Baywatch - S04E22, S05E01 and S05E02

Here I am again, writing for a blog that possibly no one reads, but every post gets one view, I wonder who this person is. Actually, there's a few Baywatch posts that have two views, weird. I guess sometimes Baywatch fans stumble across this page when Google searching Baywatch. They then see that it's badly written reviews of the show and leave, if you can even all these reviews.

Spoilers Ahead because I don't know how to write without them.

S04E22 - Guys & Dolls

Yet again I'm going to say that I'm not going to write much about this two episodes, but then I probably will. Guys and Dolls is a pretty good episode but nothing amazing, I'll give it credit though, it's the first decent crime based one in a long time. This is probably because it doesn't spend much time on the criminal activities due to the fact that it's a secret that's revealed at the end and the focus is lies and deceit instead.

'B' Story

This is barely a story but I figured I'd mention it anyway - We get some pointless scenes of Steph and her new boyfriend from previous episode, they're very happy together so we get those increasingly hilarious Baywatch montages of a couple being super happy together. They usually involve the couple frolicking about, playing basketball, running on the beach, etc. The story is virtually non-existent, Steph is worried that this dude is going to have to leave because he is in the military, he'll be called away or something. This ends with whatshisname and Mitch pretending to her that he's going to Antarctica (I think), this joke lasts for about five seconds before they tell her he isn't. Baywatch.fandom says "Stephanie’s romance with a Coast Guard officer deepens, causing conflict with Mitch." even though there's no conflict at all.

The funny thing the Coast Guard boyfriend isn't in the next episode and, in fact, he's not mentioned and Steph has a new boyfriend.

'A' Story

Actress A.J. Langer returns as a different character, which Baywatch sometimes does but this is only the second time that they've done it without trying to hide it at all. She looks exactly the same though she does act differently, to be fair. The first time was literally in the episode before this one, 'Trading Places'. The last time A.J. Langer was in a story alongside Eddie, who, if you've been reading my blog, was one of my favourite characters and one of the original cast. She got him into a lot of trouble in that one, it was a good episode.

In 'Guys & Dolls', shes a character called Rachel but it turns out she keeps giving out fake names so her other two names are Nancy and Linda. I think her real name turned out to be Linda but I can't be sure, it isn't important in the story anyway. This is essentially a Matt Brody episode but is doesn't exactly have much to do, he's sort of just there for the ride. Rachel is rescued by Matt (which is funny because Eddie does in the old episode but the results are different) which leads to her telling him about how shes in town for an acting audition. This turns out to be a lie when her dad turns up looking for her, shes run away and her loving dad is there to find her and also tell her that he has a fatal illness. More than this happens but in a nutshell - Matt goes to speak to Rachel, who tells him that her dad is lying, he's not dying and he's a terrible, abusive person.

What makes this episode good is that at this point in your usual Baywatch story, it would be obvious who is telling the truth. Not only is it not, but also it turns out they're both lying. The reality is that they aren't father and daughter, they are partners in crime. They have fallen out over some sort of diamond smuggling and Matt is stuck in the middle. They're both scumbags, basically. I forgot to mention the words 'con artist' this whole time, that's what they were.

S05E01 - Livin' on the Fault Line: Part 1

Summer is Gone Forever

I didn't even notice this new season approaching while I was watching 'Guys & Dolls', it didn't feel like a final episode to a season at all. I say that as if shows have to do that, they don't at all. We're given an updated intro since the cast have changed a bit, yet again. The biggest change is that Summer is gone, I new this was coming since I saw a group photo a while back and she wasn't in it, but I didn't think it was going to be this soon. That's two seasons she had, not much really in the grand scale of things, for a character I thought was going to be a big deal. She was in it for as many seasons as Shauni and she seemed to be the Shauni replacement, in a way, though she turned out to not be that similar. Summers character didn't have much depth but she did grow on me. Her exit was quite sudden, Matt and her are perfectly in love in the previous episode and then suddenly we're told here that they split and she's left Baywatch. This is told to us by her mum, Jackie, who, yes, is evidently in the show two episodes longer than Summer, the reason being is that this is a two part story. When she shows up in this episode, I thought it would be for a single scene where she tells us why they're leaving, but she actually ends up being a part of the story. Not a big part, though.

Of course in reality, Jackie isn't Summers mum, she's an actor, so having her in this episode makes me think that Summers departure was definitely not planned. I don't know if she was kicked off the show or she wanted to leave, I haven't looked it up.

Hobie

It's a big earth quake story. It didn't take me long to remember that they've done this before in an early Baywatch season, possibly season 1. So that means Hobie has been in one of these quakes before but that was a Hobie played by a different actor, so I doubt he'll mention it. This time Hobie is one of the ones trapped under debris, I think I recall he was one of the ones doing the rescuing last time. There wasn't a gap between recording seasons, as far as I know, since we're still in 1994, but Hobie sure is growing up. They finally replaced his section of the intro which showed him looking a lot younger. In the new one, he is no longer a child. His voice is also changing in this episode, I guess this is the Hobie that is to become of the full on adult life guard that I've seen a photo of from a later season. The one which I thought was being played by a different actor since he looks so different. Also because he looks so much older, this was when I remembered that the show went on for so long, that he had time to actually grow up throughout it.

At the end, we see Hobie has created a sand castle. The funny thing is that it's ridiculously good, seemingly made in a short period of time. It's hilarious.

Logan

Some new dude, an Australian life guard and he's a dick, we see this when he has an argument with Matt. Sound familiar? Yeah, he's just like Trevor Cole but doesn't seem as interesting. That's a little unfair because he's barely in this episode but there was something I liked about Trevor, I don't know, he just had charisma. Couldn't they have been more original? Even just have someone or isn't from Australia, they've even had another episode where the Australian life guard is the bad guy. WHat do they have against Australian's? Perhaps it's because English actors are usually bad guys in American things and the Australian accent sounds a bit like an British accent. I'm English by the way, and even though I can tell the difference, I admit, the first few words that came out of Logan's mouth sounded British.

Caroline Holden

Here we have the blatant female life guard replacement for Summer, in fact she literally says it. I didn't recognise her when I saw her in the intro, it is Stephanie's sister from earlier in the show where she turned up for one episode. I remember her acting really well in that one, maybe that's why they got her back. That one was about her and her husband to be but it turns out since then, her husband has been cheating on her, so she ditches him. A welcome addition to the cast since... well, just look at her.

A New Dawn, Sorta

I'm now writing this the day after most of what I wrote about this paragraph, it's after I've seen part 2 so I'm begging to forgot the details concerning part 1, so I'll wrap this up soon. So here's a few observations concerning 'Livin' on the Fault Line: Part 1'

- The beginning spends way too long on a montage of a bunch of characters and extras rollerblading, I thought this was going to have something to do with the episode but it's totally unrelated. We see Matt is teaching a group of youths to roller blade, but this doesn't lead to anything.

- Hobie is with three friends of his in the roller blade montage and for a bit after, one of them is a girl who looks like shes going to be a part of the story, but she ends up saying a couple of lines and then vanishes.

- Matt possibly looks a bit bigger, he sure has been pumping iron.

- As far as I can remember the original earthquake episode, this new one has a lot more people trapped.

- I've spend way too much time on this episode but I must say some more - There's some things in this episode that feel a little... different from the last reason. Firstly the music is a bit different, it isn't worse but it sounds more old fashioned, it's more like mid to late 80's TV background music. Another thing that's different is the camera angles, I can't quite put my finger on it but they seem to move around differently. Maybe this had a different director than usual, I can't be bothered to look it up, though.

- On a related note, there's a couple of scenes that have been badly edited.

- I have mixed feelings, I didn't think this one was bad but something did happen that goes against that feeling; It felt long. In fact I paused it thinking it was almost over, only to see that not only was I only just over half way, but that the episode was only 39 minutes, that's a bit shorter than usual. So this episode did kind of drag.

S05E02 - Livin' on the Fault Line: Part 2

Right, onto the one I only just watched.

Jackie

The main thing to say is that half of episode is taken up by Jackie's rescue, a character that I doubt will even be in the show again. This is because her rescue required the most action, which I didn't realise before. Most of the other trapped people are easily rescued and don't require much time. Moving on, I'd like to say that her and Summer will be missed, I will miss Jackie's beach restaurant thing which was definitely under-utilised. Baywatch doesn't have enough variety in its locations.

Stephanie

The second biggest rescue is Stephanie and then some of the others, saving Steph's boyfriend and his work colleagues. Her boyfriend is stuck under water after diving, which has been done a few times before in Baywatch. One of the colleagues is scared and selfish and all doom and gloom, which is also something Baywatch has done before. This whole rescue is ok but looking back at it now, I'm not interested in it. I wonder if Stephanie's boyfriend will vanish after this episode, haha.

Logan

Logan is one of the life guards who turns up to help Steph. He does something that makes him out to be a worse person than Trevor Cole, so perhaps he'll be more of a full on villain than Trevor was. You see, Trevor started off as a bit of a dick but he was a good person at heart and he changed into a good guy. I really liked that but they've done that before, so if they make Logan more of a villain, that would be cool. Baywatch lacks any regular antagonists.

Hobie

He gets trapped in his garage, his Dad rescues him but he's traumatised for the rest of the episode. He's afraid of going into buildings or under structures, in fear of them falling on him. This was all fine until it's revealed what this was building up to - He wants to go live with his mum where it's 'safe'. Are we really doing this story again? I'm of it, I'm tired of Mitch stressing over it and the drama over it. It was fine in earlier seasons but they've done it too many times now, it was literally a story thread back when Hobie was played by a different actor.

There is a shot a the end that suggests Hobie is actually leaving, maybe he does leave the show for a bit, maybe to go to college or university in real life. However I assume he would return, since I know he's in the show when he's older. Wait, I'm not saying he's going to leave for a long time... he's not, is he? The show would feel weird without him.

Caroline

Not much to say here. As far as long term goes, at first it looks like she might get with Matt, making her the ultimate Summer replacement, haha. However, it looks like she might get with Logan, which I don't prefer over Matt. Maybe the writers always feel like they have to match up any pairs that are new characters. There's also a hint of a love triangle which is quite possible, but Baywatch didn't do a very good job of that last time and didn't give it enough time to grow.

Final Thoughts

Since this one is almost all action, there's not much to say about it, but here's some random final thoughts.

- Near the end, the episode abruptly transitions from the chaos and destruction to everything being fine. As if there's a time skip but they don't make this clear. Suddenly everything is fine but it's clearly not a long time after, maybe it only takes a day to clean up after a massive quake.

- It transitions to a montage of the beautiful people, place and scenario. Which I liked but they use two or three shots of old footage. The one that stands out the most is of a dude jogging on the beach on his own. This shot was in many, if not all of season 1's intro, maybe season 2 as well, I can't remember. My point is, it's been used a hell of a lot. This is lazy, lazier than I've ever seen before in this show. The montage is supposed to be of the present but we're seeing clips from somewhere between 1988 and 1990. I take that back, this HD version of Baywatch has slightly different intros from the original so I'm not sure when that footage was recorded but still, it's lazy.

- I thought I had more to say about this one but I guess not. Byeeeeeee.

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.

Baywatch - S04E08 and E09

S04E08 - Submersion

I won’t be writing much about this one since I watched it several days ago and I also wasn’t a big fan. I figured I’d go to baywatch.fandom.com to see what they had to say about this one but oh boy, the contents of the page is short.

‘Submersion’ is one whole story focusing on Mitch, so no ‘B’ or ‘C’ stories this time. I didn’t like this one that much but I think he you haven’t seen many episodes of Baywatch, you may like it. I think most episodes have to have at least one person being rescued from drowning, this one probably has the longest rescue scene ever. This is because it’s the focus of the story; Mitch has to rescue two young brothers but he has to choose who to rescue first, this leads to one of them almost dying and being in a coma. Mitch blames himself but the episode makes it clear that he shouldn’t be, everyone around him reassures him that it wasn’t his fault. Well, besides the boy's mum. The only scene which made me feel anything was at the end when the mum forgives Mitch and realises he was a hero, this is, of course, after the boy regains consciousness and is fine.

I had several issues with this episode but I can’t remember them all since I didn’t watch it today. I think the main thing was that it’s just a downer. Like several episodes before, Mitch expresses his love for the sea and/or the beach, or someone else mentions it about Mitch. In ‘Submersion’ it turns out one of the brothers also loves the sea, this is the one who almost dies. In reality, Mitch and the boy would probably be terrified of the sea after this incident, but the show never addresses those kinds of things for obvious reasons. Mitch would especially be sick of the sea since he’s always attempting rescues and there’s even been at least one episode before where Mitch didn’t manage to save someone. The only difference in that old one was it didn’t happen in the episode live, it was in a flashback.

Mitch is a fine character but he can’t hold up an entire episode, especially since we see him so much throughout the whole show's run. Also, come to think of it, that other serious episode about Mitch injuring his back wasn’t that long ago.

S04E09 - Ironman Buchannon

I liked this one but I might not write about it much since I don’t have much time right now. This is such a light and fluffy episode after the last one, which was perhaps intentional. With this title, I was afraid this was going to be another Mitch-centric episode but luckily he only gets one of the two stories.

‘B’ Story

I wanted to write more about this story but I really don’t have the time, I did like it but there’s not much to say. Matt wants to buy a motorbike to replace the one that his dad took away from him, this story is a bit odd because are we supposed to think he’s cheating on Summer? It’s obvious that he’s not from what happens in his second scene, he’s with this hot woman who likes him but he’s clearly going to buy a bike from her. Before I continue, I’d just like to point out that there’s one scene showing Matt and C.J. living together, and showing C.J.s disdain for him. This is the “payoff” from several episodes ago when we see C.J. not liking the idea that Matt is moving in with them. They don’t do a good job of explaining why she doesn’t like him there, there are no real good reasons.

Anyway. In retrospect, this story is a bit random. Matt reveals to Summer that he’s been working at a grocery store, or something, to pay for a new bike. Summer thought he was cheating on her, you see, even though barely any time was taken on this. It turns out the lady selling the bike had stolen it so Matt loses the like instantly. The other random part is that Summer hits her head while doing a rescue so she almost dies. Matt and some others save her and it’s all a bit serious but then she's fine not long after. This leads to her talking to Destiny about what she saw when she was unconscious, this seemed like it was going to lead somewhere but it lead to nothing. Actually, she didn’t have a pulse, doesn’t that mean her heart stopped? So she was dead for a few minutes, right?

As an audience, we get to see what she saw in glorious montage form. Though it’s just her in a casual swimsuit, swimming underwater and stuff. The show creators certainly started to lean into Summers attractiveness more around the start of this season, by the way. Also besides Summer, this episode has more skin and curves on show than they usually do, for your information.

‘A’ Story

Mitch is training to be in a yearly competition that I assume he has won a lot before, but he’s getting old so he wonders if he should enter the senior version instead. I thought they were going to be clever by having him lose but no, of course he wins. Not even second place against a bunch of 20-year-olds when Mitch is supposed to be, what at least in his 40s. Ben is in this one, he vanishes for many episodes and when he comes back, it’s only for a few brief scenes, at best. They bring him out for any stories that are about being old, sadly I think he dies in real life not long after this, so I doubt we’ll see much more of him. He gives us a few brief expressions and grunts which lead me to believe that Mitch would lose and that we’d be given a message about how accepting your age is a good thing.

Mitch also rescues someone called Destiny who hangs out with him for the rest of the story and emotionally helps him prepare for the competition, this is all played for laughs. She also sort of becomes Mitch’s girlfriend and the other characters joke about how he’s going through a mid-life crisis, since she’s a lot younger, you see. I should describe her - She’s ditsy, into people's auras, positive reinforcement, and all that kinda stuff. I’m not sure what you’d call this kind of character, a hippy, I guess? You know, she’s into meditation and stuff but she’s a comedy character.

I actually think she should be in Baywatch more but I bet she vanishes after this episode. She’s light-hearted and they could add a bit of depth to a character like this. Again, I thought this relationship was going to lead to Mitch realising he’s not young anymore but the hilarious thing is that it doesn’t, and unusually, Destiny doesn’t have a reason to leave at the end. What I mean is that most Baywatch episodes have characters who are only in it for one story, then they leave because they are killed, arrested, split up with a main character, or just leave town for some reason. But Destiny is just at Mitch’s birthday party at the end and then leaves with all the other guests. She does say something to Mitch about coming to visit her where she works, but I didn’t get the impression that was a proper goodbye. Perhaps the idea is that she's so bubbly that she kisses everyone on the lips, so she’s not actually Mitch’s new girlfriend. It was all played for jokes anyway so it doesn’t matter.

Speaking of Destiny, who Mitch rescues, I almost forgot to say something that I wanted to mention months ago - I find it funny that Baywatch, especially when it comes to Mitch, has totally discarded something that was kind of a big deal in season 1 and perhaps season 2. That you aren’t supposed to have a relationship with someone you rescued, the biggest part of Baywatch’s pilot is literally about that. A woman gets saved and even before it turns out she's an obsessed crazy person, the lifeguard makes it clear that he’s ‘not her hero’, in fact, he’s disgusted by the idea that she wants to reward him. There are one or two other episodes about how keeping it professional is the best idea but that’s all out of the window after around season 2. I guess the reason why is that it’s an easy way to introduce a bit-part character via rescue, so you can have that person for one episode and not only have it about how they are dangerous, nuts, obsessive, or whatever. Mitch has dated several people he has rescued and it’s played up as being romantic which is the opposite of season 1 stories, it’s probably the biggest change the show has had, so far.

Hobie was clearly not available on set for filming this one, since he definitely would have been at his Dad’s birthday party. Instead, he briefly calls him on the phone and we don’t even hear his voice.

Baywatch - S04E06 and E07 - Tentacles

This two-part story is great, well, great for Baywatch anyway. It may have been better if I hadn’t left a day between watching most of it and the last 20 minutes, which made it feel like the ending was rushed.

Part 1

‘B’ Story

This is what I’ve decided to coin a ‘Mitch Crime Story’ because there are so many of them, I liked it at first but it does peter out in part 2. A criminal breaks her husband out of jail by using a speed boat, of course. Why would a prison be right next to the sea like this? Is that a normal thing, I guess so. I don’t know what these characters' names are so I’m going to call them Mr. Husband and Mrs. Wife because their names aren’t even on the two Wiki pages I use for this kind of thing.

There’s quite a lot of shooting, the criminals use a semi-automatic while in the speed boat which was a cool scene. Mrs. Wife is a stunning individual so I wasn’t surprised to find that the Baywatch Fandom site describes her as a ‘beautiful woman’. They do escape but Mr. Husband gets shot, and they run into Mitch so they decide to kidnap him so he can patch up the dude. I say them, I mean Mrs. Wife since Mr. Husband is unconscious for the rest of this episode. From then on the story take place downstairs in a big boat. It’s one of those stories where someone is held at gunpoint, forced to do surgery. I thought I liked this part of the episode but thinking back to it now, it’s pretty generic and I vaguely remember Baywatch doing something like this before.

‘A’ Story

Baywatch surprises me by having some continuity. It continues the story about Summer possibly having an eating disorder while Slade and Matt try to decide who will pursue her. However, the story beats are the same as the previous episode - Summer binge-eats sweet things while the guys literally do a dangerous competition to see who wins. The latter is the odd one because didn’t they already decide that they were all going to just be friends in the last episode?

All of this doesn’t matter though because their story culminates in all three of them fighting off a giant octopus which seems mostly intent on downing Summer. I love it, it was so whacky. Both of these episodes have quite a few unintentionally funny or weird comments, the three of them are totally fine a little after almost being killed by a sea creature is one example.

They all decide to be friends again, just like in the last episode but then after the attack, Summer confesses her love for Matt, out loud, when for a moment she thinks he’s dead. Slade sees this so he decides to leave Baywatch, the other two don’t want him to go but they’re still all friends. Slade says something like ‘You two are meant to be together’. I assume this is Slade's real exit from the show and I’m a little impressed that Baywatch bothered to make a sending-off story, considering how he’s a rubbish actor and they didn’t bother to do the same thing for more important characters in earlier seasons.

Apparently, this is Nicole Eggert’s favorite episode (she plays as Summer), I understand the octopus scene was fun but it was brief, so this doesn’t bode well for later stories concerning Summer. Does it really not get better than this?

Part 2

‘B’ Story

This is better than the other part of the episode but I don’t have much time so I’ll try to keep it brief. You’ll notice that the story in part 1 concerning Summer and the boys is over, so they replaced it with this one. I don’t think Baywatch has done this before, it makes this two-part story, well, not really a two-part story, besides Mitches bit. Anyway, in this new story, we are introduced to Caroline, Stephanie’s sister. She’s not going to become a main character but I wonder if she’ll be in it again because she’s drop-dead gorgeous and acts the socks off everyone else.

The funny thing about this story is that it runs at breakneck speed, it should have been divided between these two episodes. This leads to unintentionally funny pacing.

‘A’ Story

Last episode ‘B’ story becomes this one's main focus. Mitch continues to help the criminals, but not much happens. Mr. Husband wakes up and takes up the of pointing the gun at Mitch, he also likes him far less. Mrs. Wife doesn’t exactly like Mitch but they did get to know each other a little in part 1 and she does appreciate that he saved her husband's life, however she is still prepared to kill him.

Some of the Baywatch gang notice that Mitch is missing so they go find him on that boat, somehow. The end of this story is quite basic and unsatisfying - The criminal couple goes up deck leaving the keys to Mitches handcuffs close enough for him to reach with his foot, so he escapes almost straight away. Come to think of it, this is just as the police are turning up so this is another example of Mitch rescuing himself even though someone else was just about to rescue him. I swear this must be David Hasselhoff or the writers always deciding that Mitch must be the macho man who always helps himself, just before anyone else gets the chance.

I'm not sure if I had more to say about this episode and may have not even finished writing about it. I must post it now though, since wrote it several days ago. Basically, I can't remember if I finished this blog entry or not.

Baywatch - S04E05 - Sky Rider Review

 

I'm going to have to keep this one short because I don't have the time and even though I like it, there's not much to say. Sky Rider is a decent episode but I doubt it's popular with most viewers. After two pretty dramatic outings, we get a mostly fluffy one. I think I prefer the 'slice of life' stories in Baywatch now, just like this one. By season 4, there's been a bit too many stories about some criminal lurking about, they're all similar to each other and predictable because the format of he show would never let anything truly serious to happen. I think the three stories here are evenly divided but I'll list them by letters anyway.

'C' Story

It's a story about thieves on the beach, stealing purses I think. It's a Mitch and what's his name story, you know, the cop who vanishes from the show for chunks and then appears back at the end of the opening credits. He keeps disappearing for about six episodes at a time and is stories are mostly all the same so I forget his name. It's mostly a joke story, he wants to use a horse on the beach for... reasons. Like his quad bike can run out of fuel. Dude the quad bike is way cooler and easier to use and maintain. He captures the criminals and is then he's not allowed to keep the horse, what a surprise. The show has to go back to its status quo, after all

'B' Story

Slade returns which wasn't that surprising because I forgot to mention something in my previous review - When Summer talks to Jackie about dating Brody, Jackie does mention that Brody and Slade being friends is going to be a problem. They put that line in there knowing that's a story in the next episode. Finally a love triangle story in Baywatch but it's only for this episode and it does in some strange directions, things just kind of happen so I'll explain them in that way - Slade and Brody have a little fight but they're mates so they stop. Summer can't decide who to date which seemed a bit odd considering how over Slade she was in a previous episode. This leads to the most random thing I've seen in Baywatch, Summer gets a eating disorder in-which she scoffs down loads of chocolates and cakes. This was supposed to be serious and a bit dark but the show doesn't portray it well, mostly because it comes out of nowhere and then vanishes just as fast.

Summer wants the two dudes to decide for her and unknown to her, they also want to choose for her because they know she's stressed about it. Who will date Summer? They decide over a contest, they'll bungee jump out of a hot air balloon. This of course goes wrong, Slade almost drowns. It ends with a surprising and lame conclusion, Summer chooses to just be friends with the both of them, which they barely react to. So the Summer and Brody relationship barely lasted any time at all, this show still doesn't want to do another 'Shauni and Eddie' for some reason, it seems.

'A' Story

This story is about C.J., it's perhaps not the 'A' story but I'm putting it here because it slightly over-laps with Summers story, which Baywatch doesn't normally do. Also C.J. pops up in the other two stories as foil, as in, for the other characters to just talk to. The problem with this C.J. outing is that it's like almost all of her other ones - she gets into a relationship with some overly romantic dude who turns out to be a bit of a jerk or a big jerk. They're always about the dude doing a bunch of overly romantic gestures to get her attention, it's always predictable because we know he's not going to continue to be on the show.

Her boyfriend this time is a hot air balloon pilot, yes, Slade and Brody jump out of his balloon. She gets annoyed at him because he does unsafe stuff, leaves him and he just walks away, barely seeming to care.

And that's the end. Actually it doesn't sound like I enjoyed this episode does it, even though I said I did at the beginning of this review. I guess breaking down the stories like this revealed their weaknesses but it didn't feel bad because the episode jumps around the three stories a lot.

Baywatch - S04E04 - Blindside Review

 

Baywatch brings us a second sad episode in a row, which is odd.

'B' Story

Hobie gets another story straight after his previous 'Lover's Cove', though he's not exactly the focus - He meets a "friendly giant" from a local carnival... or fairground... with a bit of a freak-show thrown in too. This dude is called Manuel and he is one of those guys who does look a bit too big for it to be healthy. His acting is virtually non-existent but I did feel for him even though the whole evil freak-show boss thing is cliche. His boss is horrible to him but Hobie convinces the giant, who is a lovely, talented guy, that he can be more than just a fairground attraction where he's treated like a scary monster.

We don't even get to see Manuel confront his boss and leave him, it's done off camera. He opens a stall at the beach selling wood carvings of pelicans that he made himself, that's the last scene of the episode and it's rather abrupt. This story has some really forced and moments, like Manuel falling off a pier so we can have a scene of life guards rescuing him. Of course this is lead by Mitch, who just happens to be walking by with Hobie. I guess they were on their way to meet him anyway? Manuel falls off because a rather large group of knife wielding thugs decide to harass him, this is in the day time and feels as if the writers decided they had to have someone drowning no matter what. I guess this ordeal convinces Manuel to leave the freak-show job because the next scene of his is the aforementioned statue selling one. It's not explained why this changed his mind though, so it makes the drowning scene feel real random.

Time for a nit-pick - You get the impression that the fairground is new there, as in it probably tours around, it doesn't stay in one place for long. However there's a scene under a pier where it's revealed that Manuel has a secret wood carving workshop, it looks like it's been there forever.

'A' Story

I'm probably going to sound livid about the main story of this episode and that may be an accurate representation of my feelings, even though the episode was fairly entertaining overall and this story was better than Hobie's one. Well, I say 'better' but... OK I'll explain.

John D. Cort, a character who left the show a while back returns in a epic scene involving riding a horse in typical John D. Cort action hero fashion. Even though John wasn't in the show from the very beginning, he joined soon after so he's virtually one of the original characters in my eyes. He was also great, a real action hero who had some quite refreshing 'non-Baywatch' style episodes. However, it's all downhill from then on because they do this character a disservice. Both stories are sad in this episode, John's one being by far the saddest.

It turns out that something is wrong with John, I should have caught onto it quicker because the episode is called 'Blindside'. At first I thought he had a small sight problem or that he's blind in one eye but he's not letting anyone know, but he goes to a doctor and it turns out he's going completely blind and there's no cure. This is all revealed pretty much at the end of the story so I should say what else happened before that, so here goes; It turns out that C.J. and John had a relationship in the past, this was of course off camera because in reality, the character of C.J. didn't exist back when John was on the show. Not that it matters but canonically speaking their relationship probably happened before the Baywatch pilot. It actually makes sense because when John joined the show, we were told that he moves around a lot and has been a life guard at Baywatch before, pretty much the same thing is said of C.J. when she is introduced, Mitch new both of them before we did, basically.

John has a condition which is sort of like tunnel vision, his peripheral vision gets blurrier and fades away so that he can only see what's right in front of him. I don't know how he didn't notice this, perhaps he was in denial. He does mention that the doctor said the condition may have started a long time ago, that's it's slow and gradual. Before we find all of this out though, the writers of the show decided to make it sting for the viewers even more - John decides he wants to stop travelling, he's going to stay at Baywatch to be a life guard full time. His true passion. They make out that John and C.J. are back together too though I will say the actors on-screen chemistry isn't stellar.

 The reality is that the show creators probably just wanted to make a dramatic story and maybe the guy who portrays John was happy with a more serious story-line. But my over active imagination can't help but see this story as a kick in the teeth to one of the original Baywatch characters. It's even C.J., a newer character, or sort of grasses up John to Mitch, telling him that there's something wrong with John. Now, Mitch had noticed it too and C.J. was just concerned for John, but I see it from a new light if I think about new cast versus old cast. Yes, I'm over thinking it but it just popped into my head.

In 1993 the viewers may have thought John was going to be back on the show for a while, hell, I even thought it might happen for a bit. I knew he was coming back to the show but I didn't know for how long, I guessed it wasn't going to be for that long because I never saw photos of him from later seasons, but I didn't know it would be for only one episode. I it also feels depressing that they took such a cool, manly character from the shows history and gave him an incurable condition. Like, couldn't they just have left him alone? Having him not come back at all would have been better. His story ends with him leaving C.J. because he doesn't want her to deal with looking after him when he becomes completely blind. He then leaves Baywatch, unable to be a life guard anymore, actually I think I'll look up if he ever comes back...

I'm surprised, turns out he does come back but not for long. He's in one episode of season 5 and also the movie 'Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding' but I bet he's not in it much. Maybe a cameo? It came out ten years after 'Blindside' so surely John is blind by then. That'll be depressing.

Anyway back to 'Blindside'. In his last scene, John talks about wanting to see some more things in the world before he loses his sight completely, really sad.

Baywatch - S04E03 - Lover's Cove Review

 

'C' Story

The 'B' and 'C' stories are very short so I won't spend much time on them, they're both probably as short as each other so perhaps two 'B' stories would have been a better way of labelling them.

Summer and Matt start a romantic relationship. Even though I saw it coming, it wasn't built up properly so it felt sudden. Shauni and Eddies iconic Baywatch romance was built up from the idea that they bugged each other. Arguing and all that and then realising they love each other, it was kind of obvious what was going on and probably cliche even for the time but at least it took time. On the other hand at least they didn't just copy Shauni and Eddies relationship origin story. Half of this 'C' story is just a montage of Summer and Matt running about and playing basket ball, by the way. I predicted that there would be a scene where Summer explains why she's not with Slade anymore and I was right. She explains to her mum that Slade is always off surfing at tournaments far away and she's right, that's something we actually saw in the previous season. He always acted distant and like he was just Summers friend too, though I think that was more because of his bad acting than anything else.

'B' Story

I'm only prioritising this story over Matt and Summers one because the episode starts off with it and that beginning consists of a pretty well done action rescue scene. Mitch is on a date with Jackie, Summers mum, when someone falls asleep at the feel, in the day time I might add, and drives off a mountain into the sea. Mitch goes off to rescue her, of course. The story is all from Jackie's perspective, she likes Mitch and they've been on several dates but the sparks aren't exactly flying. That's about it really, they decide to just be friends at the end.

'A' Story

I can't believe "fake" Hobie went from being one of my least favourite characters to one of my favourites within three episodes, he's aged a little and his acting keeps improving. Also, is he more tanned now? Since this the main story of the episode, Hobie turns out to be the focus which I don't think has ever happened before. Least, not the second version of Hobie. It was surprising to see him have long scenes where he's the main character. If you include the old version of Hobie, he's had quite a few stories where he fancies some random girl, but this one completely blows the others out of the water.

At first I wasn't keen on it, especially when you find out a sad fact about his new love interest, I thought it was too much of a downer for Baywatch. It also came out of the blue. However that becomes the reason why it's such a good story and to be honest one of the best ones in Baywatch so far. It's the most heart wrenching, that's for sure, but to be honest that's not saying much, when compared to all the other Baywatch episodes before this one.

A little nit pick is that Hobie's actor still isn't great at acting in distress but he's getting better. Also they hold on a cross fade at the end of the episode and it looks bad, they didn't even bother to crop out the background of the photo that's on the top layer. They also cut away from it and then back to it again, which feels wrong. I'm wondering if this was even in the original version of the show or if they added in the remastered one.

I'm just being picky though. Some viewers will find this story corny but I liked it. It doesn't even have a happy ending which I kind of wanted because I'm a wimp when it comes to this kind of stuff, I wanted them to somehow magically fix the situation.

Baywatch - S04E02 - Race Against Time: Part 2 Review

 

I don't think there's much to say about this episode which is good because I don't have the time, not that it's a bad episode, it's perfectly fine. There was a good cliff hanger in the previous one, it leads to the scenario that takes up 85% of part 2. Hobie, Gayle and Ken are stuck underwater in Ken's private jet, Hobie and Ken are fine but Gayle is bleeding, stuck under wreckage and usually unconscious.

There's not much to say because most of this episode is an action sequence where Mitch, C.J. and a few of the bit-part crew are doing an underwater rescue. The wrecked inside of the plane, with water leading into it, is a convincing set. Ken is freaking out and fairly selfish while Hobie keeps calm and helps out his mum. The only surprising part is that Ken isn't revealed to be a bad person and dumped by Gayle when they're in the hospital after the rescue. You see, Gayle doesn't know how Ken acted because she was barely conscious. Hobie and Mitch know he wimped out but respect to Mitch for not grassing on him, it's funny though because he almost does. Ken says to Mitch something like "I'm not a coward but I'm also not a good hero, I do love Gayle though", which I think was a good line. They make it clear that Ken isn't a bad person, though the actor could have dialled down his freak-out mode while in the plane. It was a bit much, so much so that it made him look too much like he was going to be a villain. Let's now say farewell to Ken, I doubt he'll ever be in the show again. Gayle will dump him off screen and we'll probably never hear why.

Gayle randomly says that she was wrong, that Hobie belongs with his dad at Baywatch. How many times has she said that now? That's the end of the 'A' story, the other two stories from part 1 are then wrapped up with barely any time left. Though to be fair they're clearly setups for a new status quo for a few characters, albeit a small one. Matt's dad takes away his motorbike so he's just like, screw you, I'm going to stay in Baywatch. I guess because Matt thinks his dad is too forceful.

We briefly see C.J. grimace at the fact that Matt will have to stay at her place longer, along with Stephanie, who seems fine with it. We never saw this happen in part 1 but it was mentioned that he'd now be homeless because his dad is cutting him off. Seeing C.J.'s reaction isn't important but Baywatch doesn't normally do any foreshadowing at all. This will probably lead to nothing more than comical high jinks where they don't get along under the same roof, knowing Baywatch, this will only be for half of one episode. If I wasn't more familiar with the show, I'd have guessed that it was to setup a season long story, but I would have been wrong. But who knows, maybe I'll be wrong, maybe it'll start off a romance between them.

The third and final story is the one about Jackie starting up a restaurant. She complains to Summer about how much it's costing to get it refurbished, then a load of life guards appear with hammers and nails to help her out. A montage entails which involves splashed paint and random "jokes" like oh look, C.J. is tired. This is portrait by her having her eyes closed and sometimes laying down. I know I'm pointing out a pointless thing here, it's like I notice these little things. Decades ago, a director or writer told Pamela Anderson to look tired in a montage. I'm not saying it wasn't needed, you need characterisation even in a little montage. By the way it felt a little having a montage so close to the end of an episode, it's because the plane crash story took up so much space.

Random Thoughts on Hobie

Like I said before, Hobie's actor is gradually getting better and this episode finally convinced me that he is actually Mitch's son. I still wish they hadn't replaced the actor, though. A while ago I accidentally had something spoiled for me - He is in the show for a long time, possibly all of the rest of its run. It was when I saw the actor had been changed, I saw his photo on the Baywatch fan site, I was confused because he looked totally different. But it turns out that he's on the show for so long, that he becomes an adult. It doesn't even look like the same dude when he's older. Clearly he works out and becomes like all the other life guards on the show. This episode ended with Mitch and Hobie chatting while walking on the beach, something that is becoming a common occurrence.

Guido Torzini and the passing of actors

He's not in these episodes so my resolve was weakened, I looked up if he's in the show anymore. I was right in an earlier post when I said I wouldn't be surprised if he was taken out of the show, it turns out it happened even sooner than I thought. In fact I think I wrote that just after seeing 'Stakeout at Surfrider Beach', it turns out that was his last episode. I don't like to see any characters leave, but it's Guido, so I'll get over it. The actor was actually in an earlier episode with Shauni and the rest of the original cast but I don't think he was playing as Guido, even though the character acted virtually the same. So I think this will be the true farewell to him showing up as anyone else in Baywatch.

I looked him up just now, he was played by a guy called Buzz Belmondo who is no longer with us, I'm not surprised since he looked pretty old in season 3. Guido wasn't a great character but it's sad to hear this about anyone. I will never even get close to achieving as much as he did in his life. Without even looking up what else he did, just being in Baywatch was a massive achievement. He worked beside some hugely famous people, beautiful people, talented people. If anyone is reading my stupid, crappy blog, I know Baywatch isn't a respected show, but the amount of work put into it is still far more than normal average people like me experience. We can all list off "better" TV shows but it still takes a lot of skill and effort from hundreds of people to even make a corny show like this.

Baywatch - S04E01 - Race Against Time: Part 1 Review

Even though there were things I wanted to say about the rest of season 3, I don't have the energy or time to do so, so I'm going to skip forward to season 4.

Race Against Time: Part 1 Review

The final episode of season 3 was a pretty normal, single part story but season 4 starts off with a two parter. The title doesn't make sense until the end, though I did realise what was going to happen a few minutes before it did.

The 'A' Story

Gayle Buchannon returns to the show for the first time in ages. She's here to visit Mitch and Hobie but doesn't tell them that shes bring along her fiancee, who no one knew existed. This makes her look like a horrible person but to be fair, it's only done because it's a cliche TV show writing thing to do. If Mitch new she had a boyfriend, off camera or from a phone call, and knew that the boyfriend was coming to visit too, then the show couldn't have his and Hobie's shocked reaction at their front door. Mitch also goes through the emotions of sadness, jealously and anger throughout the episode, which would have seen out of place if he already knew about Gayle's fiancee. I mean, they could have still done it, but he wouldn't have been caught off guard and why would he have agreed to let the bloke come over in the first place.

Matt and the 'B' Story

Matt's dad wants to move back to Europe and take Matt with him. I like the Matt Brody character but this story, which gets little screen time in this episode, is such old ground for Baywatch, I kind of can't believe they're doing it. It's only the start of season 4 and they've already done this so many times, the one that sticks out to me though is the Shauni one, of course. Shauni is a character who isn't in the show anymore, she had a rich dad who didn't think her job as a life guard was important and didn't like how little it payed. In fact they did this story for Shauni twice, which made no sense since her dad Shauni save someones life which made him understand the importance of her job. They did that in the first story so it was dumb how he seemed to forget all that in a later episode. I guess some people don't change, or that it's closer to reality, but it was more likely lazy writing.

The scene where Matt argues with his dad also looks exactly like the old one where Shauni talks to her dad, it looks like they're in the same location. They even did a similar story concerning Mitch and his dad. Mitch's dad learns the error of his ways when he witnesses Mitch save someone, if they do that yet again with Matt, I'm going to lose my mind. Ok, ok, I sound like I'm more bothered about all of this than I actually am. At least Matt's actor shows some convincing stress in his scenes. However there is a montage later where he blows off steam by riding his bike. It's fine but the director must have told him to really sell that he's de-stressing, because Matt keeps fist pumping and looking overly happy while riding, it's kinda silly.

Also Matt's dad is played by a different actor which is a shame because the original one was good and seemed to have an interesting personality. This new one seems more generic, however he is older looking which come to think of it, Matt's original dad did seem a bit too young.

The 'C' Story

The 'B' and 'C' stories may get equal screen time, to be fair, so the 'C' story may just be a second 'B' one. Summers mum, Jackie Quinn, wants to move back to where they came from because she can't find a job, Summer would go with her but she doesn't want to, of course. Jackie doesn't want her daughter to be unhappy so she spends all of her savings to open a restaurant, it needs to be refurbished first though.

A little nitpick - The restaurant that Jackie gets, it's first mentioned by Summer. Her mum wants to go get food there and Summer tells her that it closed down, they both say that it's a shame because the it was the best food around. This makes it sound like it recently shut down, but when Jackie goes to take a look, it looks like it's been closed for decades. It's boarded up with ancient looking wood and the windows are thick with dirt, Jackie has to wipe it away to look inside.

Jackie Quinn

Having Jackie pop up in this episode make me realise how long it's been since we've seen her, that's a shame because she's a good character and a good actor. Her and Summers chemistry is great, too.

Summer Quinn

I don't know why I'm sometimes including their full names in these titles, and sometimes not. I haven't got much to say about Summer for this one, she's not in it much. Summer is a character who I thought was going to be in the show a lot from her introduction at the start of season 3, but she really isn't. I also recently saw a picture which looked like it was from season 4 - Matt, who was brought into the show at the same time as Summer, was there but Summer wasn't. By the way it was totally by accident that I saw that, I was watching a Youtube video which had nothing to do with Baywatch but a clip of it popped up for a second. The video was about old video games award shows on TV in the USA. They were talking about a TV channel in the early 2000's so they were showing clips from that channel, I think it was called Spike.tv. Come to think of it, the early 2000's? That is way past season 4 of Baywatch, which was 1993, so perhaps I'm wrong the clip being from season 5. Unless Brody stays in the show for super long, but I doubt it.

C.J.

We see C.J. for a few seconds, she wasn't important in this episode. I was surprised how little she was in season 3, perhaps she'll start turning up on season 4 more often.

Kelly Slater (Slade)

I noticed that Slade is still at the end of the opening sequence but he isn't credited and he's not on screen for as long. I'm not surprised, he was a terrible actor so I'm assuming he's either gone for good, or soon to be taken out of the show. I'm sure they won't make any story out of Summer and Slade breaking up, that's not the Baywatch way. However they might have a single, short line explaining that he moved away, they've certainly done that before.

Gayle

I did spoil things a little for myself a while back, when it comes to this character. I did accidentally see online that this character is in the show very little from around season 2 onwards. I think she's almost entirely gone after this two part story until fight at the end of Baywatch's run.

Gayle was briefly portrait as an antagonist way back in the early days of season 1 but we soon learn that she's an alright person and an alright mum. In 'Face Against Time: Part 1' they decided to forgot all of her progression and make her just like she was in early season 1. It doesn't feel right, it feels out of character now. In fact the story is even a regression back to her original main one, which is that she wants Hobie to leave Baywatch and go live with her far away. This all felt repetitive and silly since they already resolved that story ages ago.

Mitch

David Hasselhoff shows some good acting here, the anger and jealously, mostly played up in a slightly committal way, is fun. He's also sad about Gayle which really came through to me in his performance. 

Hobie

Jeremy Jackson playing as Hobie still irks me a little but you can tell that his acting is slowly getting better, apart from the end of the episode, that is. When the plane starts to show signs that it's going to crash, Hobie's fear is unconvincing. On the other hand, it's not as weird as Gayle's and her fiancee's reactions. They sit there looking barely concerned and just odd, I don't mean it looks like their acting direction was to try to 'try to look calm', I mean they look like they have barely any emotions at all. This is going on while Hobie is still on the phone with Mitch, saying how scared he is, while the other two saying nothing at all and just sort of look at him.

Stephanie Holden

She's in it a bit and as usual does some solid acting, but she's not important to this story, so far. For this one she's mostly used as a sounding board for Mitch's and Brody's drama.

Baywatch Season 3 and Review - S03E04: Rookie of the Year

My last post has two views?! Wow, scary. Maybe it's wasn't a real person.

Falling Behind on Baywatch Reviews and Still Missing Shauni and Eddie

I haven't written a blog post since the the 13th of June, which isn't a big gap compared to back in the day but it is for Baywatch reviews. I've fallen behind since I watch one episode almost every day. My last post was about the episode called 'Tequila Bay', I'm way ahead of that now. My pace of writing about Baywatch was already slowing down and I'm afraid it will probably only get worse. I'm still enjoying the show even though I do still miss Shauna, Eddie and to a lesser extent, the other old characters. Then again, they did all work together as a team, naturally, so it did feel nice to have them all together.

Getting to the End of Season 3 - Small Issues

The enjoyment factor is waning a little though, since more and more of the stories are starting to feel similar to season 1 and 2 episodes. They are often told a little differently and it doesn't happen loads, but I can imagine it becoming more frequent as the seasons go on. I wanted to write about these in more detail but since I've fallen behind, I can't remember the specifics, so here's just some vague examples off the top of my head - Hobie has a dream in-which is dad is injured, or killed, I can't remember which, while rescuing someone. He warns his dad who doesn't believe it but Hobie's warning eventually saves him. The dangerous event actually does happen. Wasn't there an episode just like this before? I can't quite remember it but there was some about a dream, for sure. Maybe it was Hobie again, but this time season 1's Hobie (the other actor). Isn't there also an episode in Season 3 where C.J. also has a premonition style dream? There's also a 'B' plot where it turns out that C.J. is addicted to gambling in casino's, I'm pretty sure there was an old episode about Eddie having similar issues, possibly in season 1. And then there's Harvey, who was only in season 2. He also had a gambling problem, if I remember correctly.

Another observation about season 3, about half way through the season, the Mitch focused stories become very frequent. Mitch is alright but there's just too many at that point.

I may have to skip reviewing most of season 3, or I'll just blast through them, writing only a few words about each. But for now I'll try to catch up.

Review - Season 3, Episode 4: Rookie of the Year

I'm going to review the rest of this season from the perspective of someone who has now seen all of the season, simply because I'll find it hard not to. Stephanie and C.J. move in together, they spend barely any time on this story, it's not important. I might be wrong but they may only spend two scenes on this story. Basically Stephanie is the tidy one and C.J' isn't.

The main story is about the rookie life guards competing to see who will be hired. We of course already know who gets the jobs because they are in previous episodes, in the intro and they're not extras, unlike almost everyone else who are competing.

Notes and Observations

- I had this episode running in the background, is it just my imagination or does it look more colourful than the last episodes of this season? Maybe they changed cameras.

- For season 3, I hate to admit it but the montages, especially the ones with under water shots, are often better than the ones in season's 1 and 2. The music, which I think was all replaced for this remastered edition, is also a bit better. Some of it actually sounds quite good and fitting, unlike some of the older, bootleg sounding tracks.

- It's funny how low effort the screenshots are for this episode on baywatch.fandom.com.

- Matt's dad is in this episode, he's quite a good actor and I kind of recognise him. Even though he's the typical mean dad character, I do like the dynamic between him and his son. Unfortunately we barely ever see him again, maybe he'll return in season 4.

- Guido Torzini briefly shows up, I didn't know he was going to be on the show so much at this point. He was in season 3 so much, that I'm surprised he's not in the title sequence. He'd have to be at the end, though. Guido is the most in your face comic relief character I've ever seen on a non-comedy show. I guess I'm used to him by the end of season 3, but he is supremely unfunny. The joke is that he's a got a foreign accent and that he's not fit like everybody else. The weird thing is that he's literally never not trying to be funny, he feels like a dated character type even in 1992. Harvey Miller in season 2 was a comic relief character but I guess he didn't work out, so the show creators decided to ramp it up to 100% with Guido. I don't know if he continues to be in it after season 3 but I doubt it, since I never saw a picture of him online back when I was watching season 1 and didn't care about spoilers.

- We briefly see that Matt Brody has the hots for C.J. but this is only touched upon once or twice after 'Rookie of the Year' and only a tiny bit. It's then completely dropped for the rest of season 3, they have a platonic relationship, it seems. So to recap - Summer like Matt at the start of the season but they never mention this again after, I think, one episode, and then Matt doesn't get with C.J. I'm not even saying they make a story out of these, what I mean is they don't even explain why these characters don't get together. Funny thing is, I guess that makes the show unintentionally more like real life. So anyway, it makes me realise that Matt really wasn't the replacement for Eddie. Perhaps the writers thought it's best to have characters occasionally only have one episode relationships with a guest star, since it gives them more freedom. But does it? I'm not sure. I guess if Shauni and Eddie stayed in the show, the writers would always have to come up with scenarios around the fact that they are married. Of course, that opens doors to a whole host of other stories. I think other shows after Baywatch realised the potential for long running stories about relationships, love lives and love triangles. That's made me realise something - I can't believe I've watched three seasons of Baywatch and there hasn't been a single love triangle. Before I started this show, I thought that was going to be a main focus.

A Review of Tequila Bay, Sort of

 I've fallen really behind on writing about episodes along side watching them, so I'm wondering if I should just skip a lot, or not. I can't believe I haven't written about 'Tequila Bay' yet, I say it ages ago, I can't remember it! I'm going to have to turn on the episode in the background to remind myself.

Tequila Bay

This is episode 3 of season 3 and I consider it the first "real" episode of the season. This is the first one to not have Shauni and Eddie, I shed a tear. I did like these early season 3 episodes but since I've decided not bother explaining the plots, I don't think I have much to say. Or rather, I can't remember what I wanted to write about when it came to these episodes.

Stephanie Holden

This is the first appearance of Stephanie and I forgot to write about her in my review entry so I may as well write it here, since I don't think I have anything to say about the Tequila Bay's story. I didn't know Stephanie was going to be such a key character because she shows up late in the intro, I assume she'll be bumped up later on. She's played by Alexandra Paul, her acting is good and I quite like this character. Shes an old frame of Mitch's, he's pissed off with her for leaving all of a sudden. I think this tension would have been an interesting thing to play around with in the season but this is Baywatch, so of course they resolve their differences by the end of the episode.

A small issue with this is that it takes away a level of complexity from the character, it's something I've started to notice in the show. For example, Shauni is a selfish youngster in the pilot, she green and there's a scene where she wants to be assigned to a tower because her friends are around that area. This "noob", bratty side of her would have been interesting to keep for a while but it's completely resolved at the end of the pilot and I don't think it's ever mentioned again. From that day forth, she's a super professional life guard. Oh man, how did I change this section about Stephanie into a Shauni discussion? Haha.

Back to Tequila Bay

Anyway, Stephanie is a pretty good character. However one gripe I have about this episode is how they made all the flashbacks black and white, these show us Stephanie and Mitch's happy days together. The reason they're black and white is because they're in the past... get it? But I'm pretty sure there's been flashbacks in Baywatch before and they weren't in black and white. It just comes across as corny.

Summer Time

I don't think I have anything else to say about Tequila Bay but going back to it now, it does remind me of something odd that I noticed. Maybe not even odd, but a small thing - Summer is in this one quite a lot and she's in the next few a fair amount too. This gave me the impression that she was an important new addition but she actually almost completely vanishes for a chunk of time. I think she's almost completely absent from episode 7 until her return in episode 12, where she gets a story. Sometimes she appears for a few seconds, sometimes not at all. It very such reminded me of Shauni in season 1, there's even an episode where Summer walks into frame, gives someone a drink and then walks off, that's her entire presence in that episode. It did make me chuckle.

Nicole Eggert, Summers actor, is pretty good at acting in this show, but I wonder if they ended up changing their minds about her being a main character for some reason. For some other reason other than acting chops. Who knows, it could be many reason, I won't look them up though, in fear of spoilers. It just felt weird how she was in it so much for 6 episodes and then poof, she's gone.

More Baywatch, No Surprise There

It's a lovely sunny day outside but I'm here inside writing about Baywatch episodes from three decades ago. I've been falling behind in writing this too, so I need to speed this up. I am way more a head in episodes than the ones I'm writing about here. I've set a timer for half an hour, I must stop after that.

River of No Return, Part 2

I know I've spoken about this two part story so much but I still have a few more things to say. Firstly I know I didn't actually talk about the story, like the whole treasure hunt that Shauni, Eddie and co. go on. It was an alright story, I guess Shauni and Eddie leaving overshadowed the actual story for me.

Small correction - In an earlier post I think I said that Eddie only ever appears once more but that's not true, he also comes back for one episode of Baywatch Nights, a short-lived spin-off show. But 'River of No Return, Part 2' was Eddies final appearance on the series proper.

On Baywatch's fandom site, which I use a lot to double check stuff I'm writing on here, it says this - 'They reportedly left the series over salary problems, as they were paid a lot less for the syndicated series than they made during the initial NBC run.'

It's referring to the actors for Shauni and Eddie. It's the first I've heard of this but I reckon it's most likely the truth. I read some different reasons in interviews but this one seems the most likely. It's nothing special, nothing dramatic but quite likely. In other places I've read things like Erika Eleniak left because she didn't like were the show was going. Who knows what that actually means, it could be true as well as the reason above, there doesn't have to be only one reason. At first I was curious what she meant and I've been trying to figure it out, but who knows. It's hard to tell. I might talk about this more another time, even though it's not important.

Continuing My Thoughts on the New Season 3 Characters

Jimmy Slade

Slade doesn't appear until episode 3, he's a good looking young man who can surf and I don't think he's going to become a life guard, surprisingly. Now, the thing is with Slade is that the the guy playing as him is clearly an expert at surfing and that's why he was chosen to be on Baywatch. His acting is terrible but I'm not surprised, he's clearly spent most of his time honing his surfing craft. You quickly notice that it's him on the board, not a stunt double like the show normally uses. Not only that but he's far better than any of the stunt doubles they've used in the past, he puts them to shame. In real old episodes you might sometimes see a character doing a little bit of surfing but only briefly, I think Craig's actor could actually surf a little so they got a few full body shots of him. You see, especially in the earlier episodes, you could clearly see the stunt doubles in the HD Remasters of Baywatch, it's pretty funny. The stunt doubles are in far away shots or they have to be facing away from the camera. It's especially funny when you can see they're wearing a bad wig.

'Slade', as they cool him, which to be fair is pretty cool, turns out to be the love internet for Summer. As far as I've got, Matt Brody is simply portrayed as Summers friend. I was surprised because I thought Baywatch was going to do a whole love triangle with the three of them, but apparently not. Unless it happens later. Even if it does, Baywatch doesn't have much continuity, especially since the start of season 3. If they do a love triangle story, I wouldn't be surprised if it is for just one episode and then completely forgotten afterwards.

Summers Mum

I can't be bothered to look up her name. Shes pretty hot, very tall (I think I have a thing for tall women) and shes... a support character. I don't know if that's a proper term but she is literally supports Summer, shes just in the show to chat to Summer, be nice to her and sound board. Is that also a real term? I dunno. She's alright, there's nothing wrong with her. If this was any other show, I'd assume she'd be fleshed out later on but this is Baywatch so I doubt it. For that reason, I'm not investing much thought into her since she'll probably vanish before even Summer does.

Returning Old Characters

Mitch

Mitch is just Mitch, no change there. He's still fairly important to quite a lot of stories.

Hobie

He continues to be in it a fair amount, though he does vanish for some episodes. His acting improves a tiny bit in this season.

Garner Ellerbee

So far, Garner has appeared a lot more in season 3 than he has before, he even gets some stories. They aren't character building ones though, he just stays the same and that makes it pretty shallow. After quite some time, they bring back is main character trait which is that "I don't like sand, water, the heat.. I don't like the beach". It was basic and not funny in older seasons and it continues to be not funny here. It's not to see him get some more screen time but he's still pretty boring and I don't think he's had any serious stories yet.

Ben Edwards

He's not in the intro anymore but he does occasionally turn up, these times are even more brief than he did in the old seasons, though.

And sadly, that's all of the returning character I think. Besides that tall guy who gets a couple lines sometimes and was a life guard in real life.

Returning to the River of No Return

Random Thoughts

- Most of the grass in the park next to where I live hasn't been cut for ages, it's sunny but there's not many places to sit there. Because it's so long.

- I just realised that I could playing Street Fighter 6 instead of writing about Baywatch... I've barely played it yet.

Baywatch - River of No Return Part 1 - I'm Still Talking About It

How am I still stuck on this episode? I must not spend much more time on it since I'm already four episodes ahead of this two part story! I'm probably not going to write much about them since I'm already forgetting a lot. The reason why I'm still talking about River of No Return Part 1 is because I haven't even mentioned the other half the the episode - the introduction of the new characters. I'm already forgetting the details but I think some of them don't interact with the old characters in this episode, they have their own introductory story. Since I'm six episodes deep into Season 3, I may as well just tell you about how the new faces come across in these six episodes in general. In other words, I'm sort of moving away from 'River of No Return'. 

Summer Quinn

A blond girl who moves to the area with her mum, they're portrait as being a bit poor since they live in a trailer. This isn't focused on though, and they seem very jolly so it's not all doom and gloom. She's probably not supposed to be much younger than Shauni but she's definitely portraid as that, since she starts to go to high school in episode 6. Summer is in the first six episodes a lot, which come to think of it is a bit unusual for Baywatch. For example, if Shauni had a episode about her, she'd often barely be in several episodes after that.

In the first episode Summer appears in, I was wondering if her or C.J. is the replacement for Shauni. However by episode 6, I will give the show credit by saying that both of these characters are quite different than Shauni. Besides both being blonde. If anything, Summer initially appeared to be the replacement for Eddie, since she's kinda broke and has only just moved there, just like Eddie. But I was proven wrong over the next few episodes, she doesn't have the hard-knock-life background that Eddie had and she doesn't have a chip on her shoulder over her past. So far anyway.

In the first six episodes shes in, there is a focus on relationships. It's set up that Summer is going to get with Matt Brody, another new character, so I thought this was going to be a replacement for Shauni and Eddies love story. Not so. The show seems to forget this completely after 'River of No Return', instead having Summer fall for Slade, another new dude to the show.

C.J. (and sexy people on TV)

If I had to choose though, C.J. is closer to being like Shauni but that's not saying much. C.J. hasn't even been in it much as of episode 6. C.J. is of course played by Pamela Anderson, I assume this is the show that made her famous. Her acting in these six episodes is quite bad, in the way that's it's all one note, she also speaks quickly. I went to 'Baywatch.fandom' to check the spelling of her name, her profile picture makes her look quite different from what I've seen so far. I don't know how much further into the series that photo was taken, but I guess this is evidence of what I used to hear - That Pamela Anderson has had a lot of plastic surgery. Was that it? I'm not sure. Something about boobs too. You see, I was never a Pamela Anderson fan, not in the 90's, not ever. I don't even remember asking myself if I found her attractive or not back when I was a teen, I never thought about her at all for some reason. Even though I was a teen in the 90's so I was the prime audience for getting the hots for Pamela.

That said, despite not having much to do so far, she is growing on me. Shes no Erika Eleniak however. Shes not close to being as good at acting and her face isn't as pretty, her... assets aren't as nice either. Sorry for objectifying them but hay, this is Baywatch we're talking about here and I'm a lonely old man who has had very little relationship experience, so I hadn't help but think about these things. Let me live out my sad little fantasies in the mornings while I eat breakfast and watch TV. Anyway, a little more perving ahead - Despite those negative things I said about Pamela (personal preference stuff), you do gradually start to see how attractive her body is. I'm starting to see why this show became so popular, it was probably quite explicit back then. I'm sure there were many complaints in the 90's, even though Baywatch is so incredibly tame compared to everything nowadays. If it was rated, I assume it would be a U or PG at best. We've had shows like Game of Thrones which makes Baywatch look like My Little Pony when it comes to raunchiness. Sorry, I know even Game of Thrones is old now, what's it been, ten years already? Something like that. I don't watch much modern TV and Game of Thrones is just my go to show when contrasting how much more explicit TV shows are now.

Wait, this was supposed to be about C.J. wasn't it, I have nothing else to say about her anyway.

Matt Brody

The new main dude in the show, for sure, Brody is a stunningly attractive guy, or rather I should say the actor is. It's mind blowing how good looking he is. Acting wise, he's not bad, personality wise, he's a bit like a younger version of John D. Cort. He's a bit hot headed like him but the difference is that Cort was an action hero, it appeared like he was doing dumb things but he actually knew what he was doing. Or was at least doing things for the right reasons. For Brody, he does stupid things just because he wants to have fun. It's Baywatch though so of course he has a heart of gold underneath the reckless attitude. He is no John D. Cort though, that character was great and had charisma.

As of episode 6, Brody has a thing for C.J. and she might like the attention though it's hard to tell through Pamela's acting. This attraction has barely been touched upon though and unlike in the past, I'm not going to assume it'll lead anyway. I'm starting to see how Baywatch will drop ideas all the time. I'm probably used to modern TV writing where not a single scene or line is pointless, they always lead to something.

Last thing I'll say about Brody is that he's already had several 'one episode girlfriends'. I'm not sure why I'm pointing this out, it's just a thing I noticed. It's sort of like old episodes in-which Mitch did the same thing. Brody will have some random girlfriend, sometimes an extra or sometimes someone more significant but never a main cast member.

General Thoughts on Season 3 So Far

- The borders between the 'A' and 'B' stories are more vague, editing wise, I mean. Not that this was a bad thing in earlier episodes but I did notice it more, it was very clear that there were two stories going on and that one of them was the main focus. The general consensus would be that having the lines blur more is a good thing, though. I'm late saying all of this though since it started mid-season 2 but it becomes more potent in season 3, I found myself not even thinking about if there are 'A', 'B' or 'C' stories. On the other hand I might be wrong about all of this - I may have just gotten used to the structure of the show, having it originally stick out because I haven't seen a show like this in so long.

I've actually been writing this post for several days so I've fallen behind, I'll post it now and move straight onto the next one.

Baywatch - Season 2 - The End of the Original Cast, Pretty Much

Random Thoughts

- All of my posts going quite far back have one view each, I'm wondering why. Perhaps there's staff at Blogger.com who check everyone's posts to see if there's hate speech or whatever. If this is the case, apologies that you have to read such a sad, lame, badly written blog that blabbers on about pointless old TV shows. I mean I don't think it's pointless but you know what I mean.

- This blog really is, and perhaps always has been, basically my journal.

- Once again I'm looking at how young I look in that photo of me on here, on the left-hand side. Oh boy. And one of the only photos of myself I like, too. Even back then, I didn't look good in most photos. Now that I'm old, I look even uglier.

Baywatch Season 2 - An End of an Era

More Baywatch, what a surprise. Here I'm going to continue my thoughts that I started in my previous post, which was mostly about Shauni and Eddie leaving. I had more to say about it all but I've forgotten, let's see how much I can remember.

I say Season 2 above because even though the changes happen in Season 3, it's only after two episodes in. That two part story could have been at the end of Season 2, in fact. It even felt more like a season ender than Summer of '85 did.

Who Stays? - Mitch and Ben

Shauni and Eddie leaving was a big deal not just because I liked those characters, it was also the end for virtually all of the original cast. They were the last to go. Yes Mitch (David Hasselhoff) stays but everyone knows he's always in the show, I think for the whole run. I used the word 'virtually' because to be honest there are other actors who stay but they are glorified extras. We have Ben who is no longer in the intro and I think he may appear for a few seconds more here and there, and then vanishes completely. Since his page on that Baywatch Wiki Fan site is so bare. Which, by the way, is actually too bare even for Ben. Most of his page sections are blank, shows how much of an impression the character left on the fans, despite being played by the same actor who is a different character in the pilot episode. Rest in Peace though (the actor passed away a long time ago, 1997 I think).

Who Stays? - Garner

Garner also continues to be in the show and seems to appear and disappear from the opening quite often between Season 1 and 3. I've seen online that he stays on the show for a long time and is in the spin-off but I still almost don't care about this character at all, to be honest. I don't think there's been a single story about him so far and he's barely in it. I mean, out of all of the 'background' characters, he's been in Baywatch long enough to warrant actual stories about him. Even Ben got one or two and I'm pretty sure Garner has had more screen time by Season 3. In case you don't know, Garner a cop, he's THE cop of the show. He exists just so the show writers have a cop to turn up at the end to arrest the crooks, if the episode happens to have crooks. My memory is already getting hazy when it comes to Season 2 but I think Garner is barely seen in the second half of that season.

Who Stays? - Hobie

Yes there is also Hobie but this is fake Hobie, the one that started at the beginning of Season 2. His acting gradually improves but he's not as good as the original actor and he looks and acts so differently, he may as well be a different character. He also looks and acts younger. Also since he's Mitches young son, his stories are often about being naughty. The problem is that this new Hobie often does things that the original one did, but the original one learnt his lesson in those old episodes. So again it makes him feel like a different character because he does things the original Hobie never would do. I might be wrong but I think there's even a bit where he has no experience with girls, he hasn't kissed before, or something. But the original Hobie did kiss someone! I know it's the writers fault but it's still kinda funny.

And the Rest

Then there's the rest, who I can't be bothered to remember, they're basically just extras anyway.

End of the Beginning

That may have not looked like a tangent but it was. What I should have simply said was that Shauni and Eddie were the last two IMPORTANT characters / actors to leave Baywatch. From episode 3 of Season 3, all of the core original cast have left besides David Hasselhoff. It's just sad, ya know? Those two, as well as the others who left earlier, they made what Baywatch was. Perhaps it's because compared to TV now, it seems weird to have so many actors leave, and so early on too, relative to how long the series went on for. 2023 TV shows and for a long time now, the cast mostly stay the same.