Popular US TV series
"...lifeguards in action, beauties and blue skies..." - Greg Bonnan
"...flimsy non-stop T&A..." - anonymous critic
Baywatch seems to be one of those shows which no-one owns up to watching¹, and yet
everyone knows something about. Someone is telling
fibs, because it has very
high ratings in all the countries in which it is shown.
The Baywatch concept goes back to 1980, when Greg Bonnan, a veteran
lifeguard in Los Angeles County, had an idea for a TV show containing
"sand, surf and sea rescues". The idea began to take shape when his brother-in-law,
Doug Schwartz and Michael Berk began to take an interest, and managed to persuade
Grant Tinker to turn the concept into a reality.
Grant's production company made the pilot Baywatch:Panic at Malibu Pier,
which was sold to NBC, who showed the two-hour film on April 23 1989. It was hailed
as an immediate success, rating number six in the top ten TV programs of
the week. NBC picked up the tab for the first series of weekly episodes,
beginning in the September. With the emphasis on action rather than character
development, it might be fair to state that the cast were perfect. David
Hasselhoff, all hair and teeth, Parker Stevenson with chiseled jaw and blue
eyes, Shawn Weatherly, Erika Eleniak, Billy Warlock, Peter Phelps and Brandon
Call supporting.
Despite good viewer figures, NBC were worried that the show would
flop once the initial excitement was over, and the critics did what critics do,
taking predictable pot-shots at it. When viewer numbers began
to drop, NBC became twitchier. By the middle of the first season Shawn Weatherly had
decided to leave and was dramatically written out, being eaten by a shark.
Suddenly, Baywatch became beautiful people doing heroic things, and the audience
returned.
Despite the success, however, there were still grumblings. The network and the
production team were frequently at odds over the format, the arguments concerning
whether the show should be about the action or the people. Action won, along with
breasts and bums, and the die was cast.
The Show Must Go On
The first season ended. NBC dropped the show. The production company went under.
Lifesaving measures were needed.
Budget-cutting came to the rescue. The production team still felt there was life
in the format, and offered CPR in the form of a changed formula. Instead of
shooting everything and using only a small proportion of it, they cut the
stories, cut the action and cut the scripts. Shooting time was halved, and
everything that was shot was used. Fourteen months later, they had a new product,
with new cast members, and in 1991, it began to air again.
This time around, there was something for everyone. Yes, there was action, yes, there
were relationships, both romantic and familial. Unfortunately, from the
standpoint of the artistic purists, yes, there were also the beach shots. The show
was pilloried, as it had become about beautiful people looking good in
slo-mo,wearing ridiculously tight bathing costumes. Pamela Anderson, Nicole Eggert and Susan Anton came in, as did Kelly Slater, a real-life surf champion, to preserve the continuity of conventional beauty.
Schwartz did try very hard to make the show "real", injecting plot lines surrounding
social issues, including AIDS, bulimia and Down's Syndrome, but the real focus
was elsewhere. According to Schwartz, romance was favoured over sex.
"We've had sexy scenes but we've never had
sex. In fact...we could have done an R-rated version of Baywatch for direct to
video called 'Forbidden Paradise'. What the people behind the video really wanted was
to have Pamela appear nude. We did release 'Forbidden Paradise' on video but only
with a PG rating. We were not about to betray the family audience we
had worked so hard to get."
Despite his efforts, it is likely that Baywatch will only be remembered for
its bottoms and boobs. In slo-mo.
In addition to the TV series, now syndicated all over the world, there
were many spin-offs and imitators. It was almost inevitable. The "specials" and straight-to-video films are given below:
http://www.imdb.com
http://www.iol.ie/~wayneh/baywatch/
¹My memories of three episodes, under duress