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 4.12 “Cruz Control”

Posted on July 28, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, almost everyone’s got a secret.

Episode 4.12 “Cruz Control”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on December 13th, 1988)

I guess someone in the Pacific Blue writers’ room finally remembered that Amy Hunter joined the cast at the start of season 4 because her character, Jamie Stickland, actually gets to do something in this episode. In fact, we ever see the odd loft that she is apparently still sharing with Russ Granger.

This episode opens with Jamie gunning down a Korean smuggler. Even though it’s a “good” shooting, it’s still Jamie’s second killing in just a handful of months. Lt. Susan Jessup (Holly Gagnier, who previously played Parker Stevenson’s little-seen wife on the first season of Baywatch) uses the shooting as leverage to try to force Jamie to become a mole for Internal Affairs. When Jamie refuses, Susan threatens to reveal that Jamie lied on her police application when she said she had never been convicted of a felony. It turns out that, when Jamie was 15, she was convicted of manslaughter after she shot her abusive foster father. When Jamie continues to resist the pressure to spy on her fellow cops, Susan suddenly talks about “Internal Affairs is very erotic.” By the end of the episode, it appears that Jamie is ready to become an IA informant so I guess the erotic line worked.

Meanwhile, Bobby Cruz goes AWOL for two days so that he can track down Lee Kwan (Karen Kim), a model who, years earlier, accidentally ran over Bobby’s parents while driving too fast. Lee was acquitted in court and Bobby has been dreaming of revenge ever since. When it becomes apparent that Lee has become involved with a smuggling operation, Bobby goes rogue to try to get her sent to prison.

Meanwhile, Monica goes undercover as a model because, on this show, all bicycle cops can go undercover at a moment’s notice. The undercover storyline doesn’t really go anywhere but it does give Monica an excuse to show TC her portfolio. Cory sighs dramatically and rolls her eyes, which is pretty much her standard response to Monica doing anything that would indicate that she’s still alive.

This was a busy episode. All of the regular characters, with the exception of Darlene Vogel’s Chris Kelly, made an appearance. That said, busy does not necessarily equal good or even interesting. Bobby’s decision to go AWOL never made much sense but then again, Pacific Blue itself has never made much sense. A bunch of people barking out orders while wearing bicycle shorts will never make sense. At the very least, though, we did get to see Mario Lopez doing the “big” acting. There was never an episode of Saved By The Bell in which Slater got hooked on rage-inducing drugs but Pacific Blue gives us an idea of what that would have been like.

By the end of the episode, Lee Kwan is dead, Bobby is back on his bike, and Jamie’s a rat. Hopefully, this will somehow lead to TC getting sent to prison for embezzlement or something. That’s my hope!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.7 “Damaged Goods”

Posted on June 16, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bike cops are it again.

Episode 4.7 “Damaged Goods”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on October 4th, 1998)

Bobby has a new girlfriend named Annie (Tracy Hutson). Bobby says that he’s in love with her. Meanwhile, Granger is in lust with Annie’s best friend, Jo (Shannon Elizabeth, in an early role). After Granger sleeps with Jo, Jo tells him that he owes her $200. It turns out that both Jo and Annie get paid to have sex. Meanwhile, Annie’s roommate is found dead below a 6-story window.

Chris is convinced that Annie’s roommate was murdered. TC and Cory disagree. TC is especially angry because he thinks Chris is spending too much time hanging out with her friends in Homicide. Oddly enough, none of those friends show up in this episode. As well. no one from the Vice Squad shows up to investigate the campus prostitution ring. Instead, this is yet another episode where it somehow all falls to the bicycle cops.

Monica goes undercover and joins Jo and Annie’s therapy group, where Dr. Alicia Alper (Joyce Hyser) teaches that prostitution is empowering. Soon, Jo recruits Monica to work as a an escort. Or, at least, I think it was Jo. This episode is edited in such a haphazard way that it was hard to keep track of what was actually going on.

This episode finds Cory worrying about how she’s going to survive as a single mom. Her ex-boyfriend, Doug (Owen McKibben), returns and says that he wants to be in the baby’s life. Cory says that it’s been over a month since Doug reacted to the news of her pregnancy by walking out on her. Doug threatens to sue for the right to be a part of the baby’s life. Cory has a miscarriage. She says it was due to the stress Doug put her under. Doug says that it was due to Cory still working a very physically demanding and rough job despite being pregnant. I felt so bad for Cory in this episode, especially since the only person (other than Doug) who bothered to visit her in the hospital was Chris, who is pretty much incapable of feeling or showing emotion.

Anyway, it turns out that Annie’s roommate was murdered by a client and then the client was murdered by Dr. Alper. However, when the bike cops arrest her, several other woman all walk up and declares that Dr. Alper is innocent because they killed the client. However, Dr. Alper confesses. Bobby breaks up with his girlfriend. That’s probably for the best. Everyone knows Bobby should be with Monica.

This episode …. oh God. I mean, it tried to liven things up a little. There were a lot of intense interrogation scenes and a lot of jump cuts that were apparently meant to create tension. We would watch Chris ask a question and then jump to someone in a totally different room answering an unrelated question. It was very showy but it wasn’t very effective. These folks aren’t hard-boiled detectives. They’re bicycle cops.

Seriously, where were the real detectives?

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.4 “Users”

Posted on May 19, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Jamie goes undercover …. again!

Episode 4.4 “Users”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on August 16th, 1998)

Pacific Blue started out as a show about bicycle cops. I always thought that was a stupid premise but, regardless of my opinion, the first two seasons pretty much focused on keeping the cops on the bikes. However, with the third and now the fourth season, the bikes have started to feel superfluous. Now, the bike cops are suddenly working murders and going undercover. This all seems like stuff that actual detective should be doing as opposed to a bunch of glorified traffic cops.

For instance, this episode features Jamie being sent undercover to befriend a teenage drug dealer named Brandon Jeter (future choreographer and Michael Jackson-accuser Wade Robson). Brandon, who has witnessed a murder, is being used as an informant by an intense narcotics detective named Perry Marcus (Roger Floyd). TC and Cory make a big deal about how they don’t like Perry’s tactics but why would Perry care? He’s not a bike cop and they’re not detectives.

This is only Jamie’s fourth episode as a regular character but it feels like the 100th time that she’s been told to work undercover. The problem is that we don’t know much about who Jamie is so there’s not really any emotional pay-off to seeing her pretending to be someone else. Jamie is upset when she sees how everyone — from Detective Marcus to drug lord Nick Lambros (Corey Pearson) — is manipulating Brandon but we don’t really know why. We know nothing about Jamie’s homelife. We know nothing about her past. We don’t know why she became a cop. She’s a character with no inner life. It’s not the fault of actress Amy Hunter that Jamie comes across as being boring. The scripts, so far, have given her nothing to work with.

Meanwhile, Moncia is having an affair with the recently promoted Commander McKinnon (Jeffrey Meek). The affair is often physically abusive but, when Bobby confronts McKinnon, McKinnon claims that Monica enjoys the pain. Eventually, Monica and Bobby get McKinnon being abusive on tape. The episode ends with Monica lustfully spying on TC in a neighboring apartment. Ugh. This show really annoys me with the way it portrays Monica. She’s literally the only character on the show who has a positive and largely guilt-free attitude about sex and the show always seems to be determined to either punish or villainize her for it. (What makes this especially annoying is that the show both judges and leers at Monica at the same time.)

As usual, this episode could have worked if the characters were more interesting. The idea that everyone on the show was using someone else had potential but the execution fell flat.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 4.1 “Glass Houses”

Posted on April 28, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we start season 4!

Episode 4.1 “Glass Houses”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on July 26th, 1998)

The fourth season of Pacific Blue opens with many changes.

Palermo and Victor have retired. Cory is now dating Doug Fraser (Owen McKibbin). At the start of the episode, Cory and Doug accompany TC and Chris to Vegas, where they are married by — you guessed it! — an Elvis impersonator.

TC is now in charge of Pacific Blue and, while Chris and Cory both make plans to take the sergeant’s exam, TC focuses on bringing in some new blood. At the police academy, he recruits two recent graduates — hyper-competent Jaime Strickland (Amy Hunter) and edgy rebel Russ Granger (Jeff Stearns). He asks and gets undercover cop Monica Harper (Shanna Moakler) transferred to Pacific Blue so that she can go undercover to break up a meth operation at the local college. Everyone is shocked when Monica turns out to be young and blonde. Were they expecting a 40 year-old undercover college student?

Not happy about having to ride a bicycle, Russ decides to insert himself into Monica’s undercover operation. Monica and Russ meet the two main dealers, Quincy (Joe Michael Burke) and Cherry (Michelle Beauchamp). They discover that they’re getting their drugs from a chemistry professor (Robin Thomas). What they don’t do is make an arrest. Quincy and Cherry murder the professor and escape after setting off a bomb in the chemistry lab.

TC is not happy with his new cops. In fact, the episode ends with him telling them that he has doubts about whether or not to keep them at Pacific Blue. Fortunately, we the viewers know that they’ll be okay because they are all now listed in the opening credits.

Also listed in the opening credits is Bobby Cruz (Mario Lopez), the campus cop who drags Monica out of the laboratory right before it explodes. Bobby has a history. He was a member of the LAPD but, disgusted by the anti-Mexican racism that he saw, he became a campus cop instead. (Where I went to college, the campus cops were the biggest joke around.) TC offers Bobby a chance to be a member of Pacific Blue. Bobby says that he’ll think about it. We all know that means yes.

And that’s a good thing because this show could definitely use more Mario Lopez! In fact, the only reason I started reviewing this stupid series was because I knew Mario would be joining the cast eventually. Let’s hope Mario’s magic starts to make things better soon!

As for this episode, it was …. well, it wasn’t good. Other than Lopez, none of the new characters really made much of an impression. But, I am an optimist. I have hope.

Never give up hope.

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 3.17 “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 3.15 “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 3.5 “Excessive Force”

Posted on November 4, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier tonight, I was thinking I might get to bed early as a way to battle my depression over the election in New York City. Then I suddenly remembered that I still had to review this stupid show.

Episode 3.5 “Excessive Force”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on September 7th, 1997)

A bank is robbed in Santa Monica so Chris and Victor ride their little bicycles really fast to the scene of the crime. Victor gets shot in the behind and he spends the rest of the episode with everyone laughing about the fact that it’s excruciatingly painful for him to sit down. (Wow, what a great group of people.) Chris shoots one of the robbers in the neck so he swears revenge on her.

Meanwhile, Palermo’s ex-wife is married to an abusive police detective. She briefly moves back in with Palermo, they end up going at it on the couch, and their daughter gets upset.

As is almost always the case with this show, it’s hard to get involved in the human drama because all of the humans are pretty dull. Chris ends up staying at TC’s apartment for her own safety and there’s a lot of “will-they-or-won’t-they” tension but it doesn’t add up to anything because TC is boring and Chris is equally boring so who cares? Meanwhile, Lt. Palermo just comes across as being the volleyball coach from Hell.

Oddly, this episode had a really impressive guest cast. Dey Young played Palermo’s ex-wife. Cliff de Young played her new husband. John Hawkes — as in future Oscar nominee John Hawkes — played the brother of the guy who wanted to kill Chris. Even Dorian Gregory, from the weird second season of Baywatch Nights, showed up as an FBI agent. The guest stars were the lucky ones. None of them had to pretend to be excited about riding a bicycle.

What a silly show.