“Back in the day if u did a tv show called surf dracula you’d see that fool surfing every week in new adventures,” a famous viral tweet posits. “But in the streaming era the entire 1st season gotta be a long ass flashback to how he got the surfboard until you finally get to see him surf for 5 min in the finale.”
“Surf Dracula” comes to mind while watching “Rescue Hi-Surf,” not just because of the subject matter, but because there’s a surf rescue in the first five minutes of Fox’s Hawaii-set action series. “Rescue Hi-Surf” is an old school broadcast drama that values efficiency and immediacy in its storytelling. It delivers what its title promises before the pilot’s opening credits roll.
The series hails from creator and showrunner Matt Kester and executive producer John Wells, who directs the first two episodes and gives it a…
