Country singer Jesse Lee Harris (Ricky Van Shelton) returns to help Logan and the Baywatch lifeguards raise money to save a ranch dedicated to protecting horses from being sold to slaughter. Meanwhile, Mitch’s vacation in Baja with his new girlfriend turns deadly when Mitch witnesses an attempted murder.
Logan has been spending much of his free time working with Carmen Masters, a Malibu horse rancher who has dedicated her life to saving horses from being sold for human consumption. However, Carmen has been having trouble paying the mortgage on her ranch, and now, the bank has foreclosed on the property. As a result, all the horses on Carmen’s ranch will be trucked off to Texas and sold unless $50,000 can be raised over the weekend. Logan is devastated by this news, and turns to his fellow lifeguards for help. Country singer Jesse Lee Harris, who is in town for an important recording session, just happens to be visiting CJ at Baywatch headquarters and overhears Logan’s plea. Smiling, he tells Logan he needs to make a phone call.
Later that day, Jesse Lee Harris has good news. He will perform a benefit concert on the beach to raise the $50,000 necessary to save Carmen’s ranch. However, it is still a risky proposition. Jesse is giving up the lucrative recording session which could revive his career, and since the concert will be held the next day, it’s up to the Baywatch lifeguards to get out the word as quickly as possible or risk losing Carmen’s ranch anyway.
Mitch is worn out from burning the candle at both ends, being a lifeguard by day and a P.I. by night. He decides to take a weekend off and spend it relaxing in Baja with his new girlfriend, Shelby. However, late in the day while on the beach roasting marshmallows, Mitch and Shelby hear screams coming from a boat offshore. As they powerstroke out, Mitch notices that the man on the boat is doing nothing to help the woman who is drowning. When the man sees Mitch and Shelby approaching, he suddenly starts acting frantic and tries to do what he can to save her. Mitch and Shelby get her back to shore and revive her, but Mitch suspects the drowning was not accidental. Mitch’s fears are confirmed when he threatens to contact the authorities. Now, the situation turns into a deadly race for justice as the man will stop at nothing to keep Mitch and Shelby from telling the truth.
Baywatch Airs Ground-Breaking Episode on the Gruesome Fate of Unwanted Horses in America
The Show has Teamed Up with Animal Protection Organization, The Ark Trust, Inc., to Raise Awareness of “America’s Shame.”
LOS ANGELES – February 1, 1996 – Baywatch, the syndicated show with an audience of one billion viewers worldwide, will be the first television series to devote an episode to the gruesome and little-known fate of unwanted horses in America. The show will air during the week of February 5 – 11 (airing in various markets on different nights). At its conclusion, a Public Service Announcement by Pamela Lee and David Chokachi will carry the phone number — 1-900-454-HORSE – which viewers can call (beginning Feb. 5) to learn how to stop this heinous industry.
Producer/Executive Story Editor Deborah Schwartz created a compelling and compassionate script about an equine sanctuary in danger of closing and losing its horses to the overseas horsemeat industry if it doesn’t come up with the necessary funding. The script was inspired by real life: Just over a year ago, the cast and crew of Baywatch contributed funds to help The Ark Trust – a Sherman Oaks, California-based animal protection group – rescue a herd of horses who were slaughter-bound.
“These majestic animals should not be trucked hundreds of miles out-of-state to end their lives in the misery and fear of a slaughterhouse,” says Schwartz. “As a society, we would never allow our beloved companion dogs and cats to end up on dinner plates overseas. We can no longer permit it to happen to our companion horses.”
Each year, an estimated 400,000 American horses are brutally slaughtered and exported for human consumption. Ex-racehorses too broken down to win and former pleasure horses now unwanted are beaten and prodded onto cramped, double-decker cattle trucks; transported long distances to slaughterhouses without food, water or rest; mercilessly slaughtered with one or more shots of a captive-bolt pistol to the brain, and the bled and butchered – all to satisfy the taste for horse flesh in Europe, Japan, and Mexico.
Says actress and animal rights activist, Gretchen Wyler, President of The Ark Trust and a consultant on the script: “We are deeply touched that the people at Baywatch cared enough to want to tell this important story. It’s a shameful industry and we hope Baywatch viewers will help us stop it.”
SERIES REGULARS:
MITCH BUCHANNON: DAVID HASSELHOFF
CJ PARKER: PAMELA LEE
LOGAN FOWLER: JAASON SIMMONS
CODY MADISON: DAVID CHOKACHI
GUEST STARS:
JESSE LEE HARRIS: RICKY VAN SHELTON
SHELBY: ROCHELLE SWANSON
CARMEN MASTERS: SANDRA LAFFERTY
DAMON SINCLAIR: DANIEL QUINN
DEBRA SINCLAIR: LISA BOYLE.
