Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, I continue to torture myself by watching this dumb show.

Episode 1.19 “Jason’s New Job”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on February 28th, 1999)

Frustrated with always being the one who is accused of screwing things up at the restaurant, Jason decides to get a new job.  That seems a bit petulant on his part, especially when you consider that Jason is the one who is always screwing everything up.  But anyway….

Jason ends up working at a gym.  His job title is Customer Relations.  His actual job is cleaning up after people.  He’s a janitor, basically.  Meanwhile, at the restaurant, Peter hires another waiter, who is also named Jason and who is totally responsible.  He’s so responsible that Peter and Scott start calling him “Super Jason.”

And I’ll say this …. as stupid as this show is and as much as I regret deciding to watch and review it, the Super Jason thing was kind of funny.  Mostly it was funny because the other Jason is such a douchebag that it’s fun to watch him get humiliated.

Anyway, Super Jason “cleans out” the restaurant.  Peter thinks that means that Super Jason is really working hard to keep the place clean but no, actually, Super Jason stole the cash register, the deep fryer, the security cameras, and just about everything else he could get his hands on.  What’s funny is that, even when Peter and Scott are looking at their now empty restaurant, they still keep calling the guy Super Jason.

Suddenly, a food critic shows up.  She’s not amused when she’s told that she can’t have what she wants because the kitchen has been cleaned out.  She’s going to give the restaurant a bad review!  Oh no!  Oh wait, there’s Ordinary Jason with a plate of food.  He saves the day by making her order.  How does he do that when there’s no supplies left in the restaurant?  Who knows?

Meanwhile, Murray and Tracy are convinced that they (and Stads) have been cursed with bad luck.  They convince Stads to put on a bird costume and dance on the beach.  A guy who likes Stads sees Stads doing it and cancels their date.  Stads is like, “My friends betrayed me!”  Seriously, when did lifeguards get so whiny?

This episode was pretty stupid, if slightly (and just slightly) more amusing than the typical episode of Malibu, CA.  As I watched, I thought about the show’s pilot, in which both Jason and Scott were sociopathic, Peter was a cool surfing legend, Stads was the tomboy lifeguard, Murray was crazy, and Samantha was the girl that Jason and Scott were both in love with.  The pilot introduced us to the principal of the high school and suggested that she and Peter were in love with each other.  Now, 19 episodes in, Scott is the responsible one while Jason is an immature douchebag.  Peter is now a dorky restaurant owner.  Stads is whiny.  Samantha is so bland that it’s easy to forget that she’s on the show.  Neither the high school nor the principal have been seen since the pilot.  And Murray and Tracy are probably the only redeeming things about this show, if just because Brandon Brooks and Priscilla Inga Taylor really throw themselves into playing those ludicrous characters.

Next week …. oh, who cares?  It’ll be dumb whatever it is.