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.