I know what you're thinking: "'Baywatch Nights' is a famously bad show and the second season dealt with mummies, time travel, ghosts werewolves.. how do you determine a dumbest plot?" Well, regardless of what anyone may think of Sci-Fi/Horror tropes, they have their own internal logic, what I'm going to talk about now is a Baywatchian plot that defies all logic.
The dumbest "plot," is actually a B-Story and is found in Season 1, Episode 22 "Heat Rays." The first time we see her, Donna Marco (Donna D'Errico) is driving over a bridge at night in her sports car and comes across ruffians, seemingly in distress. Being a Good S'Maritan, she stops to help.
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| "I need to use your carphone before they go out of style!" |
They say a woman's boyfriend has just jumped off the bride and is in the water. They need to use the carphone to call the emergency services. Donna, being a former lifeguard (or becoming a lifeguard in the future, I forget) jumps in the water to help.
Once she's in the water, they inform her that there was no boyfriend and they steal her car. It's a confusing plan, to say the least. They make it clear that they didn't expect her to jump in the water herself and yet that's the only way it works. If the plan was to simply get her out of her car and take the keys, they could have done that moments earlier. Instead there was all this fake tv drama where they were faking a phone call while trying to "show" her where the drowning boyfriend was. And after that, they'd still have to physically overpower her and she could have a gun. If that was the plan, they simply need her out of her car and then the pretense stops.
On the other hand, if her jumping into the water was the plan (and they seem to make it clear that it was not) then she could have jumped off with her keys on her and they'd come away with nothing.
Donna is left in the water kicking herself for being a good person.
Here's where it gets worse. She says, "Oh that tide is strong!" and we as the viewer can tell that the strong tide is a Hollywood soundstage. Then she adds, "What do they say, go with the flow?" and starts floating with the "flow" of water (pretty still in that Hollywood soundstage). After about two seconds of "floating" (standing in the soundstage tank), a luxury cruise ship is going to hit her(?) and she has to swim out of the way(?!)
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| Look both ways: those Carnival Cruise Ships jump out of thin air. |
She presumably must swim out of the way of the oncoming cruise ship - the visual storytelling is not very good - and the cruise ship is presumably about to crash into the bridge because that's where she was... spatially nothing about this makes sense. Nothing makes sense but it's all, I think, obfuscation for what's about to happen. And this is the worst part.
Here is Donna the next time we see her:
It's now daytime and she's still swimming in the water/soundstage. Not content to merely be swimming, she's actually in the middle of the ocean and her best bet is to try to flag down a boat.
I don't know if you know much about how bridges work or if you remember that there was a bridge (it feels like an eternity ago) but they generally have a piece of land they connect to on each side. In other words, bridges are usually fairly close to land. I mean, when you think about it, it's fairly rare that a Nation or business tycoon will choose to build a bridge in the middle of an ocean.
Let's recap, because I know this is a lot to take in. Donna jumped off a bridge at night, floated for 2 seconds, swam for two seconds and it's now daytime and she's in the middle of the ocean with little hope of rescue. This is the nail-biting drama we are presented with.
Kudos to her for being able to tread water for 8 hours but does any of that make sense? If you jump off a bridge, you just swim to shore. If you float for a few seconds and then are attacked by a Disney Cruise gone rogue, you still just swim to shore. If we map out the whiteboard of possibilities and decisions, all possibilities point back to one of the two ends of the bridge or maybe the pile (one of the legs). And if she swam to one of the piles, she could rest a bit, maybe take a nap and then swim to land at her leisure.
At this point in the episode even I'm saying "this is insanely stupid" and bear in mind that I'm a person choosing to use my life to watch "Baywatch Nights."
The next time we see Donna, she's still treading water and not struggling at all but she is worried about sharks. I think it's the treading water that's the danger. What's the world's record for treading water? According to Brave Search, the World Record for treading water while balancing a football on their head is 18 minutes and 2 seconds. Have you noticed that search engines are becoming less helpful?
Fortunately a fishing boat spots her and brings her in. Or is it a fishing boat?
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| "Wow, Donna D'Errico is hot!" |
Yes, she's saved but hold on... The more she learns about the guys she's with, the more suspicious their story sounds. It just so happens they're actually drug smugglers on their way to a deal. The deal goes bad and a large black man with sunglasses mows them down with an uzi. Donna dives back into the water - first to dodge the bullets and secondly to rescue the shooting victims. It seems a big ask - to rescue people in the water after treading water for several hours but she does it all easily and then radios for help.
The next time we see her, she's coming out of a taxi. She's safe and sound. She needs someone to pay the taxi fare because she "lost her wallet." One of the other characters is taken aback but obliges. Making conversation, he asks, "So, how was your day?" She flashes back to the carjacking, the jumping off the bridge, the imaginary sharks, the druglord battles and then replies, "Interesting."
Get it? Because she survived multiple felonies and almost died from not knowing how bridges work! It's the classic action movie one-liner. Oh, we do have fun, don't we?
And that's the dumbest "Baywatch Nights" plot.
Quick Side Note: I started writing this article in January. How has my year gone? Not at all interesting.
