Retro Television Review: Malibu, CA 1.23 “The New Cook”

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Posted on January 9, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Malibu CA, which aired in Syndication in 1998 and 1999. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!



This week’s episode is stupid! Let’s get to it.

Episode 1.23 “The New Cook”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on May 2nd, 1999)

After a relative in Texas breaks his leg — *sigh* I can already tell you that I’m going to hate this episode — Peter announces that he has to go down to the Lone Star State to look after the ranch because, of course, everyone who lives in Texas owns a ranch. (Except for me apparently.) Peter leaves Jason and Scott in charge of the restaurant. Jason points out that he doesn’t get paid to be an assistant manager. He gets paid to be a waiter and you know what? Jason is perhaps the biggest ********* to ever appear on a television show but, in this case, he’s absolutely correct.

Seriously, does Peter not have any adult employees that he can leave in charge? Jason and Scott are not managers. They are just his good-for-nothing sons who he hired because they were too irresponsible to be left on their own. Scott has grown a bit more responsible over the course of the season but neither he nor Jason really has the track record of someone who you would leave in charge of a complicated business. Jason and Scott do some pretty stupid things in this episode but it’s all Peter’s fault for being dumb enough to give them so much responsibility in the first place.

With Peter gone, it falls to Jason and Scott to hire a new chef for the kitchen. They hire Inga (Victoria Silvstedt) because she’s tall, blonde, and apparently comes from a country where there are no laws about nepo kids sexually harassing their new employees. Unfortunately, it turns out that Inga cannot cook. The head chef refuses to work with her and storms out of the restaurant. Because neither Jason nor Scott can work up the courage to fire her, they try to teach her how to cook. Then they try to run the kitchen themselves. A bunch of Texans are coming to the restaurant and they’re expecting lobster. Uh-oh, Traycee set all the lobsters free! She dumped them in the ocean. Hey, Traycee, you probably just killed all of those lobsters! Can no one on this show think?

(And seriously, what was this episode’s deal with Texas?)

Scott and Jason have to figure out what to do about their guests who claim to be from Texas but who all have the fakest accents that I’ve ever seen. Bleh. Screw this storyline. It’s too stupid. I’m done talking about it.

Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Murray is visited by the legendary surfer, Webfoot Wilson (Peter Flanders). Webfoot says that he’s putting together a charity for injured surfers. But, after Sam and Stads see Webfoot stealing money from the Surf Shack’s cash register, they realize that he’s just a con artist! Will they find the courage to tell Murray that his friend is a thief? Of course, they will. What a stupid B-plot but I will give credit where credit is due. Brandon Brooks’s performance as Murray was probably the only thing that worked about this episode. Murray may have started out as a standard weird sidekick but Brooks was actually able to make him into a surprisingly likeable and occasionally even funny character.

Next week …. oh, who cares? Something will happen.