It was only a matter of time before Baywatch got the “ooh, look at the 90s!” documentary treatment. But the four-part After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun is a disappointment, because it seems stuck between two worlds: how can it take the astonishingly popular lifeguard melodrama seriously enough to examine it as a cultural object, while also acknowledging that, as a TV show, it remains best known for slow-motion running in skimpy beachwear and, for aficionados, a surfboard-stealing giant octopus in a cave?
The first episode does it no favours at all. Baywatch was many things – ridiculous, absurd, entertaining and a globe-conquering pop culture phenomenon – but this programme is so dry it is almost impressive. Baywatch was about “rescue, compassion and altruism”, we are told, and it came from “honest and altruistic roots”. It just so happened that everyone splashing through these massive waves of altruism was gorgeous and ripped. “You had to be pretty, else you weren’t going to be on the show,” explains Billy Warlock, who played Eddie Kramer in the early years.
