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 Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Some people stand in the darkness …. let’s get back to reviewing Baywatch Nights!  I’ve missed talking about this silly show.

Episode 2.8 “Last Breath”

(Dir by Gregory J. Bonnan, originally aired on November 17th, 1996)

Lifeguards are disappearing!

After hearing the sounds of someone shouting for help in the distance, three lifeguards — including Donna — vanish while investigating.  It’s assumed that they’ve drowned but Mitch has his doubts.  And it turns out that Mitch is correct!  This is an evil haunting the sea and yes, it’s stalking lifeguards.

What type of evil is it?

Is it a sea monster?

Is it a ghost?

Is it an alien creature?

How about a mutant octopus?

Maybe a dinosaur of some sort?

Could it be an unfrozen Viking or a vampire or a time traveler or a….

Well, you get the idea.  And really, it should have been one of those things.  The second season of Baywatch Nights was all about David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon investigating supernatural ocean stuff.  It was specifically designed to be X-Files on the beach.  We’ve all heard the urban legend of the weeping woman who haunts lakes.  As soon as the lifeguards heard those shouts, I assumed this episode would feature an ocean version of La Llorona.

Well, it turns out I was wrong.  Instead, the lifeguard are being kidnapped by a man who blames them for the death of his family in a car accident.  The madman (Brett Baxter Clark), who is not at all supernatural, is keeping the lifeguards trapped in a cage.  (How do random madmen always manage to have a super-strong cage just lying around?)  He wants to recreate the accident that led to the death of his family.  Can Mitch track the cage down and rescue his lifeguards?

This episode was disappointing on many levels, with the main problem being that there was really nothing to distinguish it from a typical episode of Baywatch.  All it needed was to open with that Some People Stand In The Darkness song for it to be an episode of Baywatch.  When you watch the second season of Baywatch Nights, you’re watching because you want to see David Hasselhoff and Angie Harmon pretending to be Mulder and Scully.  You watch it because you want to see a combination of swimsuits and supernatural phenomena.  Once you take away the supernatural, you take away this show’s main appeal.

That said, if you were a fan of the original Baywatch, you may enjoy certain parts of this episode. Newmie shows up!  At first, I was like, “Don’t you dare kidnap Newmie!” but, fortunately, Newmie was too clever to fall for any traps.

Next week, the supernatural will return to the beach!