As previously mentioned, I turned 40 recently. You know how you know you’re almost 40? When you watch Baywatch and you find yourself feeling really protective of this guy:
and “meh” about this guy:
and “hellooooooo” about this guy:
Anyway, just in case you thought maybe I’d been too busy with Japanese monster movies to watch Baywatch, you would be wrong! I finally realized the entire remastered series is available on Amazon Prime, which means instead of grumbling and changing the channel every 2-3 days when Season 11 comes on the streaming channel (ok, Baywatch Hawaii is not good, but while Season 10 is tolerable, Season 11 is absolutely, 100% not), we could go back to the beginning and watch the whole thing one episode at a time, like civilized streamers instead of cave people, and even watch the pilot, which as it turns out is a feature-length TV movie called BAYWATCH: PANIC AT MALIBU PIER (1989).
There are some weird things about B: PAMP, and there are some awesome ones, and one of the awesome ones is this rad fuckin’ jeep:
When I was a kid my uncle had a white jeep kind of like this one, but without the pink accents, and I honestly feel like it would have been an improvement.
One of the weird ones is just a normal pilot thing, honestly. It’s not that weird, it just fits in with something I’ve been amusing myself with on the side.
This is Gina, Craig’s wife, in the pilot:
And this is Gina, Craig’s wife, in the regular series:
Now, there’s nothing weird about this, as I said above. It’s common knowledge; TV shows often make changes after the pilot, and a very common change is recasting. The only reason I’m bringing this one up is because I have a theory that the Baywatch production team was on a mission to convince the audience that this person is wildly attractive:
The thing is, they sometimes get me. He has incredible, piercing blue eyes, and piercing blue eyes go a long way toward making you forget that the rest of him is not very attractive. But Pilot Gina, while perfectly fine and a normal human woman, was not hot enough to convince the audience that Craig is a sex god, so they had to bring in Series Gina.
I wonder if the Fatal Attraction subplot of the pilot was just a bridge too far for test audiences. “Wait, are you telling me that beautiful young woman is obsessed with … him?”
And we all know you can’t just recast the dude! You’ve gotta do some sleight-of-hand to convince everyone that the male casting is perfect and it was just a wee slip-up in the casting of his wife. It was his ordinary wife that made him look ordinary, not the fact that he himself is extremely ordinary. Keep up!
And it’s not an accident; it’s not just “test audiences didn’t like Pilot Gina” or “the studio heads wanted someone more on the level of Miss Universe Shawn Weatherly and Playmate Erika Eleniak” (although those might also be true). Because they did it again!
Later on in the series, they made this young, beautiful lifeguard:
get a huge, embarrassing crush on this guy:
Let me be clear: Parker Stevenson is, I assume, a totally normal actor dude, and he looks like a totally normal human being. He’s not ugly, he’s just average. And same with Gina Hecht. She’s very attractive when she’s not wearing terrible 1989 mom outfits.
That’s Hollywood/television for you, I guess.
Another one of the awesome things was this totally 80s party, which is hard to see in these screencaps. The only remastered version of the pilot I could find was on Amazon Prime, which doesn’t allow screencaps.
Sidenote: Shauni always seems to look like Malibu Barbie, in the pilot and through most of Season 1, honestly.
The most striking thing about this pilot is how unexpectedly dark it is—like, here are some lifeguards in red swimsuits and red shorts with doofy haircuts, and a pink and white jeep, and 27 side ponytails, and Hobie’s checkered shorts, and HERE IS A KNIFE-WIELDING PSYCHOPATH WELCOME TO THE BEACH!!!
I’m honestly not sure how any network executive passed on this shit in 1989. Check it out. Amazon Prime.
Why does that Jeep remind me of a toy Jeep that Barbie's sister Skipper would drive? Also, why is the girl in the passenger seat reading a goddamn magazine?! You're driving by the beach, for fuck's sake! And Parker Stevenson. Oof! Yeah. He's right up there with George Clooney and Patrick Dempsey for me: I just don't see the hype. They all do NOTHING for me. I was a fan of Baywatch and remember most of the cast from all the different seasons. For instance, I was definitely a fan of the blond-haired Aussie dude. And Billy Warlock (that name!). And David Charvet (whatever happened to THAT guy?). And David Chokachi. I absolutely LURVED it when Jason Momoa came on the scene. That low, deep voice always did me in (still does, honestly).