Baywatch - S04E20 and S04E21

S04E20 - The Life You Save

These two are going to be short reviews since we've got a couple of stinkers here, especially this one. I sure did choose a bad time to start writing about Baywatch, the episodes I didn't write about were actually good and sometimes pretty great.

'The Life You Save' is a clip show; an episode that consists of excerpts from previous episodes, which Baywatch has done once before, so far. In its defence, only half of the running time is excerpts, at most. However show this is played out is odd to me, our lifeguards are faced with budget cuts so they have to prove to the government officials that their job is important. "We save lives ya know!" is basically the entire story. Outside of the excerpts from previous episodes, Mitch and the gang spend almost the entire time pitching their importance, which comes across like weird, like they're at a board meeting with a script. I mean, they do have a script and I don't mean because this is a TV show.

Also I thought clip shows were a way to save money, maybe I'm wrong because the episode does start with a newly shot rescue. Plus they bring back some old 'one off' characters who book end the excerpts, which I assume costs money and time. It's kind of interesting to think that these are probably the only actors who wanted to come back, some of them say barely anything by the way. They are just there to say how awesome the lifeguards are for saving their lives. There's even a clip in-which you see Eddie, you even here him speak! You don't see any other ex-Baywatch people though, only the ones that are in the show now. I wonder if they had to ask permission.

It sort of felt like they were promoting the show itself, but I doubt Baywatch was struggling with money at the time. The episode ends with them not getting budget cuts, in fact I think they get even more money than before, which was a bit dumb.

S04E21 - Trading Places

At least this one isn't a clip show but it isn't much more entertaining. I'm really quite tired of crime based episodes even though I must say, they don't seem to do them much anymore. Remember that one when that Japanese dude hated Mitch? They seemed pretty fun back then. I mean, that dude was the guy from the original Mortal Kombat movie to be fair, so he was awesome.

I can't be bothered to say much about 'Trading Places', especially the story, so I'll just say some random things that come to mind:

- The actor who is the criminal was in a previous episode, I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be a different person but he acts just the same. They should have just made him the same dude, why not?

- I am labelling this as the 'Stephanie Empresses Herself' episode. She makes seal noises for way too long as a joke and her Vietnam flashbacks are hilarious. They have generic army music and look like they're from that Cannon Fodder video game. I've rarely laughed so much at a Baywatch episode because it looks like they're going to reveal that Stephanie was in a war and now has P.T.S.D. over helicopters. Imagine if they just dropped that into her back story this late into the show. Luckily it's not that silly, it turns out her father died in a crash, so now I feel like a dick for laughing earlier, haha. She wasn't actually there but I guess you can have P.T.S.D. over anything, I mean, I have it over less serious things. P.T.S.D. has a scale, too, some people will be so traumatised that they'll freeze up, like Stephanie does on the helicopter.

I know the pay off at the end is that she over-comes her fear because she has to rescue Matt, but her training with the Coast Guard clearly didn't help. There's literally a scene where she's learning to fight and she flings someone over who is behind her. But then when the criminal grabs her from behind later on, she shakes herself around like shes trapped in a vice and then gives up. Yes they have guns but at that moment, you can tell shes trying to fight one of them off. In fact Matt is the one who puts up more of a fight, before he is unrealistically beaten and thrown off the boat by a older, less fit looking guy. We've seen Matt fight for longer and take more of a beating than this in previous episodes.

Speaking of Matt... a nit-pick - He is left in the water to die in a net. Steph comes to save him, she takes the net off him easily, I think Matt could have done that earlier himself. Also the idea of being tied up in a net in the sea is terrifying, but it also had floater things on it, so was having the net actually a life-saver?

Steph gets together with the Coast Guard guy at the end, which is a bit surprising since bit-parts like this don't normally carry over to more episodes in Baywatch. I'll be surprised if he vanishes because the show doesn't do that anymore, not with romantic partners. It did at first though - In earlier seasons, Mitch would often seemingly start a relationship which doesn't end at the end of the episode, but then we'd usually never see them again.

Anyway, why am I writing so much about this boring episode. Oh, one last thing - Not much actually happens in Trading Places, there's no 'B' story even though there should have been. There's scenes that linger for way too long, which makes me think they needed to pad it out. There's so many shots of boats and helicopters just moving about.

Anyway bye.

Baywatch - S04E18 and S04E19

(Side Note - The font and spacing in some of my posts has been inconsistent, I'm not sure why and I don't know how to fix it. In the editor it says it's all normal but it clearly isn't... oh well, no one reads this anyway. Besides maybe one person because I always get one view on each post, some kinda "leaker" I guess, haha)

I didn't get around to reviewing a bunch of Baywatch episodes which is a shame because there were some bangers, including probably the best one ever, called Mirror, Mirror. It stared whats her face, Trinity from The Matrix, and she was amazing, the best acting the show has ever seen. Hang on, I missed ten episodes?! I didn't realise it was that many. I might get back to them (I doubt it) but for now, I'll have to skip to...

S04E18 - Rescue Bay

We have one big story here, no 'B' plot. It's not a serious one which is unusual for an episode that only has one story, Baywatch usually only does this for serious, non-comedy adventures. There's not much to say about 'Rescue Bay', it's a good but simple one - It's Baywatch parodying Baywatch, which makes it the most Baywatch episode of Baywatch so far. Is it 'meta'? If it is, they wouldn't have used that word back in 1994.

'Rescue Bay' is the name of the show within a show, it's the parody of Baywatch in this episode. Mitch and the gang watch its test footage at the end, which is a parody of Baywatch's intro. The "actor" (in reality, an extra) playing as Summer looks a bit like Erika Eleniak and has a name that sounds a tiny bit the same, too. I'm don't know if this was intentional.

Speaking of which, earlier in the episode, before the whole parody thing is established, there's a brief B role shot of two life guards, one is a woman facing away from the camera. These two look like Shauni and Eddie, if they are, it must be old footage that they stuck in there to fill time. It's a bit odd and also quite sad, for me, at least. Seeing them, almost as if they're still there working, is a bit surreal and also slightly depressing. Have I ever mentioned that they're also still in the intro? Least, I'm sure Eddie is. They're both really hard to spot but it's left over bits from the old intro. One is a silhouette of Eddie and the other is Shauni on a boat, the camera is really far away though so I'm not 100% sure.

The Baywatch.fandom.com page for this episode is surprisingly sparse, only having some rather try trivia. This episode probably has a lot of untapped trivia. It points out an error, ironically making a typo itself while doing so. And yes, I know I make typos constantly and also my writing and grammar is bad all around. I just wanted to point it out, that's all.

Hollywood Producer

I can't remember if they say the characters name and I can't be bothered to look up the actor. He's been in it two or three times before and I really REALLY thought he was playing the character as his last appearance. He's not though, even though he's acting exactly the same. It wasn't even that long ago, it was the episode where he's trying to get with C.J. even though he's on holiday with his wife. C.J. doesn't know and hi-jinks insure, since this guy always plays the comic relief. The moment I knew he was playing a different character was when someone asks him who C.J. is, and he doesn't know. I don't think we ever he him speak to C.J., which was perhaps intentional, so hopefully the audience wouldn't remember they've been in an episode together before.

C.J.

There's a line right at the start which seemed like exposition explaining why C.J. won't be in the episode again, since she hasn't really been in season 4 all that much. However she does appear about half way through this episode and is quite prominent. I'd like to use this opportunely to point out how little shes been in the show since her debut at the start of season 2. I thought she would have been a more important character by now, since I remember how popular she was in the 90's, I thought this was the show that got her that stardom. Perhaps it happens later, since I do know shes in Baywatch for a long time after this. I don't know what other work she was doing at the time, maybe that's why she's not in the show as much as most of the other characters.

Also, besides, this silly episode, C.J. has been in almost exactly the same plots in all of her appearances, it's kinda crazy. Every plot is about a relationship she's having with some dude who has specific job - A photographer, a dolphin trainer, whatever, I can't remember the rest. She falls in love, which is a trait that others like Stephanie has pointed out since C.J. first came into the show, and then they split up for some boring reason. The guy is a arsehole, or he has to leave town for some reason. They're the same stories, pretty much. It's just weird that they never place her into any other different stories.

I did notice that she has definitely become a better actor this point in the show.

Mitch

He's pretty good in this episode and I'm glad it wasn't all about him, since we've had quite a few like that. Mitch gets to passionately kiss both Steph and C.J. in one scene, I swear David Hasselhoff must write this stuff into the script himself, and I don't blame him.

Garner

As usual he's a bit one note but Garner does get some more fun scenes this time around. He plays as himself, as usual, as well as the actor who is portraying him in 'Rescue Bay', which was quite a good idea.

Hobie

He's not in this one. It's funny how much better this character has become over time, after I used to dislike him. So I look forward to his return. He was probably off doing school work at the time, that's most likely the real-life reason he often vanishes for a while.

S04E19 - Western Exposure

Well look at this, the only episode in this season that has a name which starts with the letter 'W'. I don't know why I'm telling you that. We get a stinker here, after quite a few good and also great episodes. Basically this is the 'let's do a country music themed episode. You may like it if you like county music, though even the music on show here sounds pretty generic to me. On the other hand, what do I know about country music? Nothing. Not much actually happens which is partly why it's not a good Baywatch episode, this is partly because a lot of time is taken up by three and a half music scenes. Two of them are literally low budget music videos.

'B' Story

Hobie likes one of his friends but it turns out she has a crush on his dad, Mitch, which I found hard to believe. I don't think it's realistic and Bridgette's actress was bad at acting, which didn't help. However I did like how good Mitch was a being fatherly to Hobie, helping him out and stuff. The perfect father figure. This episode has nothing to do with the beach but, of course, someone has to randomly start drowning so there can be a rescue. Hobie helps with this so Bridgette shows interest in him and apologies for calling him a dork in a previous scene. Hobie then asks her "Do you have a quarter? Go call someone who cares", which is a great line and solidifies that Bridgette is the villain of this story, even though I didn't fully realise that before. I guess it's because she called Hobie a dork, which the show makes out is really bad, which I found funny. When Bridgette apologies to him, she says "I'm sorry for calling you what I did yesterday", as if it's a really bad word. Haha, dork? Is it really that terrible.

'A' Story

Ricky Van Shelton is a country music singer who plays as Jesse Lee Harris in this story, who is a famous singer also. His acting is so flat, it doesn't fit in with Baywatch. I'd say it's bad, perhaps it is, but I'd also describe it has simply 'real', it's too much like a real person would act. Right, so, I'm not gonna say much about this story, there's really not much to it - He is looking for his son, and his wife too, I guess. He is on the road touring too much, you see. Works too much, that old cliche. He finds them at the end and the acting his son does is also real bad, he's not in it much though so whatever.  It was just a bit part, after all. Oh, also Ricky's agent makes a brief appearance and his acting was terrible, he even looks at the camera. Just a whole lot of bad acting in this episode.

There's also a country music singer who is C.J.'s friend, I can't be bothered to explain her part of the story, she's just there to waste more screen time with her singing. She'll be one of these friends of the main cast who will never be seen again after this episode. I did some research, she is a famous country singer called Martina McBride, which is sort of funny because Jesse is the famous one in this story and she is the "no body" looking to become a star. The actor who played as Jesse was also a real life country music singer who seemed to be well known but for more reason baywatch.fandom.com chose not to point this out, instead only going for Martina McBride.

I look up Ricky Van Shelton on Google and there was some fluff piece about him vanishing but I think that was all nonsense. Looks like the reality is that he worked real hard and then retired, probably with tons of cash. He would also be real old by now, too. Funnily enough, it looks like he quit a little over ten years after this Batwatch episode and it sounds like he wanted to spend more time with his family. That's just like the end of this episode! Then again, it's such a generic story, that isn't that the reason everyone retires.