Retro Television Review: Baywatch 1.7 “The Cretin of the Shallows”

Posted on December 6, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, there’s a lot happening on the beach!

Baywatch 1.7 “The Cretin of the Shallows”

(Dir by Vern Gillum, originally aired on December 1st, 1989)

Eddie gets his wisdom teeth taken out. Feverish and on pain-killers, he has a hallucination in which Gina Pomeroy (Holly Gagnier) kisses him. Eddie spends the entire episode nervous that Craig is going to discover that he’s having an affair with his wife but actually, Eddie isn’t having an affair. It’s not until the end of the episode that Gina tells Eddie that they never kissed and Eddie finally starts to relax. Gina promises not to tell Craig because “I think it’s sweet.” Myself, I’m just curious as to how stupid Eddie actually is.

Shauni and Jill deal with a teenage boy who has made a bet with his friends that he’ll be able to get a kiss from both of them.

And a horrifying serial killer (Robert Trebor) is stalking the night, brutally murdering people on the beach.

One of these storylines is not like the other!

The first season of Baywatch was seriously weird. Light-hearted lifeguard hi-jinx would be mixed in with scenes of people being murdered. Mitch and Craig weren’t just lifeguards. They were also cops who solved mysteries (Kind of like Baywatch Nights!) and they put their lives at risk to do so. Remember how I mentioned that Gina told Eddie that they never kissed? She told him that after she had been rescued from the serial killer. Gina nearly died! Neither Gina nor Craig seemed to be too upset about that, though. I would be a little bit traumatized but that’s just me.

This episode really didn’t work for me. Personally, I like the light-hearted stuff. It’s dumb but, at heart, Baywatch’s appeal is that it’s a dumb show with nice scenery. Tossing a serial killer into the mix just made things unpleasant. It didn’t feel like it belonged on a show about people running on the beach in red bathing suits.

This is my last Baywatch review of 2025. Retro Television Reviews will be taking a break for the holidays so that I can focus on Awards Season and Christmas movies! Baywatch will return on January 10, 2026.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.8 “Hard Knocks”

Posted on December 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Switek takes center stage!

Episode 5.8 “Hard Knocks”

(Dir by Vern Gillum, originally aired on January 20th, 1989)

Stan Switek has a gambling problem!

That’s right. The lovable Stan Switek, played by Michael Talbott, finally gets to be the center of another episode and it’s a pretty dark one. It’s not as dark as the one where Stan discovered that his partner and best friend had been given a heroin overdose but it’s still pretty depressing.

There are a lot of things that lead to Switek becoming both an alcoholic and a gambling addict. The death of Larry Zito still haunts him. The job haunts him. The fact that he’s continually stuck in “the black box,” and doing surveillance on terrible people haunts him. At the start of the episode, he learns that he’s been turned down for a promotion and it will be another two years before he can apply again. Castillo says it’s about money. The Miami PD doesn’t have the money to pay Switek a sergeant’s salary. “You’re the best at what you do,” Castillo tells Switek. That’s of little help.

Switek is best friends with Mac Mulhern (Jordan Clarke), the father of a hotshot college quarterback named Kevin Mulhern (Richard Joseph Paul). When Switek’s former bookie (Ismael “East” Carlo) is murdered by Goodman (Richard Jenkins, who apparently always looked like he was in his late 50s, even 40 years ago), Goodman orders Switek to tell Kevin to throw his upcoming game. In order to make sure that it happens, Goodman kidnaps Mac and threatens to kill him.

Switek snaps. Switek sets out to get his own justice against Goodman and to rescue Mac. Fortunately, Crockett and Tubbs realize what’s happening and they show up in time to help Switek out. Once Goodman is dead and Mac is free, Kevin is able to win the game.

Later, Crockett confronts Switek. He says that Switek’s name is all over Goodman’s books. What’s Crockett going to do? Given that Crockett spent months as Miami’s biggest drug lord, I’m not sure that Crockett is in a position to judge anyone. Fortunately, Crockett seems to understand that as well. Crockett hands the evidence over to Switek and promises to keep quiet. Switek — who has spent almost the entire series as comedic relief — breaks down and starts to cry.

That’s one dark episode! It’s also a very well-done episode. Michael Talbott gave an excellent performance as Switek, revealing the character’s dark side while still remaining true to who Switek has been since the series began. Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas didn’t do much in this episode but the final scene between Switek and Crockett was wonderfully acted by both Talbott and Johnson.

This was a good episode but I’m worried about Switek now. I hope everything works out because there’s only a few episodes left!

Speaking of which, Retro Television Review will be going on break for the holidays at the end of this week. Miami Vice will return on January 5th!

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 5.5 “Borrasca”

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Vice helps the communists once again.

Episode 5.5 “Borrasca”

(Dir by Vern Gillum, originally aired on December 9th, 1988)

Martillo Borrasca (Juan Fernandez) is a drug dealer who uses the money to fund anti-communist revolutionaries in his native South American country. Castillo, Tubbs, and Switek want to arrest him, especially after Barrisco and his men use a machete to hack an undercover cop to death. CIA agent Reese (Brion James) wants the Vice Squad to lay off Barrisco because Barrisco is working to overthrow a communist.

Personally, I’m on Reese’s side. Sure, Borrasca is a bad guy and he deserves to be punished for his crimes but the communist dictators in South and Central America were just as bad. Just because they quoted Marx and spouted a lot of anti-imperialist propaganda, that didn’t change the fact that they oppressed their own people and many of them were involved in the drug trade themselves. This episode aired long before the rise of Hugh Chavez but one need only look at the state of Venezuela today to see that the CIA perhaps had a point.

Castillo, of course, doesn’t see it that way. He assassinated Barrisco while the latter is trying to make an escape via helicopter. “I have a code,” Castillo says. Really, Castillo? That’s your code? Assassinate a drug dealer but don’t do anything about the dictators who would have allowed the Russians to plant nuclear missiles in their countries?

This episode was actually pretty routine. How many times have we been through the whole “The Vice Squad is after a drug dealer who has friends in the government” thing? On the one hand, I always appreciate Miami Vice’s cynicism about the War on Drugs. On the other hand, it’s frequent defense of communism has always been one of the show’s more glaring blind spots. Communists make just as much money from the drug trade as capitalists.

Crockett was not in this episode. Instead, Tubbs worked with Switek. It was nice to see Switek get to more than usual but, in the end, this was definitely a Castillo episode.

Retro Television Review: Miami Vice 4.5 “Child’s Play”

Posted on May 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Sonny is too quick to fire his gun.

Episode 4.5 “Child’s Play”

(Dir by Vern Gillum, originally aired on October 30th, 1987)

This is a dark, dark episode.

While breaking up what appears to be a case of domestic violence between Annette McAllister (Danitra Vance) and Walker Monroe (Ving Rhames), Sonny thinks that he spots someone holding a gun in the next room. Sonny fires through the wall, hitting a 13 year-old boy who Annette claims is her son, Jeffrey. While Jeffrey McCallister lies in a coma, a guilt-ridden Sonny starts to think about his ex-wife and their son, Billy. They live upstate and it’s been a while since Sonny visited. When Sonny does visit, he learns that his ex-wife’s fiancé wants to adopt Billy after the wedding.

Meanwhile, back in Miami, it turns out that there is no Jeffrey McAllister and that the boy who Sonny shot was actually a child soldier, recruited into a gang at an early age so that he couldn’t be sent to prison if arrested. It turns out that Walker and Annette are both involved in a gunrunning operation that is headed up by Holliday (Isaac Hayes). It all leads to one of those patented Miami Vice-style action sequences where Crockett, more or less, allows Walker to fall to his death. Sonny is definitely not in a good mood for the majority of this episode.

Child’s Play could have just as easily been titled The Don Johnson Emmy Submission Episode. This episode revolves entirely around Crockett and his feelings of guilt over shooting a child and also his fear of losing his son. Johnson does a pretty good job in this episode. Over the course of season 3 and the first few episodes of season 4, it really has sometimes seemed as if Crockett was losing his edge. This episode presents us with the return of self-destructive, end-of-his-rope Sonny and not even Johnson’s mullet can distract from the drama.

Thematically, this episode is pretty bleak. We never really learn much about the kid who was shot by Crockett, other than that he has a pretty sizable criminal record for a 13 year-old. By the end of the episode, he’s woken up from his coma but, assuming that he is capable of leaving the hospital, he’s still wanted on several murder charges. The kid basically has no future, even if he does make it to adulthood. Meanwhile, Sonny’s son is growing up without his father and, when Sonny does visit him, there’s really not much of a connection between the two of them.

In other words, everyone’s doomed. This was not a happy episode but, then again, Miami Vice was rarely a happy show.