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

Posted on February 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, 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 3.9 “Cop In A Box”

Posted on January 6, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Okay, we’re doing this again.

Episode 3.9 “Cop In A Box”

(Dir by Scott Lautanen, originally aired on November 2nd, 1997)

Oh, Pacific Blue. How I have not missed you.

This episode features TC getting abducted by Harland Groves (Jeremy Roberts), a criminal who TC previously busted. Harland traps TC in an underground beach bunker. How Harland got his hands on an underground beach bunker is never explained. Harland demands that TC’s rich family pay him 4 million dollars. At the same time, he plans to use a chlorine gas bomb to kill TC. Why he didn’t kill TC to begin with and then demand the money is never really explained. It’s almost as if Harland secretly wanted his plan to fail.

I really didn’t have a problem with the idea of TC getting killed off. Pacific Blue is one of the more boring of the shows that I review and killing TC would have livened things up. At the very least, without TC around, I would no longer be forced to try to keep straight which member of Pacific Blue was TC and which member was Victor. Unfortunately, TC manages to disarm the chlorine bomb. When Harland attacks him in the bunker, it leads to a bunch of sand pouring in. Harland is suffocated while TC escapes.

Oh well.

The cool thing about this episode is that Andy Buckley — who later played David Wallace on The Office — returned as TC’s brother. The funny thing about this episode was the sight of grim-faced Palermo barking out orders while wearing his stupid bicycle shorts. And the unfortunate thing is that TC survived so Pacific Blue will not be changing any time soon.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 2.18 “Full Moon”

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, it all about bicycles and sex.

Episode 2.18 “Full Moon”

(Dir by Scott Lautanen, originally aired on February 23rd, 1997)

This week, Pacific Blue gives us the erotically-charged story of two people with no personality falling for each other. Don’t worry, though. Even though Chris and TC both put in for transfers so that they won’t violate Palermo’s “No Doing It On The Job” policy, they eventually realize that they’re not actually in love. After TC kisses Chris and they prepare to move into the bedroom, Chris suddenly says that she can tell that TC feels like he’s “about to have sex with your sister,” and TC nods, as if that’s a feeling that he’s extremely familiar with.

TC and Chris fall for each other while investigating a series of ATM robberies. The two robbers (Robert Kerbeck and Felicity Waterman) were at least convincingly sleazy. Cory kills one of the robbers. How humiliating it must be to be killed by someone who rides a bicycle for a living!

Meanwhile, Palermo was shocked to discover his name was in a madame’s little black book. Palermo, you hypocrite! Put that man in jail! But then it turned out that madame (played by Charlie Spradling) just put random names in the book so that she could use it for blackmail. That was pretty clever of her. Still, I find it hard to believe that anyone, outside of the bike patrol, would have had the slightest idea who Palermo was.

This was another episode that failed because not only are the characters not interesting but they’re all pretty much indistinguishable. Chris and Cory at least have differing hair colors. But, from a distance, Palermo, TC, and Victor all might as well all be the same guy. If you told me that this episode was actually about Palermo falling in love with Chris, I’d have to believe you because Palermo and TC are pretty much impossible to tell apart. Human drama only works when the characters are recognizably human.

Agck! That’s mean! Oh well, it’s late….

Horror On TV: FreakyLinks 1.5 “Desert Squid! Myth or Legend?” (dir by Scott Lautanen)

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of FreakyLinks, Derek and the team head down to New Mexico to investigate reports of a tentacle-bearing desert creature! If not for the tentacles, I would say it was probably a chupacabra. Seriously, if you ever see a chupacabra coming at you, run!

(A friend of mine in college was nicknamed Chupacabra, mostly because he was kind of …. odd.)

This episode originally aired on November 3rd, 2000!

Enjoy!