At Intolerant TV, we watch every new show on network television for the fall season—so you don’t have to. We don’t watch them for long, though. Instead of giving thumbs up/down or a certain number of stars, we let you know how long we were able to stand the pilot episode before turning it off.
It will be the biggest upset of the season if this show survives until the opening credits.
I first heard of Rescue: Hi-Surf when minor league baseball teams across the country wore special unforms with a Hulk Hogan color scheme
to raise awareness for the show in a Fox promotion this summer. At the time, it appeared to have been sold with the pitch: “Imagine Baywatch, but instead of David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson, we’re going to cast people no one has heard of.”
A little over a month later, not much seems to have changed. We open with establishing shots of the beach. There are waves. People are surfing. Still establishing. More waves. This appears to be a strategy to keep from getting the ax: You can’t criticize the dialogue or character development if we never get to it.
At last, we head to land and get shaky cam footage of the parking lot. A teenager heads toward the beach with his board … and his name is Reef. Because of course it is. His parents are dropping him off and telling him specifically when they’re going to pick him up … so clearly, Reef is going to die.
Now we shaky cam our way to the lifeguard tower. There’s a girl who looks a little like a 20-something Jennifer Love Hewitt, a Hawaiian (I’m guessing, but I also cheated and googled, so I wouldn’t get accidentally cancelled) and a poor man’s Bradley Cooper. An older guy who looks to be of Pacific Island descent joins them. He’s clearly the boss, but not-J-Love refers to him as boss for the slower viewers among us. He responds by calling her lieutenant, because that’s what you do when you’re making a pilot and can’t write well.
Not Bradley speaks and I kick myself for not predicting out loud that one of these people was going to be Australian, because, of course he is.
One of the surfers wipes out, and the people laying out on the beach react with an, “Ohhh!” And the people on the beach? Are all fully dressed, like with shirts on. So, is this an actual surf competition, and they’re the audience? I thought this was just a normal beach? And if it’s a competition, why is Reef, who has apparently never done this before, allowed to just walk out there and give it a try.
Two intimidating-looking surfers recognize that he’s a newbie and mansplain surfing to him (and the viewers) but Reef still wipes out badly.
The lifeguards, watching all this from their tower, then kind of saunter into action. They seem awfully laid back about their job. This show is exactly what I thought it would be. I’m sure the credits are coming up any second, but I’m ready to call it.
Time of death: 4 minutes (and I was generous. It should have died when the kid was named Reef.)
