More From Baywatch Nights

I've managed to find time to watch a couple more episodes of Baywatch Nights' second season, where things got seriously weird and Lifeguard-cum-PI Mitch Buchanan finds himself confronting aliens, vampires and ghosts instead of criminals.  These two episodes, aired as the third and fourth of the season, although I don't know if that was their production order, continued the show's initial attempt to be an X-Files on the beach, before it started moving more into supernatural, Kolchak- style territory.  They also demonstrate the weakness of the series' approach to its subject matter, with both featuring potentially intriguing ideas that are never fully developed, with the plots instead quickly degenerating into a series of chases.  They also highlight the difficulties the writers were obviously having in adequately accommodating all of the regular cast into each episode.  The third episode, 'The Rig' is probably the weaker of the two, although it does have a promising premise: a drilling rig, (conveniently situated relatively close to the beach Mitch patrols in his day job), has inadvertently released a prehistoric protoplasmic creature, which has oozed up the drill shaft and started absorbing the crew.  When Mitch and Ryan reach the rig, they find it deserted and quickly find themselves being chased around by the creature.  Which is basically the whole episode: will they find a way of killing it before it kills them?  The blob, (because that's what it is clearly inspired by), emits an electromagnetic pulse that knocks out radios and boat engines, making escape difficult.  Unfortunately, the creature, (which looks like someone pouring several gallons of half-set lime jelly over the set), is far too slow moving and devoid of character to ever be an especially interesting monster.  Moreover, the rest of the team barely gets a look in - Griff and Donna are merely there to turn up in the nick of time to rescue everyone, while 'man of mystery' Diamont Teague is mentioned, (he alerted Ryan to the mysterious goings on), rather than seen.

Episode Four, 'Strike', is definitely full-on X-Files, complete with references to Roswell and aliens living among us.  Again, the episode focuses on Mitch and Ryan, with Griff getting what amounts to a cameo and Donna absent.  At least Teague features more, with his high-level inks to shadowy quasi-governmental organisations pretty much confirmed by the team of alien-experts and equipment he is able to muster.  While the episode's concept - aliens living in secret in human form - it does at least get off to an intriguing start, with Mitch, in lifeguard mode, rescuing a weird looking and behaving kid on the beach, only to be struck by lighting - a literal bolt from the blue.  When both he and the kid are in hospital, Mitch finds that the latter can communicate with him telepathically and has an even weirder and definitely hostile 'parent'.  As it transpires, the kid and his 'family' are actually aliens who survived a UFO crash at Roswell (in 1990, rather than the 1940s) and have been on the run ever since.  Among those tracking them is Teague and the shadowy organisation he fronts for.  The youngest alien has decided that he wants to live as a normal human teenager, but the others fear this will lead to their exposure.  Naturally, he goes on the run, helped by Mitch, with most of the episode being concerned with them being chased by another of the aliens - with both extra-terrestrials battling it out with their super powers.  Ryan, this time, stays back at HQ, trying to help Mitch remotely, (basically repeating her role in the first two episodes).  Teague, meanwhile, is offering safe haven to the alien kid, the catch being that he will end up a research specimen.  As with the previous episode, an initially interesting idea is pretty much discarded in favour of an extended chase.  The kid could just have well been running away from a crazy cult or devil worshippers and it wouldn't have made any difference.  The episode also effectively repeats the ending of the second episode, with the kid, like the amphibious lab-bred mutant girl, choosing self destruction rather than captivity.

While the first four episodes of Baywatch Nights' second incarnation are undoubtedly fun, having the novelty value of seeing David Hasselhoff battling monsters and aliens, they are, if anything, even more formulaic than the average episode of the parent series.  Indeed, Baywatch proper at least made better use of its large cast of regulars, with most episodes featuring sub-plots that involved  a large proportion of them.  Moreover, this use of multiple sub-plots at least gave the impression that the average Baywatch episode was more complicated than it actually was and allowed at least some character development.  But hey, it is still early days with Baywatch Nights season two - there are still another eighteen episodes to go - and I'm assured that there is much truly deranged action to come.