Retro Television Review: Baywatch 3.3 “Tequila Bay”

Posted on October 24, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch, which ran on NBC and then in syndication from 1989 to 2001. The entire show can be viewed on Tubi.

This week, two new regulars join the cast.

Episode 3.3 “Tequila Bay”

(Dir by Lyndon Chubbuck, originally aired on September 27th, 1992)

Despite not having graduated from lifeguard school yet, Brody is given an undercover assignment by Mitch. Someone has been attacking surfers who try to surf the waters off Tequila Bay, and Brody is sent in to find out who is responsible.

Gee, who could it be? How about that gang of angry-looking teenagers standing on the rocks and glaring as Matt and another surfer, Jimmy Slade (Kelly Slater), greet each other in the water? It is pretty easy to see that the gang is trying to keep other surfers off “their” beach. What I find strange is that the gang consists of about seven people, but only two of them are carrying surfboards. What are the other five getting out of this?

As for Jimmy Slade, he is a philosophical surfer who thinks the water belongs to everyone. He lives in a van. He does not have a phone, but he does have a board, and his life is all about the waves. When he sees Brody paddling in the ocean, he greets him not as a potential rival but as a fellow surfer. And when the evil surf gang tries to run Brody and Slade off, Slade throws a few hard punches of his own.

Jimmy Slade is played by Kelly Slater, a professional surfer who joined Baywatch for its third season. In the Summerfest special, Slater said he joined the cast because he wanted to introduce surfing to the world. I have read a more recent interview in which he says he joined at the urging of his agent and regretted it almost immediately. Not only did fellow surfers give him a hard time about selling out, but Slater also read a script for an episode that featured a surfboard-stealing octopus.

And indeed, Slater gives a performance in this episode that suggests he had already figured out acting was not for him. He delivers his lines stiffly and without much personality. Slater himself abandoned acting after his time on Baywatch. He is a far better surfer than an actor.

Slade does agree to teach Summer how to surf, though the Tequila Bay gang again tries to ruin things by putting barbed wire in the ocean. Slade ends up with a few bad cuts, but it looks as if he will also get a girlfriend. As for the gang, they are arrested by Garner and Mitch.

Meanwhile, the new lieutenant shows up at Baywatch to replace the promoted Captain Thorpe. Mitch is stunned when his new boss turns out to be Stephanie Holden (Alexandra Paul), a woman with whom he once had a torrid affair. She broke his heart when she failed to meet him at Catalina. How badly did she hurt Mitch? Badly enough that he tells Ben he feels like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Wow, Mitch. Overdramatic much?

Overdramatic is the word for David Hasselhoff in this episode. If the first two seasons featured Hasselhoff as an easygoing beach bum, this one features him as an angry, emotionally wounded ex-lover. Unfortunately, Hasselhoff is at his least convincing when he is playing anger. He comes across as petulant. Alexandra Paul may not play Stephanie with much depth, at least not in her first episode, but you still feel sorry for her, because Mitch is being such a jerk.

However, when Stephanie and Mitch work together on the beach to save a drowning man, Mitch realizes that Stephanie is good at her job. He has been asked to write a letter to Captain Thorpe about whether Stephanie should be assigned to Baywatch. Mitch writes that she should definitely be his boss. Could this mean love for Mitch? Let’s hope so!

This episode was way too overdramatic to be taken seriously. The Tequila Bay gang was made up of some of the least intimidating baddies ever to show up on Baywatch. Seriously: the ocean is for everyone.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.19 “The Lost Treasure of Tower 12”

Posted on September 12, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Harvey gets to do something.

Episode 2.19 “The Lost Treasure of Tower 12”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on April 27th, 1992)

After a season of appearing in the opening credits and rarely anywhere else, Harvey (Tom McTigue) finally gets a storyline. Because Mitch is going on a camping trip, he has Harvey replace him as the teacher of a windsurfing class. Harvey is excited because the students all attend a local girls’ school. That would presumably mean they’re teenagers, while Harvey appears to be in his thirties.

As Ben correctly deduces, Harvey has no idea how to windsurf. This becomes obvious as soon as Harvey and Ben meet the bikini-clad students on the beach. (Harvey tells all the girls to write down their phone numbers. Again: the girls are teenagers, and Harvey is definitely not.) After watching Harvey struggle with the basics, the students start to walk away. Ben steps up and announces that he can teach them. What follows is a montage of the girls windsurfing while a dejected Harvey stares straight at the camera.

That’s the B-plot. The A-plot features Michael Bendetti as Ian, a poet who lives on the beach and finds a box of stolen jewels a thief buried in the sand. Ian uses the jewelry to bankroll his courtship of Shauni. (Ian has a crush.) The thieves aren’t happy about that.

This episode just felt off. With his obsessive crush on Shauni, Ian comes across as a stalker, and yet I think we were supposed to be charmed by how relentless he was. There’s even an extended fantasy sequence in which Ian imagines dancing with Shauni under a chandelier suspended above the beach. Meanwhile, the main thief is so cruel that he throws the episode out of whack. It’s hard to reconcile a scene of Newmie and Eddie pulling a dead body out of the ocean with the lightweight humor of Harvey trying to windsurf.

This episode confirms something I’ve suspected from the moment I started reviewing this show. The early seasons of Baywatch worked best when they focused on David Hasselhoff’s somewhat corny but undeniably earnest portrayal of Mitch Buchannon. Whenever Hasselhoff isn’t in an episode (or appears in just one scene), the cynicism at the heart of the show — and the emptiness of its style-heavy approach — is much harder to ignore.

In short, Baywatch needed the Hoff.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.17 “The Chamber”

Posted on August 29, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Mitch gets the bends (snicker)!

Episode 2.17 “The Chamber”

(Dir by Gregory J. Bonann, originally aired on March 2nd, 1992)

Mitch has a lot to think about. Summer is nearly over, and Gayle wants Hobie to return to Ohio for school. Craig, now living in Connecticut, sends Mitch a letter offering to help him get a job as a salesman. It would mean more money, but also a lot of traveling — and no more lifeguarding.

Mitch takes to the ocean in a kayak to clear his head. When he comes across a panicked boy on a boat, he learns that the boy’s father was scuba diving and is trapped 90 feet underwater. Mitch free-dives to free the father. Both men reach the surface, but they’ve both got …. THE BENDS!

The bends may have a silly name, but it’s a real condition, and it can be fatal. Because the father is in worse shape, he goes into the decompression chamber first. Mitch isn’t doing well either, so Baywatch rushes him back to the mainland and puts him in their own chamber. Then everyone waits for Mitch to recover.

And Mitch has flashbacks. Flashback after flashback. That’s right: this is a clip show. This is Baywatch at its cheapest. This is Baywatch showing clips that featured a totally different actor playing Hobie. Eventually, once the show runs out of clips, Mitch has a brief out-of-body experience — and then he wakes up.

This is Baywatch at its silliest, but it’s also David Hasselhoff at his most earnest. Say what you will about the show, Hasselhoff always seemed to take it very seriously. Or at least he did until Baywatch Hawaii. Luckily, that’s several seasons away.

Clip shows always feel like a wasted episode, but they’re also incredibly easy to review. This episode has that going for it.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.16 “Sea of Flames”

Posted on August 22, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, a floating drug lab means trouble!

Episode 2.16 “Sea of Flames”

(Dir by Gregory J. Bonnan and Douglas Schwartz, originally aired on February 17th, 1992)

Hobie has a nightmare in which he sees Mitch floating in the ocean and looking confused as a speedboat roars up behind him. “BEHIND YOU, DAD!” Hobie yells right before waking up.

Mitch says that the bad dream is no big deal, but Hobie is convinced that he’s seen the future. Mitch laughs off Hobie’s concerns. Mitch is more worried about convincing the city council to approve a funding increase so the lifeguards can buy some supercool wave runners.

Mitch should be worried about Eddie, who is such a terrible lifeguard that he doesn’t even notice that Scorch (Devino Tricoche) is wandering around the beach and setting fires. Scorch is a street performer who eats fire as part of his act. But after he gets a batch of bad designer drugs, he sets Eddie’s lifeguard tower on fire. Even though Eddie is sitting in the tower at the time, he doesn’t notice the flames until it’s nearly too late. After jumping off the tower in slow motion, Eddie drags Scorch to safety. “Sumo! Sumo! Sumo!” Scorch says.

Hey, there’s a boat called Sumo that’s docked in the harbor. Could it be a floating drug lab? Of course it is! When the drug dealers decide to sail away, Mitch gets a chance to show off on a wave runner! But when Mitch falls off the wave runner, he finds himself stranded in the ocean. Uh-oh, there’s a speedboat coming up behind him!

Hobie’s ghostly voice rings out: “BEHIND YOU, DAD!”

Mitch ducks out of the way just in time. OH MY GOD, HOBIE IS MAGIC!

While Mitch is busy capturing the drug dealers, Ben is once again depressed over getting old. When he investigates a house that has supposedly been empty for decades, he meets the actress (Constance Towers) who once lived there. Back when he was a young lifeguard, Ben had a crush on her. When she invites him into the house, he discovers that she has a framed picture of him that she took when he was young and standing on his lifeguard tower. She had a crush on him as well, but back then, dating a lifeguard would have led to a career-ending scandal. And now they’re both old, so what can anyone do? Oh well. Sorry, Ben, your life sucks.

But Mitch’s life is great! At the end of the episode, he thanks Hobie for having his nightmare. Hobie says he also had a dream where Mitch got married. “Blonde or brunette?” Mitch asks.

This was another silly episode of Baywatch, but as we all know, this series is at its most entertaining when it’s silly. As usual, Hasselhoff delivers even the most ludicrous of lines with an earnestness that is actually kind of charming in its own weird way. Ben’s storyline was kind of sad, but since the only reason Ben is on this show is to show that getting older sucks, it’s to be expected.

The important thing is that Mitch gets his wave runners and the ocean is now a safer place.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.15 “Big Monday”

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Mitch and Hobie are scared!

Episode 2.15 “Big Monday”

(Dir by Gregory J. Bonnan, originally aired on February 10th, 1992)

Hobie has a problem. A huge tropical wave is scheduled to hit the beach on Monday and all of his friends are looking forward to surfing it. His friends all say that Hobie is “chicken” because he won’t take the big waves. Hobie goes to Shauni for advice. Shauni offers to help him learn how to be a better surfer. Hobie wonders why he can’t be more like his dad. Mitch isn’t scared of anything.

Actually, Mitch is terrified of that big wave. Every time that someone mentions it, Mitch flashes back to watching a friend get washed away by a giant wave in 1961. With a new wave approaching, Mitch is scared that the same thing will happen again. Luckily, a visiting Hawaiian surfer just happens to be around to give Mitch an enchanted necklace.

Kaye, Mitch’s little-seen girlfriend, befriends a deaf girl on the beach. She tries to convince the girl’s mother to allow her to enroll Kaye in a sign language class. The girl’s mother is scared that her daughter will always be an outsider unless she learns how to read lips. (One of the teachers at the school is played by future Oscar nominee Paul Raci.)

Will Hobie prove that he can handle the waves?

Will Mitch overcome his guilt over his friend’s death?

Will Kaye convince the mother to enroll her daughter in sign language class?

Yes, yes, and yes. This is Baywatch. Other than that lifeguard getting killed by a shark, there are no unhappy endings.

As for this episode, I’ll give it some credit for having one unifying theme. All of the stories are connected by the theme of conquering your fears. Actually having a narrative theme is definitely a step forward for this show. That said, it’s still Baywatch. Everything happens a bit too easily in this episode. Yes, this episode says, fear is real. But, if you stick around for 40 minute, your fears will magically disappear in time for the end credits to roll.

This was a silly episode but at least its heart was in the right place.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.14 “War of Nerves”

Posted on August 8, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, some people stand in the darkness, afraid to move into the light.

Episode 2.14 “War of Nerves”

(Dir by Douglas Schwartz, originally aired on February 3rd, 1992)

Drug lord Mason Sato (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) has just gotten out of prison and he wants revenge of Mitch. For reasons that aren’t really explained beyond a shot of a newspaper headline that reads, “Hero Lifeguard Helps Police Take Down Drug Lord,” Mason blames Mitch for his arrest, Do lifeguards make arrests?

Mason stalks Mitch, Hobie, and Mitch’s girlfriend, Kaye (Pamela Bach). At first, Mitch doesn’t tell either Hobie or Kaye what’s going on. But when Mason asks Hobie to teach him how to use a boogie board, Mitch loses it and punches Mason out. Mason later kidnaps both Hobie and Kaye. This leads to a fight in an abandoned warehouse. Once the fight moves into the ocean, Mason nearly drowns but Mitch saves his life so he can go back to prison.

Meanwhile, Shauni asks Ben to teacher her how to surf. We never actually see Ben teaching her anything but we do get a lengthy montage as Ben remembers his days as a surfing lifeguard. Myself, I’m wondering how Ben, who we’ve been told can no longer swim because of a leg injury, suddenly stops limping in this episode.

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was a magnetic villain but otherwise, this was Baywatch at its cheapest. The plot was by-the-book and it mostly seemed to exist so that Hasselhoff could play the action hero. This episode felt like a dry run for the first, non-supernatural season of Baywatch Nights. How many lifelong enemies has Mitch managed to make?

The life of the lifeguard is a dangerous one.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.12 “Reunion”

Posted on July 25, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Mitch goes to his high school reunion!

Episode 2.12 “Reunion”

(Dir by Gus Trikonis, originally aired on January 27th, 1992)

Mitch gets laid.

That’s pretty much the plot of this incredibly simple episode.

It’s time for Mitch’s 20-year high school reunion but he doesn’t want to go because he’s worried about seeing his ex-wife, Gayle (Wendie Malick). However, at the last moment, Mitch suddenly does decide to go. He meets up with Gayle, who is wearing a blue dress that is simply to die for. With Gayle’s help, Mitch also rescues the class bully (Tim Rossovich) after two former high school outcasts (Tom Villard and Glenn Morshower) bury him in the sand just as the tide starts to come in. And then Mitch and Gayle go back to the Buchanan house and do it like it’s prom night.

Fortunately, Hobie is gone for the weekend. (It’s kind of funny how Hobie is always off with relatives or friends whenever Mitch needs the house to himself.) I will say that, as a child of divorce, there’s nothing more painful than thinking your parents are going to get back together just because one of them was still in the house when you woke up in the morning. Hobie is spared the trauma of Mitch and Gaye’s post-reunion hook-up.

Mitch, however, is disappointed to learn that Gayle has a boyfriend and that she’s going to be marrying him. The only reason Gayle went to the reunion was to work out her feelings about Mitch. Hasselhoff handles the revelation with his trademark emotional earnestness. Left unmentioned is the fact that having sex with Mitch apparently convinced Gayle that she should marry the other guy.

Finally, someone left a baby in Eddie’s lifeguard station. Eddie and Shauni looked after it for the weekend. This led to a lot of, “Wow, sometimes babies smell bad,” humor. In the end, the baby’s father shows up to get the baby but it turns out that he doesn’t actually have custody and that his ex-wife left the baby at the lifeguard station specifically to keep her safe from him. Obviously, this couple has issues that will not be resolved by a high school reunion hook-up.

Even by the standards of Baywatch, this was a remarkably empty episode. Between Mitch quickly getting over the fact that Gayle is getting remarried and Eddie and Shauni taking care of a random baby, it was hard to escape the feeling that nothing really matters on this show. There are no real consequences to anyone’s actions. No one has any sort of emotional conflict that can’t be solved with a musical montage. Eddie and Shauni end the episode thinking about what it would like to be parents. They’ll be over it in a week.

Baywatch was a show where nothing really mattered and that’s probably why it was so popular.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.11 “If Looks Could Kill”

Posted on July 18, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Mitch is in trouble.

Episode 2.11 “If Looks Could Kill”

(Dir by Douglas Schwartz, originally aired on November 25th, 1991)

Mitch rescues Allison (Shannon Tweed) after her car crashes into the ocean. Mitch quickly falls in love and Allison seems to fall for Mitch. What Mitch doesn’t know is that Allison is actually a murderer and that she’s just using him to try to find the money that was in her car when it crashed. For once, Eddie is the one who suspects the truth and who has to keep Mitch from being killed by someone who he trusts.

Baywatch occasionally did crime-related episodes and they always felt out of place. This episode opens with Allison drowning her latest lover and it’s actually a rather disturbing sequence. It’s effective but it doesn’t feel right for a show in which the main appeal is the fact that everything is lightweight and easy-going.

I imagine David Hasselhoff enjoyed episodes like this, if just because nearly every episode during the first season of Baywatch Nights was exactly like this one.

Retro Television Review: Baywatch 2.10 “The Trophy, Part Two”

Posted on July 11, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Baywatch concludes the two storylines that began in the previous episode. Will Mitch get over his guilt? Will Eddie be able to keep his job? Who will star in this week’s slow motion monologue? These are the important questions that come with saving lives for a living.

Episode 2.10 “The Trophy, Part Two”

(Dir by Douglas Schwartz, originally aired on November 18th, 1991)

The beach is in chaos!

Bitter over being in a wheelchair and also being single, Turner continues to take dangerous risks. At one point, he decides to go hang-gliding to prove that not being able to walk doesn’t have to keep anyone from flying. At another point, we get one of those priceless Baywatch montages where Turner imagines himself being able run down the beach.

Mitch still feels guilty over Turner’s condition but eventually, even Mitch has to kneel down beside the guy and say that enough is enough. And really, that’s all it takes. Turner accepts that his ex, Megan, is now dating a hunky marine biologist named Ross and he moves on. Megan was played by Vanessa Angel and, according to the imdb, this was her final appearance on Baywatch. This was also Daniel Quinn’s final appearance as Turner. So I guess that storyline’s now over. Mitch still seemed to be feeling pretty guilty but he’ll have to learn how to deal with that on his own because Eric Turner is out of here!

(Quinn would go on to play two other characters on Baywatch and he also had a role in the Baywatch spin-off, Pacific Blue. I guess someone in the head office really liked him.)

Meanwhile, Eddie is bitter because, after being arrested for statutory rape, he’s been suspended from being a lifeguard. Well, Eddie, that’s life. That’s pretty much what would happen to any lifeguard in those circumstances. Eddie spends a lot of time on this show demanding to be treated like everyone else and then getting angry when it happens.

When Eddie’s accuser, Caroline (played by a young A.J, Langer), attempts to commit suicide by jumping off the pier, Shauni is there to rescue her. Having been rescued from drowning, Caroline confesses that she made up the story about Eddie because she wanted to impress her friends on the beach. Eddie is reinstated and Caroline says that she’s going to return home to Pennsylvania and get some psychiatric help.

This episode was pretty anti-climatic. For all the dramatic potential of Mitch’s guilt, Caroline’s accusations, and Eddie’s bitterness, both stories pretty much just ended with the sources of all the drama agreeing to live somewhere other than California. If only life was always that simple!

In the end, this episode was typical Baywatch. Yes, there was some drama. But the most important thing was always getting the next montage.

Retro Televison Review: Baywatch 2.9 “The Trophy: Part One”

Posted on June 27, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Eddie in trouble!

Episode 2.9 “The Trophy: Part 1”

(Dir by Douglas Schwartz, originally aired on November 11th, 1991)

Awkward teenager Caroline Larkin (A.J. Langer) doesn’t have any friends because her family’s poor and she’s from Ohio. The only person on the beach who shows her any kindess is Eddie the lifeguard. When Caroline tries to impress the rich girls on the beach by claiming to have been seduced by Eddie, the main mean girl makes sure that Caroline’s father finds out. Eddie is shocked when he’s arrested and charged with statuatory rape …. despite the fact the fact that almost the same thing happened to Craig during the first season of the show.

What makes thing particularly awkward is that Eddie is arrested just as he and Shauni are getting ready to go to a chairty gala. Shauni finally got Eddie into a tux and then Eddie gets the handcuffs slapped on.

Meanwhile, parapalegic lifeguard Eric Turner (Daniel Quinn) returns. He’s still in love with Megan (Vanessa Angel), the Australian lifeguard. But he’s also bitter about having to use a wheelchair. This is one of those stories that would be compelling if we had the slightest idea who Turner and Megan were before this episode aired. This is also one of those episodes where totally new people show up and everyone acts as if they were there from the start of the series. (In all fairness, Megan has appeared on the show before but her role has never been particularly large.) Everyone else know who Eric Turner but we, the viewers, have never heard of him before.

Anyway, this is a two-part episode so neither storyline is resolved. Since I’m taking next week off for America’s 250th birthday celebration, Eddie’s going to have to wait in jail for a while. However, two weeks from now, we’ll see if Eddie can clear his name!