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.