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There are certain television shows that are almost impossible to separate from the era they came from, and Baywatch might be one of the best examples.
The red swimsuits. The California beaches. The slow-motion running. The music. The ridiculously attractive cast. The rescues that sometimes felt like they belonged in an action movie. And, underneath all of that, a surprisingly simple show about a group of lifeguards who worked together, dated each other, fought with each other and occasionally had to save somebody from drowning.
Now, more than 25 years after the original series ended, Baywatch is coming back to television.
FOX is officially bringing the franchise back in January 2027, with a new 12-episode series that appears to be making a genuine effort to capture some of what made the original work rather than completely reinventing it.
And honestly, that might be the smartest approach.
Baywatch Was Never Really Just About Lifeguards
The original Baywatch premiered in 1989, and its beginnings weren’t nearly as glamorous as its eventual reputation would suggest. The show was actually canceled by NBC after its first season before being revived in syndication.
That decision ended up creating one of television’s strangest success stories.
Baywatch became an international phenomenon. FOX and Fremantle say the series eventually aired in more than 200 countries and, at its height, reached more than a billion viewers per week. Reuters notes that it even earned recognition as the world’s most-viewed weekly television series during the 1990s.
Those numbers almost sound ridiculous today.
The show turned David Hasselhoff into an international television star, while names like Pamela Anderson, Yasmine Bleeth, Carmen Electra, Nicole Eggert and eventually a young Jason Momoa became part of the Baywatch universe.
But reducing Baywatch to attractive people running down a beach doesn’t really explain why people kept watching it.
That was obviously part of the appeal. Baywatch knew exactly what it was selling visually and wasn’t particularly shy about it. But there was also something strangely comfortable about the show.
You had friendships, romances, breakups, rivalries and personal problems mixed together with rescues and whatever bizarre situation the writers came up with that week. Sometimes it was serious. Sometimes it was cheesy. Sometimes it was completely ridiculous.
And somehow that combination worked.
Then Hollywood Tried Baywatch as a Movie
Of course, a recognizable name eventually gets another shot in Hollywood.
In 2017, Baywatch was turned into a theatrical movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron, with Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Priyanka Chopra and Jon Bass rounding out the main cast.
Instead of trying to recreate the tone of the television series, the movie leaned heavily into being an R-rated action comedy.
Financially, it wasn’t a complete disaster. The movie made approximately $176 million worldwide against a reported $60 million production budget, with about $58 million coming from the United States and roughly $118 million internationally.
Critically, though, things weren’t nearly as positive. Rotten Tomatoes’ critical consensus argued that the movie increased the raunchiness of the original without capturing much of its campy charm, while Metacritic recorded generally unfavorable reviews.
That’s probably the biggest lesson the new television series can take from the movie.
Baywatch doesn’t necessarily need to make fun of Baywatch.
The original was already ridiculous enough on its own.
There was always some campiness to it, but the characters generally treated what was happening seriously. That weird sincerity was part of its charm. You could have an emotional relationship storyline, a dramatic ocean rescue and somebody running down the beach in slow motion within the same episode, and nobody needed to turn toward the camera and acknowledge how silly it was.
FOX Is Going Back to the Beach
The new series is being produced by FOX Entertainment and Fremantle, with Matt Nix, best known for creating Burn Notice, serving as showrunner.
More importantly for longtime fans, original Baywatch creators Michael Berk, Greg Bonann and Doug Schwartz are involved as executive producers. McG, whose credits include Charlie’s Angels, directed the premiere and is also an executive producer.
FOX isn’t hiding what it wants this version to be, either.
The network has specifically talked about bringing back the rescues, relationships, chemistry and beachside drama of the original while placing those ideas into a modern Southern California setting.
That’s encouraging because Baywatch probably doesn’t need some dramatic, gritty reinvention.
It needs the beach.
It needs beautiful scenery.
It needs attractive people.
It needs relationships and drama.
And most importantly, it needs to be fun.
There’s Actually a Connection to the Original
One of the more interesting decisions is that this isn’t a complete continuity reset.
Stephen Amell is playing an older Hobie Buchannon, the son of David Hasselhoff’s legendary Mitch Buchannon. Hobie is now a Baywatch captain himself, essentially following his father’s path.
His life gets more complicated when his daughter, Charlie Vale, played by Jessica Belkin, arrives wanting to become part of the Buchannon lifeguard tradition herself.
That gives the new show something a lot of reboots don’t have: a pretty natural reason to exist.
Instead of simply introducing another guy named Mitch Buchannon and pretending the previous show never happened, Baywatch can move forward while acknowledging its history.
The main cast also includes Shay Mitchell as Trina, Hassie Harrison as Nat, Thaddeus LaGrone as Brad, Noah Beck as Luke and Brooks Nader as Selene. Livvy Dunne will appear in a recurring role as Grace.
And the connections don’t stop with Hobie.
David Chokachi is returning as Cody Madison, while Michael Bergin and Kelly Packard are also scheduled to reprise their original roles as J.D. Darius and April Giminski.
That feels like a better use of nostalgia than simply loading every episode with cameos.
Let the old characters exist in this world, but allow the new cast to eventually make the show their own.
Can Baywatch Still Work in 2027?
That’s the real question.
Television has changed enormously since Baywatch was at its peak.
The original existed during an era when syndicated television could reach gigantic audiences around the world. Today viewers are divided between broadcast television, cable, YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video and countless other streaming platforms.
Interestingly, the new Baywatch will also have a substantial international streaming presence. Fremantle announced that Prime Video will carry the series in numerous international territories in 2027, alongside the original Baywatch library.
But Baywatch also has something working in its favor.
It is incredibly easy to understand.
You don’t need to watch six seasons or understand some enormous mythology. It’s Southern California, lifeguards, ocean rescues, attractive people, relationships and drama.
That’s Baywatch.
And there might actually be room for something like that again.
A lot of modern television tries very hard to be dark, complicated or self-aware. Baywatch was never afraid of simply being entertaining. It could occasionally tackle serious subjects, but it was also perfectly comfortable being escapist television.
The biggest mistake FOX could probably make would be becoming embarrassed by that.
Recapturing the Beauty of the Original
When people remember Baywatch, they’re remembering more than Pamela Anderson running in slow motion.
They’re remembering the entire look and atmosphere.
Blue water stretching across the screen. California sunsets. Lifeguard towers. Beaches packed with people. Jet skis cutting through the ocean. Bright red swimsuits against the sand.
There was an almost postcard-like quality to the show.
FOX clearly understands that nostalgia is part of the attraction here. Even the huge open casting call for the revival attracted around 2,000 hopefuls to Marina del Rey, many arriving in red swimwear that immediately recalled the original series.
The challenge will be recreating that atmosphere without making the series feel like someone doing a 1990s impression.
Modern cameras can make the coastline look incredible. Bigger production budgets can create more elaborate rescues. The new series reportedly intends to increase the scale of the action considerably, while members of the cast have also talked about the new show having more emotional depth in its relationships.
That’s fine.
Just don’t polish Baywatch so much that it stops feeling like Baywatch.
A Strange Second Chance
There is something fitting about Baywatch getting another chance on television.
This is a franchise that became famous because television gave it a second chance in the first place.
NBC canceled it.
Syndication resurrected it.
Then somehow this relatively straightforward show about California lifeguards became one of the biggest television programs on the planet.
The 2017 movie proved that simply putting the Baywatch name on something isn’t enough. It had recognizable stars, a major studio release and plenty of publicity, but the reaction showed how difficult it can be to recreate the strange charm of the original.
The FOX series gets to try again.
Maybe it’ll work. Maybe Baywatch really was something that could only have happened during that particular period of the ’90s.
But there is something appealing about the idea of turning on the television in 2027 and seeing the ocean, the lifeguard towers, the red swimsuits and another generation of ridiculously good-looking people sprinting across a California beach in slow motion.
Sometimes television doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.
