Late Night Retro Television Review: Pacific Blue 1.1 “Pilot”

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https://unobtainium13.com/2025/01/07...lue-1-1-pilot/

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.



Last month, we finished up Baywatch Nights. For our next show, we have Pacific Blue, which was often described as being Baywatch On Bikes. Before watching the episode reviewed below, I had only seen one previous episode of Pacific Blue. I was in Rome and the episode was dubbed into Italian.

As I sit here typing this, it is currently 32 degrees and windy outside. On Thursday, we’re supposed to get hit with ice and snow. Fortunately, on Pacific Blue, it’s forever summer! Let’s dive right in with the first episode!



Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Ralph Hemecker, originally aired on March 2nd, 1996)

Welcome to Santa Monica in the 90s!

The skies are sunny, the ocean is blue, everyone’s wearing a bikini or a swimsuit, and the cops are on bikes!

The pilot for Pacific Blue opens with Officers Victor Del Toro (Marcos A. Ferraez) and Cory McNamara (Paula Trickey) riding their bikes down the boardwalk and talking about how criminals and even citizens often don’t pay them enough respect because they’re on bicycles. And, to be honest, they do look pretty silly riding their bicycles with their grim “I am the Law” facial expressions. Judge Dredd would never be caught dead on a bicycle.

When Victor and Cory catch a couple of graffiti-spraying vandals, they get to show off what they can do with their bicycles. “They can run but we can fly,” Victor says as he takes off after the fleeing vandals. And …. no, sorry. The bikes still look dorky. I don’t care how many bad guys the bike cops capture. The dark shorts and the crisp white t-shirts and the Schwinn bicycles, none of it is intimidating.

Chris Kelly (Darlene Vogel) was once a hotshot Navy pilot until her eyesight dipped below 20/20 and she was discharged. (You have to have 20/20 eyesight to fly a plane? Well, I’ll add that to my list of things that I will never be allowed to do!) Chris joined the Santa Monica police force and found herself assigned to tell kids not to go off with strangers while wearing a milk carton costume. After Chris catches some drug dealers (again, while dressed up like a milk carton), she is transferred out of public relations and over to …. BIKE PATROL!

Her new boss, Tony Palermo (Rick Rossovich), explains that Chris will require three days of bicycle training before she’s officially a member of Bike Patrol. In one montage, Chris learns how to ride a bike like a …. well, I would say like a “badass,” except for the fact that she’s on a dorky Schwinn. She is then partnered up with TC Callaway (Jim Davidson), who orders her to lose the attitude when it comes to riding her bike. No one is too good for bike patrol!

TC’s girlfriend, Sandy (Cindy Ambuehl), thinks TC should get a job working for his wealthy father. TC’s younger brother agrees. But TC loves the beach. He loves chasing criminals. He loves riding his bike! TC was born to work with ocean in the distance and sand getting stuck in the spokes of his bike,

Speaking of criminals, someone has stolen Mayor Mickey Dolenz’s car. (Mickey Dolenz appears as himself.) The Bike Patrol takes down a bunch of car thieves and closes down their chop shop. It’s a standard cop show plot but keep in mind that this is just the first episode. The purpose of a first episode is to introduce all the characters and explain the premise of the show. And that’s what this pilot did so technically, this episode has to be considered a success.

The only problem — and I have a feeling that I’ll be coming back to this point frequently over the next two years or so — is that the Bike Patrol looks incredibly dorky. Pacific Blue was obviously meant to capitalize on the success of Baywatch but the thing with Baywatch is that, as incredibly dumb as that show could be, the slow motion running looked cool. The members of the Bike Patrol riding their bikes up and down the beach just look silly.

That said, the beach scenery was nice to look at and this show does seem like it might have the potential to be fun in a so-bad-it’s-good sort of way. So, we’ll see what happens. By the end of this month, I’ll either be happy that I picked this show to review or I’ll be cursing my terrible judgment. We’ll find out soon enough.