Still More From Baywatch Nights

What seems like an eternity ago, I started working my way through Season Two of Baywatch Nights, the season where the Baywatch private eye spin off went completely bonkers and started featuring aliens, vampires and werewolves.  I managed to write up my impressions of the first four episodes here before the project stalled.  Actually, it didn't stall completely.  I did manage to watch the next four episodes, but never got around to writing about them.  The problem was that none of these episodes was especially memorable, all featuring confusing, poorly developed plots and a paucity of budget that kept the action to a minimum.  Nevertheless, as I'm determined to get back to wading my way through the series, I thought that I'd offer a brief overview of episodes five to eight.  They get off to a poor start with 'Circle of Fear'  a tale of witchcraft and black magic which gets off to a good start with black masses and the like in the woods, but then settles into a pretty routine story involving ancient magical tomes and curses.  Most of the action, such as it is, revolves around Ryan's apartment as she finds herself beset by all sorts of supernatural manifestations.  The problem is that none of them are very interesting and, ultimately, nothing really happens.

Episode six, 'The Cabin', at least has the distinction of being the barmiest episode yet, with Mitch and Ryan visiting a remote cabin in the woods and finding that it contains a number of portals through time and space, depositing them, individually, into dangerous situations in the past.  They find themselves facing crazy killers and the like in the nineteenth century.  Unfortunately, the episode lets itself down by concluding with one of those 'it was all a dream' endings.  The ultimate in cop outs.  The seventh episode, 'Curse of the Mirrored Box' is a tale of voodoo, full of mildly racist stereotypes which seems to have drawn most of its actual knowledge of voodoo from watching Live and Let Die (1973).  As with 'Circle of Fear', the story is less than gripping, poorly executed and, in places, virtually incomprehensible.  The final confrontation between Mitch and the local voodoo High Priest is, to put it mildly, anti-climactic.  Episode eight, 'Last Breath', is somewhat more intriguing, offering a cross over with regular Baywatch as Mitch and Ryan investigate the disappearances of several lifeguards whilst they are carrying out rescues.  The third of these involves Donna - at last given something to do - being pulled out sea by her float line, before vanishing beneath the waves.  Griff also makes a reappearance, helping Mitch out with some underwater investigation and getting shut in the boot of a submerged car for his troubles. 

The episode is notable for not having a non-supernatural resolution.  It turns out that the three missing life guards have been kidnapped by a guy whose brother and parents died when the car he was driving went into the sea - lifeguards saved him but not his family.  He now wants to re-enact the crash, with the kidnapped lifeguards standing in for his family so that, this time, he can die with them and assuage his survivor's guilt.  Despite the lack of a supernatural element, the episode is actually far more atmospherically shot than most of the supernatural episodes, with  a real sense of unease pervading the proceedings.  This run of weak episodes underlines the fundamental problem afflicting Baywatch Nights - that its budget could never match its ambitions.  With its lack of resources dictating that elaborate special effects were out of the series' reach, most of the supernatural goings on can only manifest themselves obliquely.  Consequently, its - mainly derivative - story lines could only ever end up as damp squibs.  Even when it attempted something relatively original - 'The Cabin - that didn't require much in the way of special effects, it doesn't have the courage of its convictions and undermines it with that cop out ending.  Hopefully, going forward, things will improve as this batch of episodes were, on the whole, too threadbare in terms of writing, ideas and production values to even raise the barminess to enjoyable levels.