DryvBy
Member
Hi teens,
I've seen every episode of Baywatch with my wife and I'm proud of it. We both are. I've talked to a few of the original cast and Erika Eleniak now follows me. I'm hoping this thread will do a few things such as bring some fun to OT where we can argue about important things, like which Baywatch character was the COAT (character of all time) or what our favorite episodes were. Even better, to introduce (or reintroduce) GAF members to the show!
Forget what you thought you knew about Baywatch. You might think it's only about slow motion Playboy models running up and down a beach. When we first started the show a couple of years back, I thought the same thing. I went from "Helllllllo, nurse!" to "This show is actually interesting." So let me give you a breakdown of what the show really is.
First, stare at this man for a moment:
This is the true star of the show. It wasn't Pam Anderson nor Carmen Electra or that one girl that ended up doing some major drugs (Yasmin Bleach). It's Mitch Buchannon played by David Hasselhoff. The show is centered around him and his career as a lifeguard who cares deeply about his son Hobie Buchannon and his job on the beach. He runs the teams as a leader for the first part of the series and eventually promotes to the captain and then leads a team of people from all over the world to train at the beaches of Hawaii.
The first season is probably the best season as far as the story goes. The first episode was a movie that just was the pilot to this wonderful TV drama in the late 80s. In fact, almost every season during the original series starts with a made for TV movie that was just too long for the typical 45 minute syndication. But season one is just a completely different show in style and format, including a different actor for Mitch's son (the original Hobie was played by the older brother in Step by Step in the 90s). It's a much more in-depth look at the events of life-guarding and the dramas around the characters were a lot better written in my opinion. And if you didn't know, Baywatch was cancelled after season 1 which is also why it's a much different show.
Season 2 and until the start of Hawaii is a similar show but just has a different feel. Lots more fun and goofy stuff happens, like which Mitch has to battle a crocodile that swam into a sewage drain. Or when Mitch just happens to phone up Jenny McCarthy and MTV to help children with autism do a beach sporting event. But the show is still good and a roller coaster of entertainment that's either really sappy or really good. But most of it's legit good. I actually ended up learning real life things about the beach by watching this entire series.
With each new season the way they introduce new characters is by doing a job training exercise. Those who are good enough are new lifeguards and thus new characters for the show. Sometimes, they don't last many episodes (I think one girl was afraid of water and was gone after an episode and replaced with Gena Lee Nolin). It's a really fun way to bring in new characters. Then again, they also remove characters with the most bizarre "WTF is this?" reasoning too. When Pam Anderson leaves, they just claim randomly a couple of episodes into the new season that she moved to Mexico and married some surfer.
Yeah, ok.
There's a ton of plot holes in the characters sometimes but it's still worth a watch just for the drama and chemistry between each character. And in all seriousness (and also why I said Mitch is key), it's the story of Mitch and he's a really interesting character for a TV show. There's a reason Hasselhoff is just a legend and Baywatch is one of those reasons.
Every episode until Hawaii features an amazing product of it's time: cheesy music videos. Let's take a watch:
Wow. Much synthesizer.
Towards the end of the original series, my heart was breaking along with my wife's. The show was coming to an end and we knew that the great cast of characters, and the bad, were going away and life in sunny southern CA was going to a small Pacific island known as Hawaii. And Hawaii is ROUGH!!! Not just the waves that hit against the shores, but the entire show is an ad for Hawaii. And how it starts doesn't make any sense at all. Mitch becomes a homeless dude (?) on the beaches of Hawaii and rediscovers his love for saving lives when he sees a kid drowning and does a rescue. Then he creates money out of thin air and starts a training center to help people all over. The focus on this plot falls away quickly and it just becomes an excuse to advertise Hawaii vacation spots with minimum drama and drama you don't care about. There's a reason this installment of the series was cancelled and no true fan really wants to talk about that disaster.
Baywatch Hawaii was paid for by:
Oh, and David Spade was a villain in an episode. You wouldn't believe how often crime happens on the beach!
Oh oh, and watch Son of the Beach which was an FX parody of the show. My best friend loves that show and has never watched a single episode of Baywatch. But he got the jokes just fine. For a Baywatch fan like myself, SotB was a godsend of hilarious comedy gold nuggets.
Who else loves this incredible show or wants some suggested episodes to watch?
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