Baywatch Nights: Trying to scare up new viewers via the paranormal bandwagon. Bizarro Baywatch From the Files of Fortean Slips by D. Trull Enigma Editor dtrull@parascope.com It's been said infinite times before, but the truth always bears repeating: television programming executives are drool-spewing morons of the lowest order. Case in point: "Baywatch." The series began on NBC, where it ran for a season or two before the Peacock pinheads pulled the plug on Mitch Baywatch and his swimsuited buddies. Like a mush-brained Lazarus, "Baywatch" was reincarnated in syndication and thereby became the world's single most successful TV show in all of recorded history. As is inevitable for such a powerhouse franchise, it has sired a spinoff, "Baywatch Nights," which, in the tradition of the original, is off to a shaky start ratings-wise. This time around they're not canceling the show, but they are giving it a major overhaul. You might call it an "X"-post facto revision. Whether you "want to believe" it or not, the show's producers are hoping to scare up more viewers by pitting David Hasselhoff against beachcombing ghosts and ghoulies. The idea behind "Baywatch Nights," in its current form, is that Mitch Baywatch (yeah, I know, that's not the character's name, but Dave Letterman says it is) hangs out with an entirely different bunch of friends after the sun goes down, and together they fight crime fully-clothed. Or something. Now, anybody can see that the show's producers made a big mistake. "Baywatch" without bikinis and boobs is as unthinkably reprehensible as "Knight Rider" without KITT. No wonder I never heard of this show before. I just watched it for the first time, and it's nothing but a watered-down "Miami Vice" that induces more drowsiness than a triple-dose of Melatonin. There's loads of room for improvement, you betcha. So this coming season, the formerly humdrum "Baywatch Nights" landscape will be crawling with vampires and sea serpents and goatsuckers on a weekly basis. But will the paranormal bandwagon really abduct "Baywatch Nights" to the top of the Nielsens? David Hasselhoff, for one, is enthusiastic about boldly going where no lifeguard has gone before. "I was unhappy with the direction we were taking and I was ready to walk," the star reveals. "When I first heard [about the change], I thought, 'Oh, my God, everybody is going to compare us to "The X-Files."' ... We're going to get pretty well beat up but I've been beat up before." There, that's the spirit. Genre-hopping isn't a very wise way to court viewers, but these guys have nothing to lose. Some other ailing shows might benefit from a similar gambit. Murphy Brown could get transferred to a Roswell TV station, and Urkel could finally return to his home planet. They'll need all the help they can get this fall, going up against "Millennium," "Dark Skies," "Dan Aykroyd's PSI Factor" -- complete market saturation, but there's big bucks to be made from this paranormal paranoia the kids today are so crazy about. Come to think of it, maybe it's not such a huge leap from "Baywatch" to "Greywatch," after all. That Pamela Anderson Lee always looked like some kind of alien to me. (c) Copyright 1996 ParaScope, Inc. Next: Mr. Crowley's Neighborhood Fortean Slips Index What do you think? Tell us in the message boards!