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

Posted on March 24, 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, 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 3.2 “Ties That Bind”

Posted on October 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the bike patrol continues to be largely ineffective.

Episode 3.2 “Ties That Bind”

(Dir by Sara Rose, originally aired on August 10th, 1997)

TC is excited because Jeff Pierce has moved to Santa Monica. I had no idea who Jeff Pierce was but the show explained that he was some sort of professional bike rider. Even if Jeff Pierce hadn’t been credited as “himself,” I would have guessed that he was a professional athlete just by how bad of an actor he was.

Pierce needs help retrieving his pink competition shirt. TC and Victor help him out. That was nice of them. Pierce challenges the thief to a race and the thief is so excited about getting to race Jeff Pierce that he doesn’t even mind when he gets arrested at the finish line. He even gets an autographed picture of Jeff Pierece!

Meanwhile, Gloria Allred also appears as herself. She appears as an advocate for a group of women who are protesting the release and the return of former serial killer Conway Henriksen (Marc Riffon). Conway has spent ten years in a mental hospital and he says that he’s now reformed. However, after he gets harassed by some of his former victims (apparently, he didn’t kill everyone) and his house house is set on fire, Conway snaps and kidnaps Cory’s best friend, Billie (Rainer Grant). Conway thinks that Billie is his abusive mother and he starts quoting from the Bible and the overacting gets a bit embarrassing. Finally, Conway shoots himself.

Now, this storyline had potential. Conway was sincere in his desire to start his life over again but the harassment campaign pushed him over the edge. Unfortunately, because this is Pacific Blue, the idea of the people trying to protect their neighborhood from a serial killer pushing the guy into becoming just that was left largely unexplored. Instead, everyone just breathes a sigh of relief after Conway shoots himself.

Finally, Chris’s real father (Kent McCord), shows up at headquarters and explains to Chris that, despite what her mother told her, he didn’t actually die in Vietnam. Instead, he’s been working as a commercial pilot and now he wants to get to know Chris. Chris, of course, acts like a total bitch about it, especially after she discovers that he’s married and that Chris has a teenage half-sister who is as much of a sullen brat as she is. Still, Chris eventually forgives her father for having a life and the episode ends with Chris and her real father going sky-diving. This episode missed an opportunity to have Gloria Allred and Jeff Pierce join them in jumping out of the plane. That would have been classic Blue.

It’s just another day in L.A.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.14 “One Kiss Goodnight”

Posted on August 5, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Cory helps a man who can’t remember how lame this show is.

Episode 2.14 “One Kiss Goodnight”

(Dir by Sara Rose, originally aired on December 15th, 1996)

Alec Cooper (Markus Flanagan) gets amnesia after he falls off the balcony of his hotel room while trying to escape some mysterious men with guns. Cory tries to help Alec figure out who he actually is and she starts to fall in love with him in the process. Alec admits that there seems to be something familiar about Cory.

Well, that means there are only two possibilities.

Cory and Alec are either meant to be together

Alec is married to someone who looks just like Cory!

It turns out the latter is true. Alec eventually get his memory back and Cory meets his wife, who indeed looks a lot like her. Cory goes back to being single. Interestingly, Chris spends this entire episode telling Cory that she needs to date more but she doesn’t approve of Cory dating someone who has amnesia. Then again, Chris doesn’t really approve of anyone doing anything.

Meanwhile, TC’s girlfriend makes the decision to leave Santa Monica so that she can attend a graduate program and become a counselor for rape victims. This is the sort of storyline that would have been touching if TC has any personality or if he and his girlfriend had any sort of chemistry. But they don’t.

It probably sound like I hated this episode. Actually, I think it’s one of the better episodes of season 2, if just because the bike riding was kept to a minimum. The bikes would have made this awful. Without all of the bike nonsense, it was merely forgettable. That’s progress!