Some Reflections on Baywatch Hawaii

I seem to have spent the past few days doing nothing other than watching back-to-back episodes of Baywatch.  Why?  I hear you ask.  Well, why not?  They're all freely available via streaming channels and they make an excellent, undemanding background for when I'm working on something.  Which is what I've been using them for.  Not all day, obviously, just when I've not been out enjoying the summer.  Although only half-watching the episodes, I've absorbed enough to give myself a working grasp of the latter seasons of Baywatch, which I mostly didn't watch when it was on terrestrial TV back in the day.  In particular, I think that I now have a grip on Baywatch Hawaii, as the last two seasons were retitled, which I never saw when they were on regular TV.   An attempt to reboot the series, the problem was that they moved too far away from the original concept and just didn't feel like Baywatch any more.  Not only did they ditch the original LA County setting, but also most of the ongoing cast.  Worse, the concept changed somewhat, with Mitch setting up a lifeguard training centre in Hawaii, staffed by top international lifeguards, to train would be lifeguards the 'Baywatch way'.  Apart from Mitch, only JD, Jessie and Newman were carried over from the previous series, with Mitch often appearing peripheral to the main action and appearing less and less, to the extent that, at the end of the first season of Baywatch Hawaii, he was apparently killed off, (although he miraculously came back for the re-union TV movie, Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding).  

While David Hasselhoff remained with the show as an executive producer, the lack of his onscreen presence was telling, with none of the remaining cast being able to fill the void.  The situation wasn't helped by the fact that season two of Baywatch Hawaii saw a major turn over of cast from season one, with the new arrivals even less charismatic and likeable than their predecessors.  Perhaps the most notable thing about Baywatch Hawaii was that it provided Jason Momoa with his first leading role.  Appearing in both seasons, he proved the series most charismatic character.  (Apparently, he hated the series and doesn't like discussing it).  The Hawaiian settings, while undoubtedly beautiful, (and, doubtless, designed to promote the islands as a tourist destination), actually hinder the show overall, giving it all a languid, less urgent and dynamic feel, than the frenetic California settings had the original.  Hawaii had, of course, not been the first choice of location for a reboot - a pilot entitled Baywatch Down Under had been shot in Australia at the end of season nine of Baywatch, (and was eventually shown as a two part episode when that season was broadcast), but objections from the local community where it was filmed led to the proposed series being shelved.  The pilot was interesting, as it carried most of the then regular cast over to the new setting, (with the notable exception of JD, who ironically ended up being one of the few cast members carried over into Baywatch Hawaii)  - whether this would have continued into the proposed series, we'll never know.  Interestingly, one of the Australian lifeguard characters from Baywatch Down Under reappeared as a regular in the first season of Baywatch Hawaii).  

Quite how any Australian-set series would have proceeded isn't entirely clear from the pilot - the implication is that the US lifeguards would have remained in some kind of training capacity, as in Baywatch Hawaii.  But the differences between lifeguarding in Australia (where most lifeguards are unpaid volunteers from local surf clubs) and the US, (where there are 'retained', full time lifeguards employed by local government), are significant - perhaps too significant to have made the concept viable.  The eventual reboot had the advantage of being set in another US state, meaning there was no real clash of lifeguarding cultures.  Baywatch Hawaii is an interesting case study in rebooting a long-running and popular TV series.  For one thing, it occurred while the original was still running, being presented, at the time, as a continuation of the series, rather than a spin off or reboot.  Watching it now, it is clear that its fundamental problem was that it changed enough that it simply didn't feel like 'real' Baywatch, yet wasn't sufficiently different that it established its own identity.  When you add in a cast of new characters the existing audience have no investment in and who feel even more cliched than their predecessors and you have a sure-fire recipe for failure.  Still, it did at least manage to limp on for two seasons, a better showing than most in-series reboots.