Customer Reviews

Baywatch: Rescued from Prime Time : the Official, Behind-the-Scenes Story of the World's Most Popular TV Show

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Why does this book still appear to be available? I've had it on order through several bookstores since May 1999, but it doesn't seem to exist. It looked to be an interesting, informative, and maybe humorous book on Baywatch-a popular TV program which may be in its final season. I looked forward to reading this phantom book and am disappointed that it hasn't been published.

A friend of mine gave me this book. (He knows I'm a big fan of Alexandra Paul - she was a Baywatch star - in my opinion she's much sexier than Pamela Anderson.) Anyway, I figured this would just be a fluff piece - a few paragraphs to fill in the space between all the pictures (which are excellent, by the way). To my surprise, I found the book to be quite interesting. Basically it's one guy's story - how he thought up the idea for Baywatch - how he spent years trying to get someone interested - how he fought to get the show back on the air after it was canceled by NBC. I found the story to be downright exciting. Overall, I think you don't need to be a Baywatch fan to enjoy the book - it's a good read.

Baywatch isn't Shakespear but then again neither is 99.99% of the stuff on TV. Nonetheless, my kids and I enjoy watching the show, and I really enjoyed reading the book. The author - the same guy who created the show - takes the reader through the process of getting Baywatch on the air - first at NBC and then on syndicated TV. I was truly impressed by the sheer amount of work this guy did to make it a success. Clearly he has a work ethic that most of us mere mortals can only envy. And if anyone is interested in a how-to for creating their own TV series, you could get a lot of good ideas from this book.

I can tell that whoever wrote the scripts did not write the book. Actually I have read Assault on Lake Casitas by Brad Alan Lewis. Rescued from Prime Time definitely exhibits his intelligent writing style. What is he doing associating himself with Baywatch? I guess this is one way to bring a little class to this old, cliched TV series. By the way, the Baywatch book is pretty interesting.

No one is ever going to remember "Baywatch" as a well-written or well-acted TV series (and I should know, I once "wrote" for it, and I use that term loosely). What the public will remember are the bodies, and what the TV industry will remember is the miraculous, ingenius, and ground-breaking resurrection of the canceled show into a world-wide success. If you can get past the painfully self-congratulatory nature of the book towards the author, the producers, and the show itself, you are left with a rare, detailed, inside look at how to finance and produce a TV series for an international market. That story alone is well-worth the cover price and sets it far apart from other books of its kind. Greg Bonann is a candid, knowledgeable, congenial, and enthusiastic guide through the world of television production, international financing, and domestic syndication... and if you can endure his frequent, self-indulgent lapses into egotism and hype, you'll actually learn some fascinating stuff.

If I was drowning I would not want the author of this pitiful book to rescue me. He would pobably have photographers waiting to take his picture to make himself out as a hero, then drop me face first in the sand. I'm sure there were a lot of talented people involved with making Baywatch the phenomenal international success it became. But if this author is to be believed he did it alone in spite of everyone else's lack of talent. This man's ego is large enough to float that sunken Russian sub to the surface all by itself.

My advise is to pass on buying this book unless you want to be another air bubble pumped into the swelled head of a hack writer.

No one is ever going to remember "Baywatch" as a well-written or well-acted TV series (and I should know, I once "wrote" for it, and I use that term loosely). What the public will remember are the bodies, and what the TV industry will remember is the miraculous, ingenius, and ground-breaking resurrection of the canceled show into a world-wide success. If you can get past the painfully self-congratulatory nature of the book towards the author, the producers, and the show itself, you are left with a rare, detailed, inside look at how to finance and produce a TV series for an international market. That story alone is well-worth the cover price and sets it far apart from other books of its kind. Greg Bonann is a candid, knowledgeable, congenial, and enthusiastic guide through the world of television production, international financing, and domestic syndication... and if you can endure his frequent, self-indulgent lapses into egotism and hype, you'll actually learn some fascinating stuff.