Alerte à Malibu

For starters,I liked the first "Baywatch" series when it premiered on NBC-TV from 1989-1991,and from there when straight into syndication for the next 10 years(1991-2001)and this where the show ended up on one of TV Guide's 10 worst TV shows of all time,and here's why..........

1. You have superstud David Hasselhoff(whom I liked as Michael on "Knight Rider"),and others plastic silicons which killed the series which spun off two installments("Baywatch Nights" and "Baywatch Hawaii") under the production standards of Mr. Hasselhoff himself(whom serves as executive producer of the both spin offs as well as this series).

2. ONLY on Baywatch could oceans filled with inept swimmers be watched over by lifeguards who ran in slow motion(and swam out to save them on the same formational shot).

3. Not only it was an action packed show,but this sea-foam saga of a part soap opera of one-dimensional personalities with multidimensional bodies was,for a while,the world's most popular show(not in my book it ain't)which says more about the world than most of us care to know.

4. The show made Hasselhoff an international status(which he rocketed "Baywatch" to the number #1 most watched show in several countries due to huge ratings overseas---but did you know its biggest audience was in Germany and Sweden?)and made stars of Yasmine Bleeth, Gena Lee Nolin,Erika Elenak,Alexandria Paul,Anna Smith(yes,Anna Nicole Smith)and the Queen of Junk TV,Pamela Anderson-Lee who acted as a human floation device during some of the episodes.

For one,producers are trying their best to bring this back too...WHY? The most recent was bringing it to the big screen as well and also a made for TV-Movie. LETS HOPE THEY DON'T!

a series like an endless holiday. hot bodies, drawing of acting, few slices of crime, brave men, attractive women, family dramas and drops of humor. lifeguards life "ad usum delphini". so, a form of entertainment. or delight. it is not easy to define Baywatch. because, season by season, it becomes more complex and the presence of David Hasselhoff as central axis of stories becomes credible. so, a nice series, first for the music, then for the running in the waves, and not the last, for the useful manner to save appearances for a beautiful longevity. Baywatch is the right mixture of soft adventure and eroticism who could define the entertainment of the "80's. and, decade by decade, this remains a virtue.

So the writing wasn't of an A class standard, but the show last for over 10 seasons so you can't say that some people or should i say alot of people didn't like it or else it wouldn't have lasted that long. Here's just a summary of a few of the characters and why they made Baywatch so fun to watch and enjoy.

David Hasselhoff (Mitch)- Right, he wasn't the greatest of actors and i'll be the first to admit it but David provided the show with alot of advertising and was the only character in the show's history to last all 9 seasons of Baywatch: California. Mitch brought the machoness to the show and he always put on stellar performances when they were needed.

Pamela Anderson (CJ Parker)- Again not one of the best actresses but basically I think most of us know she was only really there for the eye candy, but CJ gave us some memorable moments on the show too especially when she struggled to find love through her years at Baywatch.

Yasmine Bleeth (Caroline Holden)- She has to be one of the best actresses to ever grace the Baywatch shores, Caroline was the shy, seductive type who was always getting things wrong with her work and like CJ with her love life. Unlike Pamela, Yasmine wasn't afraid to take to the water.

Alexandra Paul (Stephanie Holden)- Another good actress to grace the Baywatch shores and I think the only one to actually die, weird, but Stephanie's death was one of the best acted episodes from all characters.

Gena Lee Nolin (Neely Capshaw)- One of the only hardcore bitches to come to baywatch and she was a real bad girls, sueing Matt Brody and forcing him to quit after false sexual harrasement charges, sleeping with Logan and manipulating him in front of Caroline, seducing Cody and tricking Mitch into marrying her. She provided the best entertainment on the show and always got her commupance.

I could go through the rest but i'll not, but basically Baywatch provided us with some other great actors and actresses like Erika Eleniak, Nicole Eggert, Carmen Electra, Kelly Packard, Mitzi Kapture, Angelica Bridges and so many more.

This was one show that was basically just on so you could watch hot girls run down the beach. The plots of the episodes were inconsequential, and for the most part who cared? If you tuned in, you wanted to see the gals running down the beach...if you watched it for the story you basically were going to be disappointed as the episodes stories for the most part were awful. Of course, it is amazing that it stayed on the air for as long as it did, but that was more thanks to the shows popularity over in Europe where David Hasslehoff is extremely popular for reasons unknown. Not that he is a terribly bad actor, but they like him more for his singing ability...which is terrible. All in all it isn't a show to take to seriously, in fact it is a show you can watch five minutes of and then flip to something else and maybe flip back to it to see if they are running down the beach in slow motion

Baywatch, television's most-famous "jiggle series" and by some counts the most-watched show around the world, did more for slow-motion beach joggers than anything since Chariots of Fire--just replace the British Olympic athletes with young women in high-cut red swimsuits who look like Playboy models. The premise of Baywatch is straightforward: a Los Angeles-based team of lifeguards saves swimmers and occasionally fights crime, led by beefcake Mitch Buchannon (David Hasselhoff). And those Playboy models? Erika Eleniak turned a 1989 magazine spread into a role as lifeguard Shauni McClain for two-plus seasons alongside Billy Warlock's Eddie Kramer character (the actors themselves had a brief engagement), and most of the season's action revolved around the lives and loves of Mitch, Shauni, and Eddie. (The most famous Baywatch babe, Pamela Anderson, would arrive the following season.) When they weren't saving people on the beach, they were involved in movie shoots ("Money, Honey"), gang wars ("Point of Attack"), homeless girls ("Sandcastles") and stray pets ("Thin or Die"), a serious charge against Eddie ("The Trophy"), a Gilligan's Island hallucination ("Now, Sit Right Back and You'll Hear a Tale"), and chemical dumping ("The Big Spill"). Hasselhoff's real-life wife, Pamela Bach, appears in a recurring role as reporter Kaye Morgan, Wendie Malick (Just Shoot Me, Dream On) has a small role as Mitch's ex-wife, Gayle, and Tom McTigue plays lifeguard Harvey Miller.