Baywatch - S05E19 - Deep Trouble

It's odd coming back to this blog to find that all my posts suddenly have a lot more views, it's a bit scary since I usually experience a weird sort of comfort "knowing" that no one reads my posts. It's a kind of personal diary which is stupid since it's public. Perhaps I should start making more of an effort... nah. Don't call this a come back by the way, I might not be regularly posting anymore.

S05E19 - Deep Trouble

I'm currently early into season 7 so I'm attempting to keep these reviews brief, which might not be hard since I can't remember them well. And no way am I going to re-watch them. Also, I'm trying not to repeat things that are on baywatch.fandom.com, they do an alright job summarising the episodes. This means I won't be describing the plots as much anymore. That site does miss out stuff sometimes, though. I'll only repeat things from site when I feel that it's relevent.

Currently being on season 7, I'm somehow already a little nostalgic for for season 5 episodes like Deep Trouble. Mostly because as you can imagine, some of the cast have changed since then. Talking as current season 7 me, I've finally noticed a pattern in Baywatch - Most of the main cast, besides Mitch and Hobie, last about two seasons, and then... bye bye.

Cort returns in this episode and it's for the last time, sadly. The total destruction of this great legacy character continues which is a little sad, though I'm probably the only one who cares. John Allen Nelson, Cort's actor, co-wrote this one, so perhaps he wasn't bothered about this destruction. Maybe it was his idea!

We start with Cort being found on the beach, a dirty, smelly bum, by Matt and C.J. The latter being his ex-girlfriend, which adds insult to injury. To be fair, this lowest point is brushed over in minutes. He's showed, is clearly still (in reality) super fit, and dressed up normally. He's no longer a bum.

The other story is about a young boy with leukaemia. Oh wait, I'm already just repeating what's on baywatch.fandom.com. It's hard not to when I can't remember the finer details concerning the episode. This story about a boy with leukaemia is another one of those Baywatch staples. They'll occasionally throw in one as a sort of public service announcement, or something. I'm not sure what to call them. It's like the one about that father who was a little person, they are done well, it's good for Baywatch to make them, but they somehow feel very dated. Do shows still make these sorts of episodes? Maybe they do and I just don't know. If they don't, they should. They come across as a little cheesy in Baywatch sometimes but they give us good messages. Perhaps they seem odd to watch now because they are so on the nose. Cort's eyesight is getting worse, he feels awful, but Mitch points out the boy with leukaemia, showing Cort that things could be worse.

The boy with leukaemia is called Nicholas, I should have said that earlier so I don't have to keep saying 'boy with leukaemia'.

Random Things

- Summer is briefly mentioned in this episode, by C.J. and Matt. It's rare for characters to mention old cast members and I think this is the last time Summer is ever mentioned in the show. Well, as of season 7, anyway. Though I'd hazard a guess that it really is the last time shes mentioned, ever, since... I won't say, as it's a minor spoiler.

- C.J. gets a training montage, shes sad about Cort and we question if she still loves him. We get some Cort footage from old episodes.

- Baseball player Mike Piazza makes a brief, random cameo. It's really obvious that it was required that he appears, helps make a simple rescue of a hot babe, and then walks off with her after she recognises him. To go on a date because, ya know, he's famous and a hero. I know nothing about Baseball.

- As a massive video games fan, I notice little things. There's a scene where Hobie is playing on a Game Gear in the background, we hear the sounds of it. They're a mixture of game sound effects but the most obvious ones are from Super Mario Bros., a game that's not on the SEGA Game Gear and couldn't be a title that's further from something that would appear on the Game Gear. It's also clear that the sound team just threw the effects in. It's not a recording of Super Mario Bros. being played, the sound effects are too close together. You hear Mario's warp sound multiple times in a short period. Also there's no music. I love how inaccurate games are represented in 80's and 90's movies and television, it's almost as if it's done on purpose. Did I ever write about the episode in-which Hobie plays Street Fighter II and it's a main plot point? If I didn't, I really should. Man that was a slightly weird experience for me.

Catching up on Baywatch

 

Everything after this paragraph was written at least a month ago. As you'll see in a minute, I say I'd fallen way behind on writing about Baywatch. That seems like nothing in comparison to now, since I finished watching episode 2 of season 7 today, so I'm super behind now. So I'm what, almost two season behind. I'll post this now though, since it's been sitting in the background as a draft for ages, even though I'm not sure if I even finished writing it. I might start writing a new review today but it'll be in a new post.

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I've fallen way behind on writing about the Baywatch episodes I've been watching, I could just skip them like I have before but I feel like I have to write at least something. Also, once again I've thought about not writing about Baywatch anymore, it really is quite pointless. Also last night, I read some articles in a twenty-one year old issue of Edge Magazine, it reminded me of how terrible I am at writing. Perhaps I should study that, instead.

S05E14 - Homecoming

There was things I wanted to say about all these episodes but it's been a while so I've forgotten most of them.

Stephanie returns from her trip around the world. This is the main story of the episode and it's one of those ones where a villain wants to blow something up by putting a time bomb in a boat cabin. There's always a conflict that takes place in the cabin which leads to one or more characters being tied up along with the bomb, and then someone rescues them in the nick of time. I think this is the first time I become consciously aware of this Baywatch trope. This episode ends with Stephanie breaking up with her boyfriend because she wants to get back to her job, it's done in a non-confrontational way. They still like each other or whatever, but Stephanie can't commit, I guess.

Most of Homecoming is taken up with this story but there is a comedy 'B' story concerning Garner. It's alright but they could have done more with it. Mitch tells him that a life guard he fancies is deaf in her left ear, while he tells her the same thing - Hilarious hi-jinks ensue... actually not really, they just keep trying to change sides when talking to each other and shout for some reason. The life guard is called Katherine and we will probably never see her again. I think she's the first female African American life guard we've seen on the show and it feels like the only reason she is, is because Garner is African American too. It's one of those things that isn't racist but is noticeable when you watch old TV shows. It doesn't bother me but I do notice these things because of the current 'woke' climate we're in right now in 2023. I wish I didn't notice these things because it breeds negatively which I never used to feel when it came to these things. I'm sure other more woke people would be livid and say something like 'Why can't Garner have a relationship with someone who is a different colour from him? This show is racist!'.

Not a bad episode, all of these ones were not bad, actually.

S05E15 - Seize the Day

Oh boy, THIS episode. I had so much to say about this on the day I watched this but my mind is mostly blank now. The main story is about Tracy Dodsworth, the character they introduced just so they can kill her. Unsurprisingly I was right in my predictions, shes terminally ill and it turns out it's cancer. What type of cancer, they never say. The thing I was surprised by was that she reveals this and then dies all in the same episode, it's a sad episode but I guess the Baywatch writers didn't want to bum out everyone too much by stretching it out over several episodes. It all seems rather sudden. I think Tracy says at one point that the doctor said she should have died two months ago. I might be wrong because I'm not a medical professional but if someone is that sick, I don't think they'd look and act as healthy as Tracy. In the episodes shes been in and for the first half of this one, she seems fine. She can't do a rescue because she runs out of breath and from that point on, she rapidly falls apart and dies, she dies in Mitch's arms.

The second story is insanely basic, it's just filler. I can't even really remember it umm... Logan is pissed off with two people riding wave runners because they're wreckless. They crash into each other at the end so they need to be rescued, so we assume they're learnt their lesson. That's it, the end.

Seize the Day was alright. Poor Mitch gets to be heart broken again, how many times does he have to deal with this kinda stuff?

S05E16 - A Little Help

FreeVee lists this one 'A Little Help From My Friends' but the title card in the episode also just called it 'A Little Help'. I'm writing this blog post over several days, today I watched the episode of season 5 which made me realise how far behind I am just now.

The main story is here to show Mitch grieving after Tracy's death. It would have seemed jarring without it even for Baywatch, since Tracy snuffed it in the previous episode. However this is still Baywatch so I wouldn't be surprised if Tracy is never mentioned again. The story initially looks like it's going to be a new romance for Mitch but thankfully it doesn't turn out to be that way, it would have been insensitive so soon after Tracy kicked the bucket. I mean, it really did look like they were going to help Mitch brief by getting him laid. The woman in question is a painter, her paintings look really great. You'd think whoever the real artist is would be under the trivia section on baywatch.fandom but nope. This woman who I can't remember the name of, she is instantly friends with everyone in the brief time she meets them near the end, and... we will probably never see her again.

The small story is your obligatory 'isn't AID's sad' scenario. The guy with it depressed, possibly suicidal. At the end he gets a new lease on life after helping Caroline with a rescue, since he is a former Olympic swimmer, or something. A big part of this story is Logan not wanting Caroline to give mouth to mouth resuscitation to the AID's dude, arguments ensue. They make up but it's a bit odd because it's in the same scene where Logan gives her a modified can, which he made. It has a breathing thingy on it which can he used instead of mouth to mouth. I would have thought that Caroline wouldn't have liked this but I guess the idea is that Logan was annoying only because he cares for her safety. We will probably never see this can again. BTW when I say can, I mean those red plastic floating things they use to rescue people with. I think that's what they call them and I can't believe I hadn't mentioned them after all this time.

There's a tiny 'C' story involving C.J., you guessed it, it's about her interacting with a dude with a specific job/interest. Ever since she hooked up with Matt, these stories usually aren't about a love interest, at least not on C.J.'s side, but besides that they're all similar and paper thin. This time the dude is a dancer, C.J. is his dance partner and then he ditches her at the end of his former dance partner. That's about it.

It does culminate in C.J. dancing with Mitch, who transforms into a stunt double who can actually dance. I've been meaning to mention, this season has some real obvious stunt doubles which would not have stuck out so much in the original standard definition version. I remember thinking Baywatch had got a lot better with hiding doubles after season 2 but they go back to being bad at it in season 5.

It was an OK episode but writing about it about a week later, I do think the main story was a bit random.

S05E17 - Father's Day

Oh man I am blanking on this one a bit. Which part was even the main story? Mitch is given an old Birthday (?) gift from his dead father, he doesn't open it until later in the episode. Sorry, I don't mean his father rose from the dead to give it to him, it was in a closet or something and his mum found it. Basically it's about how his father really did love him, which we had gathered already even before he died, in an episode he was actually in.

The other story is about Logan and we actually get some back story, for once. We barely know anything about him, even for Baywatch it is a bit odd. Actually... is it really? Logan see's some fire, it turns out he has suppressed memories about how his dad died, who he couldn't remember at all until this point. Caroline is worried about him, he gets the memories back, his dad was a hero life guard, bla bla bla. This episode was alright, I guess.

S05E18 - Fire with Fire

Guest star Tim Wrightman as Andy Jamison is a new life guard, or, like, a temp one or something? So we know he's only going to be in one episode. He's Mitch's old friend, he's big, he's violent and the episode doesn't seem to know if he's supposed to be a villain or if we're supposed to think he's tough and cool. To be fair, a tragic back story is revealed at the end which explains why he's unhinged.

The secondary story is about Logan and I'm just realising, do I care or like Logan at all? He's a pretty lame character. The episode starts with him riding a Street Luge (look it up) which Caroline isn't happy about because it's dangerous. This is all one scene and then Street Luge's aren't mentioned or seen again. That's a shame because even though introducing a sport and then having a race or something is a cliche Baywatch thing to do, it would have been more interesting than what we got. The actual story is about how Logan is still married to Kathleen, you know, that bit part character turned extra. This is about his green card or something, so that he can stay in the country. Logan annuls his marriage to Kathleen at the end and I honestly can't remember how they fix the green card problem. After all that, I think they fix his major problem in a throw away line at the end. Like they say he's an 'essential worker' or something, so he can stay.

Baywatch - S05E13 - Rubber Ducky

'B' Story

Mitch's mum comes to visit her son and grand son, Hobie. This gives her the chance to also meet Tracy, Mitch's new girlfriend. Hobie is there in Mitch's mum's first scene but then never seen again in this episode. Mitch's father died two years ago, a fact that I'm not sure I even knew. If they did an episode about it, I can't remember it, which would be surprising. Also if they didn't, it doesn't feel like two seasons ago that we saw Mitch's father alive.

Mitch wants his mum to start dating again, which she doesn't want to do. Soon after this, she's dating some dude even though she seemed very sure that she didn't want to date again since "no one could replace" her husband. Even though Mitch wanted her to find another man, he doesn't like this guy because of his reputation of being a womaniser. I'm explaining this entire story because there's nothing else to say about it, there's nothing great to point out here. I watched it, I wasn't bored but now that it's over, there's really nothing else to say.

'A' Story

The title 'Rubber Ducky' refers to a type of lightweight speed boat which is apparently popular in Australia, or least, it was at the time. There's a race, they each have a partner but basically it's a competition between Logan and Matt, since they continue to dislike each other. This is what the story appears to be about but really it's about Caroline and Logan getting back together. There's a scene where we find out that Caroline is still pissed off with him for leaving her for a rich, older woman, but cut to a couple of scenes later and they're back together.

Not that I had that thought about it but I didn't see it coming. Getting them back together is boring but on the other hand, their "relationship" earlier in the season was barely shown. To such an extent, I wasn't even sure they were doing more than just have dinner together back then. In other words, the show didn't spend much time on their relationship. I'm not too keen on seeing them back together since, to be honest, I don't think Logan is that attractive. It's funny to see Caroline's actress act so besotted with him, what does she even see in him? Logan doesn't act like that towards her but I think that's just bad acting, since I think this episode is supposed to be telling us that he genuinely does like her.

Logan is still portrait as a bit of a dick though, I mean, he's marrying a woman just for a green card. I'm surprised the show kept them together, really, but now they have a reason to have her briefly appear again. I'm not sure if the show wants us to feel like Logan is doing the right thing, marrying her for the green card, so that he can stay in the country and therefor close to Caroline. It certainly doesn't seem like a nice thing to do because he is tricking this poor other lady into marriage.

Logan's alternative is to buy an illegal green card with the first place prize money for the Rubber Ducky race. When we get to the race, it's really quite boring apart from the accident at the end - Logan's boat cuts off Matts one, resulting in Matt flipping over and getting hit on the head. I know it's blatant and obvious writing but I like the fact that Logan stops to go back and rescue him, even though his race partner doesn't want to. So Logan isn't that bad after all, is what they're hitting us on the nose with. They've done this at least once before, by the way, but it's been a while. So anyway, this means that Logan doesn't win the race and therefor must marry the bit-part lady to get a green card.

This episode, has the most sexually charged scene I've ever seen in Baywatch. It's always had T.N.A., it's been ramp-ted up in season 5 and mostly involves the extras, but I've never seen anything in Baywatch that I'd describe as sexual. Until now. We get a montage of Caroline and Logan playing around and exercising on the beach, though it's mostly focused on Caroline. The start of it doesn't have Logan in it, it's just Caroline posing. Showing people doing sit-ups in slow motion, while your partner holds your feet and certainly look suggestive from certain camera angles. There's also a lot of sweat which was probably sprayed on. When you finish your sit ups set, all tired out, it also looks like a certain other thing.

A few last things to note about this episode - C.J. has a supporting role here. Pamela does very little, as usual. It makes me wonder what made her so popular in the 90's, I thought it was Baywatch but she does very little and I hate to be mean but, she's also the least attractive out of the cast. I only say that because before I started watching Baywatch, I assumed that's why everyone liked her in this show. It must be a combination of Baywatch and other things she did outside of it, like modelling. It shows that she was a hard worker and that's what made her a star. Caroline's actress, I forget her name, is better in every way in this show, but I'd never heard of her before watching Baywatch and have never seen her after. Actually that goes for all the other women in this show. What I mean is, I didn't even watch Baywatch in the 90's but I'd heard of Pamela Anderson.

There's a random rescue in the middle of this episode, it's totally unneeded and not connected to the story at all. An old man has a stroke on a boat. At least it wasn't someone drowning.

I totally didn't notice in the previous episodes, the Christmas Special, that Logan was no where to be seen. Was this because he's a bit of a villain? Surely not.

We get a another tease concerning Tracy's health, they're clearly going to reveal that she's going to die of some illness. It'll be one of those stories when the person says "I have one year to live". It's typical daytime TV stuff but Baywatch has never done it before, or least, as far as I can remember. If they have done it before, they didn't do it in this way, it would have been in a single episode with a guest star, not a recurring role. Then again, it's a bit of a trick, right? Tracy is a recurring role but she's clearly not a main member of the cast. She's not in the intro and I've never seen her in any promotional material when I'm looking stuff up on baywatch.fandom for this blog. Obviously they've set this up from her first appearance, which is new for Baywatch. Well done. I'm wondering how they're going to deal with this though. Like I said the other day, it seems rather dark for Baywatch. Also haven't we had enough episodes and scenes of Mitch being miserable by now?

I liked this episode which says a lot about me, since it's the most soup opera like one Baywatch has done so far. It was a very low stakes story mostly containing people talking about relationships.

Random Thoughts on Baywatch So Far

Do you remember the episode 'We Need a Vacation' from season 1? Craig, Cort and Eddie go to Mexico, save a town from criminals and blow up a car, or something. That kind of episode seems so alien now. For the most part, Baywatch hasn't changed all that much but they never have episodes like that anymore. They should. As far as the typical beach episodes go, has season 5's formula always been there or did it creep in fairly recently? Maybe it's always been there and I just didn't notice it. There's a formula now which is most apparent when viewing the action sequences which are always rescues. There's always one at the end just before a couple of wrap-up scenes of characters talking.

Baywatch - S05E10, 11 and 12

S05E10 - I Spike

'B' Story

A slightly odd title, normally the title is in relation to the main story but it seems to be referring the secondary one. Matt wants to play volleyball and he does, that's about it. There's a story made to support it but there's barely anything to it, there's a rivalry between former volleyball team mates who are all guest stars. It's not dull to watch I admire Matt's actor for learning how to play, what a champ. The guest stars might be just professional volleyball players because their acting is bad.

Baywatch did a volleyball story long ago which wasn't that different from this one, it involved two main characters teaming up. Both characters a long gone, one left Baywatch and the other was killed by shark wounds. I think it was an season 1 episode.

'A' Story

Mitch falls for a beautiful woman, yet again. Her name is Tracy Dodsworth and she is a hovercraft expert and a life guard. I thought she was also the designer of the hovercraft featured but I might be misremembering this, it's never brought up again anyway, if it ever was. Mitch's first encounter with Tracy seems awkward; He just walks up to her table in a jazz cafe and starts chatting her up, something that is more forward than Mitch normally does. The reason the show did this is revealed in the next scene, they wanted to pull off what Top Gun did. You know, when Tom Cruise makes a fool of himself with the woman, and then the next day it turns out she's his boss, or something like that.

So the next day Mitch turns up to work and it turns out Tracy, this random woman he unsuccessfully chatted up the night before, is the hovercraft driver he'll be competing against. It's a sort of joke setup, I guess. The whole story exists for two reasons, the first is the show off how cool hovercrafts are and I'm OK with that. It reminds me of a vehicle in the 1993 video game I like called Rock n' Roll Racing. The other reason this story exists is for Mitch to have another love story which much to my surprise, doesn't end at the end of this story. Tracy is about to leave but an action sequence rescue has to occur, so she's asked to help out with her hovercraft. 

There's also a tiny story about how Garner wants to be a jazz singer, that's why Mitch was in the cafe at the start. Garner get stage fright, he simply can't sing or speak a word. The episode ends with him trying again but we get a freeze frame and credits, so we never find out if he was successful.

I watched this episode yesterday, I don't remember thinking it was bad but now that I think about it, it was pretty plane.

S05E11 - Silent Night, Baywatch Night: Part I

It's taken Baywatch five seasons for it to make a Christmas episode, a two part one, at that. Not that I'd ever noticed the absence of one. They point out that it's not cold there, in fact it doesn't seem like the weather is different at all. I'm ignorant, is that true? Is that area of America always hot? What a dream, I wish I lived there.

Matt

His story is one of the shortest but it's my favourite one. It's explained that Matt doesn't have any good Christmas memories. It's not explained why but Baywatch aficionado's know that Matt doesn't have loving parents, shown to us in old episodes involving his dad. Which, by the way, were brief and a long time ago now. They even replaced his dads actor after his first appearance. Anyway, even though it's a super basic thing to just say that Matt has no good Christmas memories, this one hit me, for some reason. I really help for him and teared up a little at points in this story.

Matt's story also involves one of the two main elements of this two part Baywatch special, and that would be Elves. A group of little people come to the beach and befriend everyone but they start with Matt. The running joke throughout the entire special is weather or not they really are Santa's Elves, there on holiday. It's all played for laughs which is a bit of a funny thing to do, five episodes after the sad 'Short Sighted' episode. In part 1, it's mostly insinuated that they really are Elves but they're trying keep it a secret from Matt. This culminates in them decorating Matts life guard tower which was somehow one of the sweetest scenes I've ever seen in Baywatch.

Mitch and Tracy

Tracy continues to be an actual character despite having almost no personality now that she's just a life guard and partner to Mitch. No mention of hovercrafts or sightings of one whatsoever. Typical Baywatch. Everything involving Mitch and Tracy is love and rainbows besides one scene - A bunch of hair comes out while Tracy is combing it, it's really out of place in this cheerful special but it's short so whatever. It's also not explained but will clearly lead to a later episode which will involve a reason why she has to leave, most likely the next one. I'm not sure what the reason will be, the only thing I can think of is rather dark for Baywatch. Will she get terminally ill and die? Baywatch rarely does dark stories like that, especially from about season 3 onwards.

Joey Jennings

I'd say the two main elements of this Baywatch special are the Elves and then Joey Jennings, a guest star who I was surprised to see will come back for three episodes in season 6. Three, why three and not one or two? Odd, I'll have to wait and see.

Her story sort of jumps from one character to the next, she's first mostly with her mum, then she hangs out with Hobie for the rest of the episode. Joey then meets Mitch and then there's quite a few scenes with those two in Part 2. Her and her mum are grifters, you see, and that's all I can be bothered to say about their story even though it's pretty good. For some reason Joey is pretending to be a boy, even though I knew straight away that she wasn't, characters like Mitch and Hobie don't notice this, somehow. The reason why the show does this only becomes clear way into Part 2, it's a clunky reason.

Joey's mum is arrested fifteen minutes into the episode so we don't see much of her after that, not until shes bailed out in Part 2. Hobie runs into Joey and helps her out for a while, including letting her stay at his house, much to Mitch's dismay. At one point, Joey has an idea to con people out of $20 dollars each, which Hobie helps with. It's all sort of portrait as a funny thing but no way would Hobie agree to this, he's way too smart and nice to be pretty much stealing a total of $300 from people.

A big part of Joey's story is that she's being pursued by a hired goon who is trying to get back, I think, $10,000. Villain's chasing people in Baywatch is nothing new but I find it funny that they used silly, Home Alone type music, so as to make these scenes non-threatening. Since this a Christmas episode, they couldn't have it be all menacing even though it's mostly only the music that changes the tone. Besides a brief moment when Joey smacks the goon with the bag of money, this could be any serious chase scene in Baywatch. What I'm saying is that it feel a bit lazy compared to the things like Home Alone, which I think they may have been influenced by. On the other hand, the goon does chase her again later in this episode and it's done a little more seriously.

The episode ends with a cliffhanger, Joey falls into the sea in front of Hobie. This really should never be a cliffhanger in Baywatch, it's too common and we know she will be rescued. Hobie is great at saving people anyway, we know this. This would be a walk in the park for Hobie but he acts like it's a disaster, as if Hobie doesn't do this before breakfast every day.

C.J.

I almost forgot about her. C.J. gets the smallest story as usual and it's also like most C.J. stories - Some dude with an unconventional job (as far as the would of Baywatch is concerned, that is) falls for her. Most of her stories are like this, either she falls for the guy, he falls for her, or both. This time it's a priest and there's really nothing to say about this story.

S05E11 - Silent Night, Baywatch Night: Part II

I'm getting tired so I may have to keep this brief.

Obviously Part 2 wraps up the stories from Part 1 but the main parts of them are wrapped-up rather early, so the rest of this one feels a bit random. I'm alright with this though, it's mostly about everyone just doing Christmas stuff.

Joey

Joey is rescued from drowning by Hobie and a load of others who turn up immediately, what a surprise. Joey scenes from this point are sort of random in my memory - Mitch realises that something fishy is going on, which leads to Joey telling him the truth about her and her mum. All the stuff with Mitch and Joey is very heart felt. There's a random funny scene where Joey is smoking a cigarette, if I haven't made it clear already... Joey is a small child.

Matt

Matt's story with the "Elves" was mostly wrapped up in Part 1, we now have him outright questioning weather they are or not, including talking to others about it. This leads to the Elves having scenes with all the rest of the cast, they're all friends with each other which is fine but now that I'm writing about it... how do they all suddenly know each other? By the way, most of, if not all of these actors playing as the Elves are well known to me through Seinfeld, especially the main guy who was in Seinfeld quite a lot. The blonde woman was as well. The joke about if they are really Elves continues into this episode, we never find out but it's possible, since ghosts and aliens are real in Baywatch.

Caroline

I feel like pointing out that Caroline is barely in this special, much to my chagrin. She's essentially a background character. There's also something possibly different about her, something... bigger. Do all women in Baywatch get implants?

Stephanie

The answer to that is no since Steph clearly hasn't, well so far anyway. Speaking of which, Steph is still away on her journey around the world, I wonder what the real world reason was, I may look it up. I'm pretty sure this character comes back, since I've seen later photos of her. How long is she gone though? I assume not for long. I like this character but I admit, I keep forgetting she's missing until a character mentions her.

Mitch and Tracy

There's two scenes in this special that just makes everyone Mitch look incredibly rich, this is unintentional. One is later, the first one though has Mitch setting up a romantic dance on the beach for Tracy. There's tables for dinner, a dancing floor, music, lights, fireworks and a pyrotechnic sign that says 'Merry Christmas Tracy'. It's all incredibly over the top. I vaguely remember that they've done this scene before but with far less money and sceptical behind it, they've done it at least twice before. At least one of them involved good old Shauni, I think it was a dream sequence or maybe only one was. I bet if I went back and watched it now, it would be far less flashy than this new one.

C.J.

The most uninteresting story in the special and possibly the worst story in Baywatch history is wrapped up. The priest doesn't fancy C.J... I think, and C.J. doesn't fancy him... I think. It is all quite unclear and even though the priests feelings are intentionally made vague, I think both of their feeling are unclear to the audience through bad acting and a lack of, well, anything really. There's so little screen time dedicated, it's hard to tell.

Final Scene

This is the second time in the special where it makes Mitch, or perhaps all of them, look rich. Mitch sets up a winter wonder land at Baywatch headquarters, including fake snow (foam) being shot out of hoses held by life guard extras on a roof top. It's all very festive and nice though I am watching this in August, haha. All of the characters are there, I think, though we don't see Hobie and Caroline all that much.

Baywatch has to end in an action sequence so, randomly and illogically, the goon turns up and they all see him. They all chase him and catch him. Why would he be there? There's no reason. Is he still hunting for the money? He just left after Joey fell in the water in the previous episode, which by the way was odd, since he had said earlier that he doesn't want to hurt a child, he just wants the money.

Also, weren't Joey's mums charges going to be dropped ONLY if she payed back the money? It seemed like everything was nice for them and fixed, but they let the priest keep the $10.000 for charity. I don't know if that's a plot hole or if I missed something, not that it matters. By the way, Garner is dressed up as Santa for most of this special.

Overall, these two episodes are pretty good.

Baywatch - S05E08 and 09

I know said this before but I'm really going to try to make these write-ups shorter from now on. Less explaining the plot pointlessly and also this means less spoilers, not that anyone cares. Party because 'anyone' doesn't apply when there's likely no one reading these. 

S05E08 - K-GAS, the Groove-Yard of Solid Gold

And the award for strangest Baywatch episode so far goes to... 'K-GAS, the Groove-Yard of Solid Gold', not that it had much competition. Say K-GAS out loud and it sounds like 'Kick-ass', get it? The whole title is simply the name of a radio station which will most likely only ever appear in this episode.

Only one story this time, it's all about people flooding to the beach trying to win a load cash, the radio station is running a competition. It's a treasure hunt where clues are hidden around the beach. Problem is, these extras are going nuts and almost killing themselves, the clues are often hidden in dangerous places.

Matt

He gets into the idea of winning the money himself.

C.J.

The radio station DJ falls in love with C.J. on first site, this is barely addressed. C.J. is mostly not into winning the money and gets a bit annoyed at Matt for getting into the idea. She says several things about how money isn't important and stuff like that, I guess the show forgot that gambling addiction episode. To be fair, there can be a difference between wanting the money and being addicted to the gambling games themselves.

There's one moment where Matt convinces her that it would be great if they won the money, since they are a couple. This part is simply so the show can do a montage of C.J. fantasising about being rich. However, it's just an excuse to do a Pamela Anderson fashion shoot, it barely conveys the idea of being which at all. This is the highest peak so far of 'hay look, C.J. has big boobs' in the show. We've seen it before but this is the most extreme example so far and feels out of place, like it has nothing to do with the story.

Kaye Morgan

The most interesting thing to happen, as far as canon is concerned, is that Kaye Morgan returns whose actress was still David Hasselhoff's wife in real life, I think. She takes over Jackie Quinn's cafe and renames it. I don't think we'll be seeing much of her and I don't think she'll ever appear in the intro. I like Kaye Morgan but only because she's an old school character, to be honest she's got virtually no personality and hasn't had any character growth since her first appearance when she was a bit of a antagonist. She was a reporter getting in the way, or something. As far as I can remember.

Not a bad episode overall.

S05E09 - Red Wind

This one is OK but I was hoping for more when the premise was laid out for us at the start, as well as seeing a returning character. Oh, also a really nice bit of music at the start.

A hot Santa Ana winds blows in and planets are aligned in a certain way, or something. It's explained that this leads to men getting aggressive, women getting horny and more crazy people coming to the beach to act, umm, crazy. It turns out we're told this literally to explain that these are going to relate to the three main stories. I don't see this episode being laid out in the usual 'A', 'B', 'C' way, the best way to explain is through what each character does.

Matt

Sadly he gets almost nothing to do, a woman in the sea takes off her bikini and throws it at him, sort of beckoning him to come give it back to her. We don't see her naked, of course. That's it, we barely see him again.

Mitch

It's safe to say that has the main story here even though it's not obvious at first. So perhaps I was wrong earlier, maybe the 'A', 'B' story structure is still here, it's just hidden better than usual. Someone who Mitch rescued eleven years ago comes back, wanting to be with him because she's painted this picture in her head that he's a hero. Problem is, she's engaged, so her fiancee is pissed doff with Mitch. Her fiancee is antagonistic at first but it gets fun when Mitch takes him under his wing, trying to teach him to be like him.

An overly stupid montage shows us the fiancee acting dorky, clumsy and stuff. It's over done but but sort of entertaining, even though they don't sell the idea that he's weak, when he's clearly a dude that's in shape. In fact, besides being smaller, he's possibly more ripped than Mitch. This is why we never see him topless.

This doesn't so Mitch's plan be is to go on a date with her (I really should have looked up these characters names) and act like a immature, selfish jerk. This is done in a montage in-which Mitch does so over the top, that I'm not sure if I loved or hated it. Afterwards, I really like the fact that it turns out she likes him even more now, for being free, fun and boyish. It's a joke that I was hoping the show would be. There's a bit more to this story at the end but I'll leave it at that.

Catherine

She gets the second biggest story and it's the most serious, probably one of the most serious stories we've had in quite some time. Catherine gets a bit obsessed over rescuing a little girl from drowning, but it turns out the father has gone a bit mad. She drowned a year ago somewhere else. The fact that there was never anyone else to rescue is revealed later in the story but it's obvious almost straight away. It's quite a heart felt story, though. The father is played by some dude I recognise from something else, a comedy I think, I like him. Catherine really should be given more stories like this, she's the best actor which was shown in her first appearance, before she became a regular. She's also the hottest, somehow. What a combination.

Destiny

Did I say Destiny? Yeah, I couldn't believe it too, they brought back this one off character who I liked, so she's not a one off anymore. I even said at the time that Destiny should be a main character. The great thing is, it turns out she's a regular in Baywatch Nights, which is a spin-off show. So I'll have to watch that, even though I heard it was bad and the premise does indeed sound bad. I doubt it's been remastered though, so I hope I can get decent copies of it.

The first time we see Destiny here is her reuniting with Mitch, since her original story was with him. But then she goes off and we don't see them interact again, which is new but disappointing. Actually it's probably only a bummer because she ends up doing pretty much nothing which is a bit odd. Why bring her back at all? She's there to calm peoples spirits and transmit positive vibes, which boils down to her and a bunch of others just sort of meditating in a circle. That's it, she does nothing else.

C.J.

She's not much better off than Matt, she has a story with Destiny, well, sort of. Well, actually not really at all. Destiny's first meditation scene has some Taro cards blow towards C.J., which reveal that C.J. is their new leader. It seems like this is going to be the story but it leads to absolutely nothing.

Overall, it's an OK episode but when it started, I thought they were doing to go more crazy with it. I was thinking more along the lines of that beer episode of Buffy. Just having people being more wacky would have sufficed, in fact the wackiest character was Mitch but he wasn't effect by the wind, he was acting.

Baywatch - S05E06 and 07

S05E06 - Short Sighted

I watched this yesterday so it is fading in my memory, I have it playing in the background to remind me.

I realised that in post production, montages are the perfect way to pad out an episode to the correct length, specifically important back when TV shows had to be more specific with their lengths. Simply film the story scenes first and then pad out the rest with montages. This one starts with a montage of Logan and Caroline qualifying to be life guards through a race, of sorts. Older episodes have had this race before but spend entire stories on them, I'm glad they didn't do that again. Also in the past, they've been more like obstacle courses.

'B' Story

I should point out that Logan qualifying is just for the position there in America, he isn't a rookie, he is an experienced life guard from Australia. This part of the episode is about Caroline not being able to concentrate on work because she's working with Logan, who she is no longer dating. We barely saw them date or do much together at all before this happened, by the way. Stephanie, her sister, tries to help via nepotism, which leads to Caroline getting missed off, because she wants to fight her own battles. I think the message was that Stephanie was wrong but Caroline comes across as such an ungrateful, selfish person, that it doesn't land as well as the show writers wanted it to. The sisters make up in the end.

'A' Story

This story is about a 'little person' called Simon. On the baywatch.fandom site and in the episode he is referred to as a dwarf, but I think this is considered offensive nowadays. So I'll call him a little person even though it sounds just as silly, in my opinion.

Simon and has a son called Nick, I think, and Nick is ashamed to have a dad who is a little person. They explain why this is a new thing by saying they only recently met, after Nicks mum left her husband and didn't let him see his son. I'm telling you the story here even though I don't want to just re-write the kinds of things you find on Wiki pages!

Though that's perhaps because there's not actually much to say about the story. It's heart felt and I see what they're going for. It's noble and a nice message to tell the audience, which is not to be prejudice and that the love for your family is important. However, there's not much to say beyond that when it comes to writing a review sort of thing here on a blog. Also, because it's 1994/1995 Baywatch, it comes across as incredibly corny at times. I think there was a montage of Simon walking around with a sad song in the background and the song was so cheesy. It's a 'look how sad some peoples lives are' story which I respect, but seems dated. Nowadays people with disabilities are more often put into normal stories that aren't about their disabilities. But then again, I don't have numbers on that and perhaps the absence of these kinds of episodes is a bad thing. Maybe making people aware that they should be compassionate is a good thing that is missed now, but who knows, I dunno. Overall I didn't mind this episode, though.

Matt is nice in this episode. I mean... come to think of it, this character is now played as the perfect human being. It's funny to think he was supposed to be a bit of a rebel when he was first introduced.

More interesting to me is that when I looked up Simon because I forgot that name, I found out that the actor, Ed Gale, played as Chucky in some of the Child's Play movies, including the first two. I love those movies. Anyway, I'm leaving it at that, this is a shorter write-up than usual but still too long. I need too spend less time writing about Baywatch, I'm thinking I really should be spending more time doing more important things and I'm already one episode behind.

S05E07 - Someone to Baywatch Over You

On Freevee they incorrectly call this episode 'Someone to Baywatch Over Your'. I have very little time so let's try to smash this one out quickly.

'B' Story

Matt rescues a woman called Angela who now wants to be his servant out of gratitude, she's from a small village who does this out of tradition. This is a lighthearted, mostly comical story involving Matt and C.J. trying to fake Matt having an accident. So that Angela can rescue him and therefor break things even so they can get rid of her. The montage of the two of them unsuccessfully setting up fake accidents for Matt was amusing, though it would have been funnier if when the random boys find him in the hole, they just started to bury him.

I noticed that Angela was played by the same actress who was in that episode where Mitch gets a house maid, seems like the show doesn't have many choices when it comes to actresses with foreign accidents. Hang on, I just realised, even the story is similar - The foreigner waits on someone hand and foot in both episodes. The conclusion to this story wasn't mind blowing but I didn't see it coming.

'A' Story

It's a crime story but the focus isn't the crime for once, it's F.B.I. agent being a dick to Mitch. It's not bad and a little different from usual, as in, I can't think of any old episodes it's like. However, there's not much to say about it. It's mostly just Mitch and the agent, who happens to be an attractive woman, I might add, arguing because she doesn't respect his job. It's revealed at the end which I didn't expect or even think about, but I appreciated them explaining it. It ends with an action sequence of them chasing the criminals in a speed boat because of course it does. Actually that's not true, it ends with Mitch wooing the agent because we could never have a woman not fancying Mitch, could we.

Overall it was a good episode, not great, just good.

Baywatch - S05E05 - Air Buchannon

What a weird episode but not like you're thinking, it's not a weird story like that one where Summer was getting horny with a ghost. Did I forget to write about that one? Yes, ghosts exist in the Baywatch universe. It's not a rare comedy episode like that one where Eddie hits his head and dreams that the cast are in an approximation of a Gilligan's Island episode. No, it's weird fr a host of reasons but mainly because there's no clear real stories until nearer the end, sort of.

When I first started watching Baywatch, I read online some people say how much better the first three seasons are and that they had proper stories, or did they day that they had stories, period, I can't remember which. Is 'Air Buchannon' the start of that trend, will this become the norm if I keep watching? For now though, I need to make something clear - I liked this episode. Perhaps because of its novelty but also because Baywatch's stories started to copy earlier episodes quite some time ago, which I've complained about before. Really since around the start of season 3, it's been repeating similar stories from season's 1 and 2. So having it the way it is in this episode is fine with me, however a lot of things about this episode would definitely label it as a real shit one by most viewers. I should explain what they actually do in this one, shouldn't I/

So here goes. It's a load of small, mundane stories that just happen. they are even more mundane than usual, even when the show is trying to make it look like they aren't. At first I thought it is called 'Air Buchannon' because he's going around doing random jobs but no, it's called that because someone steals his Hang Glider. This is a weak connection and just shows how much of a non-story this episode is, because normally the titles explain what's going on it the simplest of terms. Let's make a few notes concerning the bits that stand out, because I can't think of any other way to write this.

- Firstly, it starts with another rollerblading montage just like the last episode and it's long again, too. This is just the start of the oddities. Just like the previous one, rollerblading also ends up having nothing to do with the episode, at least they briefly mention it in the last one.

- We then see an extra doing Tai chi or something and she looks bad at it, then again, I know nothing about Tai chi.

- We then get the premise of what I guess could be called the 'A' story, or maybe the 'B' story? I'm not sure because even though there are two stories that get plenty of screen time, they're also scatter shot. Mitch and Steph have to do a 24 hour shift and this the main reason we get small stories, because we see them going around doing small rescues and stuff. But why would a life guard ever have to work for 24 hours? I'm not sure if that's a real thing. Also Mitch briefly mentions what happened with him and his ex-wife a few episodes ago, he also did this in the previous episode. It's unusual for Baywatch to acknowledge past stories.

- It's around this time that I noticed something I noticed in a previous episode but forgot to mention. Season 5 introduces diegetic sounds, most notably people talking on the beach. This is welcome even though in the previous episode there was a moment when it was too loud. The show has probably always had it but it's improved in season 5... or has it? Perhaps me noticing it means it's not as good, since it's supposed to sound natural.

- We then get C.J. telling some surfers that they are on a non-surfing part of the beach but it turns out this is not a story. I think this is around the time I started wondering what this episode is actually about.

- An old dude has a heart attack, I think, but it looks like he's just out of breath. Mitch and Stephanie are some of the life guards called to help and here is where we get another weird moment. The show spends quite a bit of time showing them actually driving there, they don't normally do this in Baywatch. They'll usually show them arriving in their yellow van jeep or maybe them getting into it at the start of the journey, at most. This part also leads into nothing again, we simply get told later that the hospital he was taken to said he is fine.

- I'll take this moment to point out again that I did like this episode even though I sound like I'm complaining. 'Air Buchannon' is good simply because we get to see the sights, sounds and atmosphere of this, admittedly unreal, place. Which sort of leads to the next bit.

- This is kind of hilarious. It's at this point I noticed how many bikini babe extras are throughout this episode. This show has definitely got more horny over time, gradually since the start. It was always there but I'm now starting to see what this show was known for back in the 90's. As in, I never watched it back then, not even once, but you know how the most strong opinions rise to the top in society and this was one of them. Well, the main one. You'd hear about babes, slow motion running, David Hasselhoff and Pamela, even though she's still not in it much. At that's about it, that's all you'd hear. Oh, also you'd hear it was crap but clearly it had something because it was immensely popular. Maybe it was just the TNA? I guess TV was the only way a lot of people could get their kicks, back then.

- The next weird thing to happen, though it's only weird for me, is that Charisma Carpenter appears as a guest star! I know her as Cordelia Chase from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, my favourite TV show of all time. Hobie and her start a thing together, will she be in it more after this? I doubt it.

- Next random this to happen is two boys hang glide in a place they aren't supposed to. One crashes but he's OK, he doesn't need rescuing, which is a first! He breaks the glider which leads to him and his make stealing Mitch's one later. These two are the closest to villains we have, they're just dicks though, basically.

- We get a random guy in the life guard switch box (call centre thingy) throughout this episode but there's a scene just after the hang gliding one where it seems he is not an actor at all. Who is this guy? I'd still trade my life with his though, his real life or his screen life, haha.

- Next weird thing is another montage... why would there be another one in an episode that already is going nowhere? Wait I answered my own question. Nice montage, I like. Funny thing is that it shows real people, which makes the beach babe extras stuff I mentioned earlier stand out even more. It really does highlight how fake this show is, the beach is and probably was never like this. We see real people who are wearing more, are less attractive and also there are far, far more guys. The earlier scenes with the extras were almost all women. Also in this montage, even though Mitch and Steph are driving around, you blatantly notice that two beach babe extras have been assigned to walking next to the car in almost every shot. I guess it was the shows attempt to offset the normies. Also the regular people are so much more densely packed than shots with extras.

- The next bit actually made me laugh. A bunch of cyclists and roller bladders crash into each other and the show makes it out to be so serious. There's about five of them and they literally can't get up and are moaning in pain, it didn't look like a very bad collision! One woman is saying she can't move her legs. These's people look way younger than me and I crashed my bike, I flew over the handle bar, onto my hands and scraped them. I was bleeding and I had sprained my wrists. I think I was 40 years old (so maybe last year) and I could still get up and walk. I could also just about ride still, though I stopped because it was painful. No way would those extras be that banged up.

- Next we get a hard cut to a montage of Hobie and Charisma Carpenter having fun. Yes, I'm going to call her that because I can't remember her character name. This cut from an apparently serious accident to fun times is funny. Also are they really giving us another montage? Is this the beginning of the show running out of ideas?

- Up next is Hobie has a house party, I'm getting tired and I can't be bothered to talk about this one. It's basically the other "main" story along with the Mitch and Steph one. It just leads to those dickhead boys stealing Mitch's Hang Glider and then an action rescue scene at the end where Hobie and one of the boys crash into a cliff. Yeah, Hobie grabs onto the Hang Glider while the other boy is taking off, for some reason. Even though he could have easily confronted him about the theft after he had landed. It's not like he was going to glide off into the sun set with his stolen goods. His mate is standing there with the car still.

- The next scene is Mitch and Stephanie getting horny, this, as well as the stuff I talked about earlier, makes this the raunchiest episode I've ever seen. Ya know, by Baywatch daytime TV standards.

- This bit is a part of the above but I'm separating it because it's so weird. They do a flashback of Mitch and Stephanie moments, one of which is of them meeting. She doesn't appear to be wearing a wig though so did they actually think ahead to shoot this before she cut her hair off for this season? Or perhaps it's an unused scene from an earlier episode, though that would have had to be a flashback too, since when Steph is introduced, she already knows Mitch. She's already dated him, too. Some of these flashback scenes are from previews episodes, however, since I remember them. They jump from black and white to colour, which is also a bit odd.

- That's about it for the stories, there was more but I can't be arsed, I've already gone into too much detail. The episode ends with Mitch and Hobie chatting while walking on the beach, something that the show does a lot.

Random, Out of Order Notes

- I rarely spot bad ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) in Baywatch but Hobie get's the worst one I've seen in Baywatch. I think it was when he's in his kitchen talking to one of the Hang Glider thieves.

- Not much to about new character Logan in this one, he's not in it. Also since his debut, he's at the tail end of the intro so perhaps he's not going to be in the show much. I find it odd that Stephanie is right at the end and has always been near the end, even though she's in it a lot. She's in it a lot more than cop guy, who I always forget the name of, even though she's in it more. In fact I'd argue that she's the 3rd most used character behind Mitch and Hobie, especially now that Summer is gone.

- I really liked the music in this episode. Most wouldn't like it but it's so 90's, it sounds like some 90's PlayStation games background soundtrack.

- This is a random place to put this but I forgot to mention this ages ago; Like I said earlier, Baywatch rarely mentions old stories and characters that have left. However, Matt and Summer move in together at one point and it's into the boat that Shauni and Eddie lived in! They actually mention this.

Baywatch - S05E04 - Baja Run

An alright episode but nothing special besides some of the sites.

'B' Story

A continuation of the Logan, Caroline and Matt love triangle and it definitely is one since it is confirmed that Caroline does sort of fancy Matt too. It is implied that they've gone on a date or two but they were just basic ones like dinner. I say that, it's not that they tell us this but Caroline has a date planned with Matt in this episode and it doesn't come across as their first, to me. However Caroline forgets about this and it leads to her telling her sister Stephanie that she's chosen Logan, because he's fun and Matt is too serious.

I'm glad this happened because it looked like this story was going to mimic the old one where Summer couldn't choose between Matt and Slade. After this, the story diverges even more; After Matt makes no effort to hide his jealousy for Logan, he gets with C.J. This was surprising but I welcome it and it is perhaps an unintentional call back to their first ever encounter where Matt was clearly eyeing up C.J., that was two seasons ago when they were introduced. I don't think the show had them be anything but platonic after that.

This burgeoning romance is first shown in a cute little scene where Matt and C.J. are hitting a boxing bag, it's a bit more spontaneous and human than most scenes in Baywatch, perhaps it was improvised. The second part is shown in your typical Baywatch romance montage of two people frolicking and kissing. In retrospect this pairing is rushed like a lot of them in the show, so I'm afraid it probably won't last long and is just a diversion from the original route of getting Matt and Caroline together. I wouldn't be surprised if this happens in the next episode.

I almost forgot to talk about Logan. He is shown to be a nasty piece of work in this episode, for sure, so he's far worse than Trevor Cole. I don't mean he's a villain in the way that we get thieves and murderers in one-off stories, but he's definitely the most nasty life guard we've had in the main cast so far. That's not saying much though, since they've all been so super nice so far. It's a nice change but I doubt he'll stay this way. I can't believe he payed a dude to attack a woman so he can rescue her, they make an effort to make him look 'not that bad' though, by showing him tell the attacker that he went too far.

Later on, Caroline see's Logan snogging the woman he rescued so he knows he's a piece of work now. This will most likely lead to her trying to get with Matt.

'A' Story

I was thinking while watching this that the story is way better than the other, but now that I think about it, not a whole lot happens. The thing that stops it from being trash is that John D. Cort returns for a one off, which is very welcome. Looking on baywatch.fandom, I see this is the last time he's in the show, which is real sad for me. Well, besides appearing in the 'Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding' but I barely count that because it's way later and the more I watch the show, the more I realise that this Hawaiian movie thing is probably going to be just a bunch of cameos. Will he be totally blind? It's about ten years later so he should be but I get they come up with some excuse, saying he's cured because otherwise that would be way too much of a downer for a reunion movie. Come to think of it, I'm fine with that.

Back to Baja Run. John D. Cort is still going blind, a thing they introduced last time he appeared for a one-off, which I still think is ridiculous, unnecessary and depressing. I guess on the one hand, it is something different for the show to do for once, but why to such a believed, cool, season 1 character? At least they don't focus on it this time but it's still a thing, since they couldn't just brush it under the rug. This show is pretty silly and loose but in John's last appearance, they did point out that his condition is not treatable, that he is going to go blind.

Anyway, onto the actual story - There's not much to it to be honest, it's just an excuse to show some Baja racing. Is that what it's called? I can't look it up because my internet is down at the moment. The episode is called 'Baja Run' so Baja is a part of it, at least. I'm OK with this though, it looks cool and fun, it makes me wish my life was like that, just like a lot of things in this show.

I don't know why I'm even going to bother saying anything about the rest of this story. John has an expensive artefact, he hides it from some bad dudes who want to steal it from him, Mitch doesn't know, bla bla bla. I don't recall when but I'm pretty sure they've done this story before. Like I said, it's really just an excuse to show Baja racing because the artefact is hidden by the side of a road.

Summer and Jackie

That's it for that episode but I have some other random thoughts to air. As we all know, Summer and her mum Jackie are gone from the show starting with this season. I've already said it but they will be missed, Jackie's actress was real good and Summer's sudden split from Matt and her job wasn't explained at all. I know this is just silly show from decades ago so I'm not that bothered, but it's an observation that Baywatch will make out characters to be important and in love and then just end it unceremoniously. Also I forgot to say something in my write up about the last episode - Jackie doesn't have any speaking scenes after she's rescued, she's basically just screaming for help for the whole thing and then leaves the show. Just something I wanted to point out, haha.

S01E01 - In Deep

No, I'm not doing a review of this episode (yet), it's just yesterday I decided to watch the original intro but I ended up watching five to ten minutes of it. It's a shame I didn't write about the first two seasons because I like the origins of media and for some reason the first two seasons of Baywatch aren't represented as much online as the later ones. Before I continue, to clarify, this episode is sometimes listed as episode 2, since the pilot, which is more like a movie, is sometimes episode 1. I'm watching Baywatch on Freevee, episode 1 is the pilot probably because their database software has no way to list an episode 0.

It might be nostalgia but the little I watched of this does seem better than season 5 episodes. Not by a lot though, Baywatch hasn't changed loads so far and the changes have been gradual. The thing that stands out the most is the charisma of the characters in 'In Deep', especially the guys, though this might be because I only watched about ten minutes. Mitch is the main character and is always in the show so I'm not counting him, he hasn't changed.

For all the praise I've given 'new' Hobie for getting better and better at acting, I'd forgotten how charismatic and natural the original one was. It's also funny to be reminded how much older he was, he's probably about the same age that Hobie is now in season 5, so new Hobie has finally caught up with him. Old Hobie is still better though, how he has conversations with his Dad is so much better.

We also have Craig, again, the charisma is high in this one. Basically the acting is just better all around. John D. Cort isn't there from the start but it doesn't take long for him to join and I think he's another good example of the early characters being better. Seeing him appear for the last time in 'Baja Run' today reminds me again of these original episodes.

You barely see her in the first ten minutes but there is of course Shauni as well, my favourite life guard. She's the reason why I re-watched the old intro because I still connect part of the music to her slow-motion run, even though she's no longer in it. What I mean is that the intro music is the same in season 5 but there's a part of the music that I connect to Shauni. In this episode, we see Eddie acting stand-offish towards Shauni. It's funny to see the tired old cliche of 'if the boy is mean to you, it means he likes you' here.

Not that you see any of this at the start of this one, but watching this does remind me that under water scenes do look better in later seasons. Even though it is still obviously shot in a swimming pool. I remember that in season 1 and 2, not only are the camera angles and clarity not as good, but they also barely put in rocks and stuff on the bottom! It was so blatantly a swimming pool. If I re-watched those now, they'd look even worse.