| The End of Baywatch (from www.boston.com) Jerry Seinfeld used to brag that he had created a television show about nothing. But that wasn't completely true. Seinfeld had something to say about the bleak hilarity of sexual relations, and the comic emptiness of everyday life. ''Baywatch,' the most popular show of the Seinfeld era, really was about nothing. Or, if was about something, it was about women's breasts. ''There are a lot of girls on `Baywatch,' and I'm sorry, but there's a major audience for that,'' star and co-executive producer David Hasselhoff told an interviewer in 1994. But now it is time to say goodbye. ''Baywatch'' ratings have ebbed, catastrophically. In the beginning, ''Baywatch'' wasn't supposed to be about nothing. It was supposed to be about Los Angeles County lifeguards. Perhaps not a premise, but a situation: single Dad Mitch Buchannon (Hasselhoff) and his cute son |
Hobie would rescue persons in distress and undress, and, when not so engaged, emote on the subject of single parenthood, the vicissitudes of life, etc. The show got off to a rocky start, and NBC canceled it after its first season. Unlike the big network, syndicator Pearson Television saw plenty of promise in those high-thigh, low-neckline orange swimsuits. The rest is television history. ''Baywatch'' episodes were famous for being the fastest-produced shows on TV, leaving the cast free to pursue international singing careers (Hasselhoff, known as the ''German Elvis''), May-December relationships with Hugh Hefner (Brande Broderick) or to provide the first demonstration of the Internet's ''viral marketing'' power. That would be Pamela Anderson's contribution to the history of technology, her homemade, pornographic video with former husband Tommy Lee, which has sold more copies than every ''Masterpiece Theater'' tape ever made, it would be safe to say. |
It's hard to know what sank the series: the rising production costs that forced the show to immigrate to Oahu or the new production team's penchant for leadfooted plot lines. A trained ear could hear the SOS call in this portentous quote from newly hired ''Baywatch'' writer-producer Frank South, one of the ''masterminds'' behind such ''character-driven'' shows as ''Melrose Place'': ''It's going to be straight-up, a more character-driven show,'' South told the Honolulu Advertiser last year. ''These people still aren't hard to look at. But they'll also have much more complex lives than you'd ever expect.''
Less than 10 months later, the show capsized into Davy article edited by Rick Queary |
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