I Watched Every Episode of Baywatch Nights - Season 1

"Baywatch Nights" is a laughingstock, a joke, the prototypical bad spin-off cash-in. If you are crafting a joke and need an embarrassing show that, nevertheless, people will recognize, I can think of no better punchline than "Baywatch Nights." That's why I watched every (available) episode. But what I found when I watched it surprised me in a number of ways...

Here's the first surprise: the first season is not really that bad. I really wanted the worst show out there and had to constantly admit that it just... isn't... terrible. Yes, on the one hand, it's not good enough to be a good show and I don't claim that it is good, but the sad fact is it's not bad enough to really be hilarious either.

"Baywatch Nights" follows Mitch Buchanan (David Hasselhoff) and his partners (played by Gregallen Williams and Angie Harmon) in their detective agency business. The formula for the show is obvious: every week someone comes in with a case/mystery and every week they catch the bad guys. In the early episodes, nothing is explained. Typically the first episode would be everyone meeting each other, explaining the backstory. The show has no backstory and particularly doesn't bother to explain how this is "Baywatch" aside from the existence of the character Mitch Buchanan. Presumably Mitch isn't a lifeguard by day and a detective by night because we see him doing detective work at night, but nor are we told that he's retired from lifeguarding. The show simply starts without explaining anything.

Throughout the show there's a "will-they-won't-they" between Mitch and Angie Harmon's character which is just as unexplained. Usually, when you put two characters together and show an obvious attraction between them, you also set up an obstacle that keeps them apart. This show sets up the obvious attraction between their characters, has them flirt, has them never becoming involved but gives no reason as to why. It isn't until the 8th episode where they "recall" that they had agreed some time in the past (not depicted) to not mix business with pleasure. Ok fine, you did the bare minimum, congrats, but that's still 7 episodes of "huh? why?"

There are a lot of parallels with "T and T." I get the feeling that this is the show that "T and T" would like to be - they both went for style, they're both detective shows revolving around solving a mystery, they're both cheesy but they both take themselves seriously. But whereas "T and T" had a general serious/downer tone, Nights is fun and generally lighthearted. Whereas "T and T" is the bad watching-tv-on-summer-vacation show, Nights is the acceptable watching-tv-on-summer-vacation show (acceptable, sometimes even fun). And I want it noted that while the "T and T" theme song is a trainwreck, the Nights theme song is excellent. Hasselhoff and Lou Rawls - what a combo.

Another parallel Nights shares with "T and T" is my general feeling that the people making it are constantly saying to themselves, "The ratings are bad so we need to shuffle things around." The first (minor) character is eliminated after just 4 episodes. Two new minor characters (one played by Donna D'Errico and one played by some dude) are introduced mid-way through the season. And those won't be the last cast changes but that will come later.

But another "shuffle" is the format of the show. In the earliest episodes, it's supposed to be a noir detective story, complete with Hasselhoff voiceovers like "My dad told me that once in a while you meet a woman so beautiful that it knocks the wind out of you. Maybe today was my turn..." But the noir narration is dropped fairly early on. There is also a big shift in its relation to "Baywatch." In the beginning, like I said, they avoid the topic completely, but then all of a sudden the mysteries (and therefore the episodes) will arise from the beach, lifeguards, etc. and sometimes they will dwell there. I got the feeling that someone saw low ratings and said "let's get some of that 'Baywatch' going" and quickly brought it front and center. And then suddenly they take the next step and there are actual characters from "Baywatch" crossing over to do a guest appearance!

Adding background actors to your scene can increase visual depth and interest.

And guest appearances, by the way, are one of the more delightful aspects of my experience with the show. I will list the major highlights:

•  S01E02 - J. Peterman from "Seinfeld" teams up with Kevin Arnold's older brother from "The Wonder Years" to steal money using rollerblades. That is real, that is what happens.
• S01E06 - Robert Ginty! Also Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson).
• S01E12 - "Stuttering John" Melendez - and actually acting, not playing himself.
• S01E13 - Geraldo Rivera - also acting as a fictional character. His acting is better than I expected from Geraldo but there are a few moments where his performance is funny.
• S01E16 - Yasmine Bleeth from the original "Baywatch."
• S01E19 - Carmen Electra - before she was very well known, I think, and probably before she joined regular "Baywatch." But forget about her - Ben Murphy is in the ep and he's the evil villain of the week! Ben Murphy is always ruining everything.

Speaking of bad acting, do you want to see my favorite performance in all of Season 1? Here it is. #OscarWorthy. It's just the best. Why wasn't there a spin-off for this guy? I'd watch that.

I have to mention, though I don't know how to transition to it, the obvious selling point of the show. The ladies. The attractive woman aspect of the show (I have to assume) is much more toned down than "Baywatch" but it's still very prominent. In any given scene of exposition, the main characters will be talking on a bench with perfectly placed beach babes walking (or rollerblading) across the foreground and/or background. The background and the extras are much of the sex appeal of the show but then occasionally someone's in underwear or taking a shower or "out for a swim" or whatnot. I mean, human females do all of these things and the show needs to reflect reality. There is one episode where something went wrong and it just gets weird. S01E19, is suddenly racier than every episode before or since. For some reason they really seemed to be "going for something," trying to push the envelope on what they could get onto syndicated television.

So that's "Baywatch Nights" Season 1. It's silly, it's stupid, the premise/title makes NO sense; yes it's a bad show but not nearly as bad as it really could, or by rights should, be. It looks slick, it looks stylish, the characters are entirely likable, the writing is as good as it needs to be. It also has the added bonus of a great "of the 90s" nostalgia. It's usually just light and breezy, fairly harmless, casual entertainment. Obviously, I started regularly watching the episodes as an ironic stunt to create some blog posts but I have to admit that the show actually started to grow on me a little bit and so I have little content to speak of. It grew on me for two reasons. Firstly, because it's the time of year where the days are getting shorter and the temperatures are dropping - I found the bright, sunny California beach setting became infectious, almost therapeutic. And secondly, I realized at some point that Donna D'Errico's appearance in the opening credits was often the best part of my day. I'm not happy about it, I don't like to admit it, but this is what happened.

So that's everything I have to say about Season 1. But get ready because moving on to Season 2, EVERYTHING is about to change...