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, we finish off the first season of Baywatch.

Episode 1.21 “The End?”

(Dir by Reza Badiyi, originally aired on April 6th, 1990)

This the end, my only friend, the end….

Earthquake!  The ground shakes in Los Angeles and the result is pure chaos.  While Mitch oversees the rescue operations, Shauni tries to get over her fear of natural disasters, Eddie helps a pregnant woman deliver twins in his lifeguard tower, Gina finds herself pinned under a shelf at the loft, and Craig and Cort are trapped in an underwater cave.  Have none of these people noticed that hanging out with Cort always leads to stuff like this happening?

We see a news report that says that five people died in the earthquake.  Fortunately, none of those people were a character on Baywatch.  (Though, now that I think about it, when was the last time anyone saw Trevor?)  The LAPD dive team saves Cort and Craig.  Hobie helps Gina get out from underneath that shelf.  Eddie and Shauni work together to help deliver those twins and then, as the sun sets behind them, Eddie asks, “Will you marry me?”  Shauni nods as the theme music starts up….

Was this the end?  It was meant to be.  After a season of declining ratings and raising production costs, NBC decided to cancel Baywatch.  I guess the executives figured that, if even a shark attack failed to get people to watch, it was best just to move on.  Baywatch decided to go out with an episode about an earthquake because it was a California show and California is all about the ground moving under your feet.  It actually turned out to be one of the better episodes of the first season, specifically because it focused on lifeguards and other first responders doing their job.  There were no silly plots about gamblers or Mitch’s love life or anything else.  This was Baywatch the way it probably should have been.  But it was too late to keep the show alive on network television.

That said, the Hoff believed in Baywatch and, working with the show’s producers, he brought it back in syndication.  This episode was the end of Baywatch on NBC but it was just the beginning of the show that would go on to epitomize a decade.

We’ll start season 2 next week.