Baywatch’s Forgotten Sci-Fi Spin-Off Deserves Another Look

Swimsuits, slo-mo, sea monsters … The supernatural might not be what most people think of when they remember “Baywatch,” but the beach-based drama did indeed venture into the world of sci-fi and fantasy. This unexpected excursion wasn’t confined to a single experimental episode or a Halloween special, either. An entire season of a largely forgotten “Baywatch” spin-off abandoned the original series’ down-to-earth tone in favor of stories about witches, time travel, and terrors from the deep. What made the change of tone from the original series even stranger was the fact that the first season of the spin-off never featured so much as a hint of any supernatural presence.

“Baywatch Nights” first aired in 1995 and ran for just two seasons. Before things got strange in the second season, the series originally followed Gregory Alan Williams as Sgt. Garner Ellerbee, the police officer featured in the original “Baywatch,” as a midlife crisis led him to quit the police force and set up a detective agency. The series also marked the return of David Hasselhoff as “Baywatch’s” Mitch Buchannon, joining forces with Ellerbee in his crime-fighting adventures.

After the first season of “Baywatch Nights” proved a ratings disappointment, some major changes were made in Season 2. Ellerbee was replaced by Dorian Gregory as Diamont Teague, an expert in the paranormal, as the series’ producers looked to the success of “The X-Files” for a way to inject new life into the “Baywatch” spin-off. The result was one of the 1990s’ biggest genre shifts.

After a first season in which Garner Ellerbee (Gregory Alan Williams) and Mitch Buchannon (David Hasselhoff) investigated kidnappings, corporate embezzlement, and murder cases, Season 2 of “Baywatch Nights” immediately pitted Buchannon and new partner Diamont Teague against a sea monster. After a season of detective mysteries based on a drama about lifeguards, the second season of “Baywatch Nights” veered into seriously unexpected sci-fi territory.

The first three threats faced by Buchannon on “Baywatch Nights” Season 2 were all sea monsters of some description, which at least offered a little nod to his lifeguarding experience. Beyond this, though, he found himself up against witches, aliens, two reanimated Vikings, and a time-traveling log cabin.

Buchannon never seemed to fully settle into his new paranormal role on “Baywatch Nights.” In the episode “The Servant,” he faced off against an Egyptian mummy brought back to life, while staunchly refusing to believe his foe was genuinely undead. That would have been a perfectly reasonable response, had he not spent the previous two weeks traveling to a parallel universe and then fighting a werewolf.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the sudden swerve into the realms of sci-fi and the supernatural did not help “Baywatch Nights.” The series was canceled after its second season and has largely been forgotten, while the original “Baywatch” remains iconic. However, the sheer strangeness of this sci-fi “Baywatch” spin-off is reason enough for any fan to revisit it with fresh eyes today.