Entertainment
David Hasselhoff Battles Aliens In An Insane Sci-Fi Spin-Off You Won't Believe Is Real
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
For one glorious moment in time, Baywatch was the most-watched show on the planet, turning Pamela Anderson, Yasmine Bleeth, and Carmen Electra into stars, but even those three paled compared to the popularity of David Hasselhoff. The star of Knight Rider found the perfect role for his second act as Mitch Buchannon, a veteran lifeguard who often said it was the only job he ever had, but secretly wanted to be a detective.
Baywatch Nights, the 1995 spin-off, let Mitch live his dream as a detective straight out of a 1930s pulp novel, solving murders, finding missing people, battling sea monsters, uncovering an alien conspiracy, exploring a parallel dimension, and even going 20 years into the future. Baywatch Nights is a bizarre fever dream that would never, ever get made today.
Baywatch Nights Is The Strangest Spinoff In TV History
Baywatch Nights is really two shows: the noir crime thriller of Season 1 and the X-Files knockoff it became in Season 2. Hasselhoff’s Mitch wasn’t the only familiar face. Garner Ellerbee (Gregory Allan Williams), the police officer from Baywatch since the beginning, established a private detective agency and brought in his buddy Mitch to help him, alongside Detective Ryan McBride (Angie Harmon’s debut, known today for Law & Order and Rizzoli and Isles). Legendary musician Lou Rawls not only played the owner of the nightclub that housed the new detective agency, but also performed the opening song, “After the Sun Comes Down,” which played over the opening montage of mostly daylit scenes.
Right away, fans were incredibly confused when the opening montage had Mitch running in his Baywatch red trunks and then fading in wearing a white Miami Vice-style suit. In 1995. Multiple shots of Hasselhoff behind a car were supposed to remind fans of his time on Knight Rider, but it had nothing in common with the campy, light-hearted show it was spinning off from. Faced with cratering ratings as the first season went on, the studio, The Baywatch Company, retooled into a monster-of-the-week format even further removed from the original beachside drama.
From Noir Detective To Paranormal Investigator
Season 2 of Baywatch Nights is one of the worst shows to ever make it to air. Or one of the best, in practice, this was close to a 90’s version of Kolchak the Nightstalker. There was no myth arc, no character development, and no real point to the series other than that X-Files was exploding in popularity. The lack of commitment went all the way down to keeping Mitch as a character on Baywatch, making him a lifeguard by day and a paranormal investigator by night.
Episode 4, “Strike” starts off with Mitch saving a young man from drowning when a strange lightning strike causes the two to start sharing their feelings. Spoiler: he’s an alien, and instead of letting himself be captured by the government, he chooses to go back to his home planet. There’s no ambiguity. There’s a bright, white light, and he fades from sight as he teleports back home. Again, this is a Baywatch spin-off. With aliens.
A later episode is somehow even stranger: Episode 13, “Frozen Out of Time,” pits Mitch against Vikings, and, of course, it ends with David Hasselhoff getting into a sword fight with a broom. Four episodes later, and the team is hunting down a werewolf. At the same time these episodes are airing, Hasselhoff is still playing Mitch on Baywatch, and somehow the topic of aliens is real, and vampires, and werewolves, and yes, even mummies, never comes up. You’d think “I’m friends with an alien” would make great water cooler conversation at work.
Baywatch Nights falls solidly into the “so bad it’s good” category. There’s no question that at the time, it was a massive flop and one of the least successful spin-offs of all time. Describing it today will make people question your sanity, and yet, there are more episodes of Baywatch Nights than there is Stranger Things.
Entertainment
New rules for the Oscars: AI actors are out of the race
The Academy won’t be handing over the golden statuette to robots anytime soon.
In new rules announced May 1, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has ruled that AI performances are not eligible for an Oscar. Filmmakers can still utilize AI tools in their submitted works, but only human actors and human-authored screenplays will be considered for the body’s highest honors.
The move aligns with AI agreements won during the 2023 Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) and SAG-AFTRA strikes and addresses growing tension over the presence of generative AI tools across artistic industries.
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For example, a recent trailer for the upcoming historical adventure film As Deep as the Grave, featuring an entirely AI-generated recreation of the late Val Kilmer, caused widespread furor among fans who recoiled at the on-screen digital likeness. Prior to his death, Kilmer created an AI version of his speaking voice with UK tech company Sonantic. Other celebrities, like Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine, have worked with AI company ElevenLabs to clone their voices, as well.
But while some celebs are getting ahead of their AI counterparts, others are fighting back against nonconsensual deepfakes writ large. Pop star Taylor Swift recently filed for trademark of her voice and image — including the phrase “Hey, it’s Taylor.” — amid a surge of synthetic AI likenesses of her proliferating across the internet, including ones used in data phishing scams.
The Academy announced additional rule changes for international film and acting categories, generating buzz online after several contentious Oscar campaign races in recent years. For non-English films, a country can now have multiple nominated entries instead of the previous limit of one. Similarly, actors can receive multiple nominations in the same category if their performances rank in the top five.
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Artificial Intelligence
Oscars
Entertainment
Instagram will stop recommending accounts that dont post original content
Serial Instagram reuploaders are about to be hit hard in the algorithm, as the platform announces new content ranking guidelines intended to boost original content creators.
Accounts that primarily aggregate content or repost others’ content without meaningful alterations or additions won’t be recommended to other users, Instagram explained in a recent Creators blog post. The platform announced the same algorithmic guidelines for Reels uploads in 2024. Now they’ll apply to photos and carousel posts, too.
“Original content” is defined as “work that you wholly created or reflects your unique perspective,” Instagram explains. That includes original photos and designs, as well as third-party content that is materially edited by the user. “Some examples include adding unique text on the content itself that provides more context than just describing what’s happening, adding creative graphics that offer new information, or using our remix feature to transform the original,” the blog post reads.
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The platform recommends that accounts that frequently reshare content share other users’ posts to their stories, use the repost button, or enable collab posts to avoid being marked ineligible.
Aggregator accounts that are marked ineligible for recommendations under the new guidelines can regain their place in the feed by pivoting to original posts. Instagram says “most” of an account’s posts, carousels, and reels need to feature original content over a 30-day period to have the decision reversed. Users can also remove unoriginal content and appeal the decision.
Entertainment
Apple discontinues cheaper Mac Mini, now $799
Apple just axed its cheapest Mac Mini option, a compact 256GB desktop brain that previously cost Apple shoppers just $599.
First reported by MacRumors, the tech giant’s new lineup starts with the Mac Mini at the company’s $799, 512GB option. The more expensive model runs on Apple’s M4 chip and offers 16GB of RAM, just like the $599 model, but with twice the storage.
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Last week, Apple paused orders of the then sold-out 256GB Mac Mini, hinting at a lineup change. Apple CEO Tim Cook — who recently announced his departure from the company after 14 years — said on a recent earnings call that Mac Mini supply was currently constrained under global manufacturing squeezes and that meeting existing demand may be difficult. Tech companies and AI enthusiasts are weathering a global memory chip shortage, which is expected to worsen over the next year.
Cook himself attributed an increase in Mac Mini orders to the device’s AI capabilities, with the Mac Mini now advertised for its Apple Intelligence processing power. Users have flocked to the portable computer amid a surge in interest in agentic AI after the launch of the open-source AI agent framework OpenClaw (previously known as both Moltbot and Clawdebot).
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