunch of bike cops be investigating crimes? Bicycle cops are like any other uniformed cop. Their job is to keep general order, issue tickets, and secure crime scenes until the actual detectives can show up. The bicycle cops are police officers but they’re not detectives. At least, that’s the way it works in the real world. In the world of Pacific Blue, the Malibu PD apparently doesn’t have a plainclothes department and all of the work is done by the same 5 bicycle cops.

While Cory and Victor go undercover, TC tries to deal with the fact that his parents are splitting up, He really struggles with the news of their upcoming divorce. TC is also in his mid-30s. Once you’re closer to 40 than 30, you should be able to handle your parents splitting up with a modicum of maturity. The only good thing about this storyline is that wonderful Andy Buckley made one of his far-too infrequent appearances as TC’s older brother.

This episode ended with TC and Chris promising each other that, in 35 years, they would still be together. Those will probably be the 35 most boring years of anyone’s lives.

This was another forgettable episode. At least there’s only two episodes left this season. And starting with season 4, Mario Lopez arrives as a new member of Pacific Blue! It can’t happen soon enough.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.19 “Heat of the Moment”

Posted on March 31, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Chris has a crisis.

Episode 3.19 “Heat of the Moment”

(Dir by Terrence H. Winkless, originally aired on March 22nd, 1989)

Chris and TC respond to reports of a robbery occurring at a jewelry store. One of the robbers, carrying a shotgun, makes a run for it. TC goes after him. The other robber is easily captured and handcuffed by Chris. Chris calls for backup and then leaves the store to help TC, despite the owner of the store begging her to stay. As soon as Chris leaves, it is revealed that a third robber was hiding in the backroom. He proceeds to beat up the owner and then free his partner. Meanwhile, the other robber manages to escape from Chris and TC. When Chris returns to the store, she is shocked to learn about the third robber.

Chris is also shocked that anyone could think that she made the wrong decision. She didn’t know there was another robber in the store. As she explains it, TC was out there, chasing a guy with a shotgun. She made the right decision! Not everyone agrees and soon, Chris starts to wonder if maybe her relationship with TC clouded her judgment.

Uhmm …. yeah, Chris, that’s pretty much what happened. I mean, Chris basically abandoned an innocent woman to two psychotic criminals just because she was worried about TC. It would have taken Chris just a few seconds to check the backroom. Add to that, the owner was obviously terrified and begged Chris not to leave. Chris’s response was to be rude. Even if there hadn’t been a third robber, Chris still left the owner alone with the second robber and didn’t bother to secure the crime scene.

This is another episode of Pacific Blue where the viewer is expected to not dwell on the fact that Chris is terrible at her job. Chris being bad at her job has pretty much been her defining characteristic. Even before she started sleeping with TC, Chris was regularly rude to crime victims and frequently violated the constitutional rights of the people she arrested. She also spent a lot of time complaining nonstop about going from being a Navy pilot to being a bicycle cop. By any standard, Chris should have been fired a long time ago. She certainly should have been fired for not checking the backroom of that jewelry store.

But this is Pacific Blue. And, on Pacific Blue, no one with a badge is ever held accountable for screwing up. The bike patrol captures the main robber and his girlfriend. Chris shoots and kills the other robbers. And she decides that maybe she and TC should just be honest about their relationship.

“I know this week has been tough on you,” Chris tells TC.

Actually, you know who this week was hard on? The poor jewelry store owner who got beaten up because Chris is terrible at her job!

Ugh. Bicyclists just think the world revolves around them.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.18 “Caretakers”

Posted on March 24, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bicycle cops go after pharmaceutical smugglers.

Episode 3.18 “Caretakers”

(Dir by Sara Rose, originally aired on March 8th, 1998)

This week, a drug company is smuggling and distributing black market pharmaceuticals. Leslie Jordan plays Bo, the crazy man who lives in a storage unit and who has figured out what the company is doing. When he gets shot in the back, Chris feels guilty because she refused to listen to his ramblings earlier. After undergoing hypnosis to search for clues as to who shot Bo, Chris goes undercover as a potential drug buyer. It always amuses me whenever any member of the bike patrol goes undercover. None of them are capable of not coming across as being a cop and that’s especially true in Chris’s case. Everything from the way they talk to the way they glare at everyone to the way they stand just a little bit too rigidly screams, “Cop!” And yet the criminals never seem to catch on.

Meanwhile, Victor’s mother is deathly ill and needs some drugs to save her life. Luckily, the local priest has connections. But can Victor set aside whatever his issue is with the church? Does anyone care? I mean, I’m glad that Victor’s mom is alive at the end of the episode but Victor isn’t that interesting of a character.

We are three season into Pacific Blue and none of the characters are really interesting enough to carry the show. Even the lifeguards on Baywatch had more personality than the members of the bike patrol. The main thing that I’ll remember about this episode is that, even when they were keeping an eye on Chris working undercover, the cops all brought their bicycles.

The important thing is that Leslie Jordan survives his injuries. At the end of the episode, TC locks Chris in the Bo’s storage unit so that she’ll be forced to listen to his conspiracy theories. I guess TC’s okay with not getting any for a month.

I’d like this show better if the rode motorcycles.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.17 “House Party”

Posted on March 3, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bicycle cops screw up again.

Episode 3.17 “House Party”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on February 1st, 1997)

One of the one more entertaining things about Pacific Blue is witnessing how bad the bicycle cops actually are at their job.

I don’t think that was intentional on the part of the show. I think the show meant for us to watch TC, Palermo, and Victor on their bikes and think to ourselves, “Those are the men that I want protecting me!” However, the narrative demands of an hour show required that the bike cops always screw up in some way, whether it’s failing to catch the bad guys the first time that they commit a crime or suspecting the wrong guy while working undercover or just letting their personal lives get in the way of their professional judgment. Combine that with some bad scripts and a group of actors who struggled with showing any emotion beyond grim annoyance and you have a show about cops who are not only incompetent but also kind of rude.

That’s certainly the case with this week’s episode. Not only do they allow an escaped murderer (Currie Graham) to grab a gun and take over the station but then TC proceeds to spend almost the entire episode arguing with Palermo and the SWAT team because Chris is among those being held hostage on the inside. When the cops realize that the murderer’s girlfriend is somewhere on the beach, they put Cory in a chicken uniform and have her walk around pretending to hand out flyers for a restaurant. “Chickelicous,” Cory says as she walks along the beach. Of course, the murder’s girlfriend spots her and taking off running. Guess what? It’s not easy to chase someone when you’re dressed like a chicken! Seriously, I can understand trying to maintain some element of surprise but why would they put Coy in a costume that severely limits her mobility?

Anyway, this was a hostage episode, which means that almost whole thing was the hostage taker barking orders while the hostages either cowered in fear or tried to stalk some sense into him and the members of his gang. Episodes about hostage situations are almost always incredibly dull and this episode was no exception. In the end, Victor — who was in the station when the situation started and managed to go unseen by the hostage takers — was there to do his John McClane thing. All of the bad guys died. The hostages were freed. The bike patrol’s main concern was that Chris was okay. I would probably be offended if I was one of the civilian hostages. Just because their friend is okay doesn’t excuse the incompetence that led to the situation in the first place.

Eh. Just another day in L.A., I guess.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.16 “Double Lives”

Posted on February 24, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Chris screws up again.

Episode 3.16 “Double Lives”

(Dir by Scott Lautanen, originally aired on January 18th, 1998)

Sean McGovern (Rob Youngblood) shows up on the beach, looking for Chris. It turns out that he’s a former lover who is now in the witness protection agency. We jump forward several months and Sean has not only vanished by Chris has been accused of helping him flee. Chris is being investigated and, as is typical with this show, the reaction of the bicycle cops is to get offended that they’re being held to any sort of professional standard.

Seriously, Chris’s former boyfriend escapes custody? Heck yeah, Chris should be investigated! (I gave up cursing for Lent, everyone.) Instead, Chris pouts about having to answer the most basic of questions and Palermo wanders around in the background, talking about how he needs to get Chris back on a bicycle and doing her job. It’s hard to take any of this seriously when everyone’s wearing bicycle shorts.

Meanwhile, a gang of teenagers is mugging closeted gay men because they know the men won’t go to the police. Victor is told to go undercover as a gay man to catch the muggers. “No one’s going to believe me as a gay man!” Victor says. Fortunately, Victor is wrong and he’s able to capture the muggers.

This episode was well-intentioned. As far as the mugging storyline was concerned, it treated the victims with sensitivity. Judge Annadale (Gil Gerard) refuses to make a police report because coming out of the closet would end his career and, at the time this show aired, he had every reason to believe that. That said, the actors playing the muggers were not exactly the most intimidating teenagers around. As far as Chris’s storyline is concerned …. who cares? Seriously, why does Chris never have to face any consequences for being awful at her job?

Watching this show is becoming a real trial.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.15 “Armed and Dangerous”

Posted on February 17, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Why is everyone bagging on my town?

Episode 3.15 “Armed and Dangerous”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on January 11th, 1998)

At the local high school, a gun is fired and the bullet grazes the arm of Jessie Palermo (Johna Stewart-Bowden). Jessie, of course, is Lt. Palermo’s daughter. Palermo becomes obsessed with finding out who fired the gun and how that person got the gun. He sends Chris and TC into the school to work undercover and he orders Cory and Victor to find the gun dealer. As for Palermo himself, he visits the local gun store and gives an impassioned speech in favor of gun control.

Yeeesh, this episode.

I mean, I get it. Palermo has every right to be upset. But it’s hard not to notice that he only seems to care whenever a case directly involves either his family or a member of the bike patrol. Whenever it’s just some citizen with whom he doesn’t have a personal connection, Palermo just kind of zones out. If some anonymous student had been shot at the school, there’s no way Palermo would have gone to so much trouble. He would have shrugged it off and hopped on his bicycle. In fact, I’ve noticed that this is true of all the bike cops. They take the “one of their own” syndrome to an extreme that is probably not good for the image of law enforcement. If it’s a friend who needs help, they’ll do everything within their power to help. They’ll even stop doing their patrols of the boardwalk to make time to help a friend. If it’s just some random person who gets mugged, they don’t care. If she doesn’t personally know you, Chris will probably make fun of you for being dumb enough to get mugged in the first place. These bike cops are the worst.

And here’s another thing. Why are the bicycle cops investigating this? Where are the real detectives? Why are two bicycle cops going undercover as opposed to the cops who have actually been trained to do that sort of work?

This is an episode that deals with a serious subject. But it’s hard to really pay attention to what it has to say when everyone’s wandering around in those silly bicycle shorts.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 3.14 “Heartbeat”

Posted on February 10, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Palermo dies but it’s not a permanent condition.

Episode 3.14 “Heartbeat”

(Dir by Terence H. Winkless, originally aired on December 28th, 1997)

This week, Pacific Blue decided to stop pretending that it was anything more than a Baywatch ripoff by having Carmen Electra appear as Lani MacKenzie, the lifeguard that she played on Baywatch. She helped the bicycle cops out with a rescue and then the bike cops helped her out when she had to break up a knife fight on the beach.

Lani was also present to discuss a new program in which two EMTs will ride with the cops. They will learn how to get around on a bicycle while teaching the bike cops stuff like CPR. One of the EMTs is Alexa Cholak (Alex Datcher), an ex-girlfriend of Palermo’s. This complicates things when an explosion rips across the beach. Palermo and a random woman are injured. Alexa and all the bike cops work on restarting Palermo’s heart, giving him mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions. Palermo lives. The woman dies. The woman’s boyfriend then sues the bike patrol because he says that they were so concerned about saving Palermo that they essentially just let his girlfriend die. We’re supposed to dislike the boyfriend but he is actually kind of …. sort of …. right? Chris points out that the woman would have died even if the EMTs had tried to save her but they had no way of knowing that at the time. Essentially, they decided to save their friend Palermo while ignoring someone else who was seriously injured.

This really gets to one of the major problems I have with Pacific Blue. The show just assumes that we’re going to be on the side of the bike patrol no matter what, despite the fact that they often come across as being a bunch of jerks. That’s certainly the case here. When Palermo returns to the office, everyone starts applauding and cheering for him, despite the fact that the dead woman’s boyfriend happens to be standing just a few feet away.

This episode features scenes of the members of the bike patrol being interviewed by a therapist after the explosion. Palermo says that, when he was dead, he didn’t see a bright light or feel any sort of inner peace. He didn’t see his loved ones waiting for him. It’s like even the show is admitting that Palermo is going to go to Hell for creating the bike patrol.

As for the rest of the episode, Chris and Victor investigated the claims of an environmentalist whack job (Michael Houston King) who said that a big evil businessman (Larry Wilcox, of CHiPs fame) was polluting the beach. It turned out the environmentalist was telling the truth. Meanwhile, shaken by the death of the woman and the resulting lawsuit, Alexa resigned from the bike patrol. It would have been touching if Alexa had actually been in more than one episode. Still, each member of the bike patrol popped a wheelie in honor of Alexa. It was dumb. Get those bicycles off the beach!

Stupid episode, this week.