A young woman in an orange ball cap and an embroidered denim jacket walks up to a lifeguard in a red suit and asks, “Hi, are you with Baywatch?” The answer comes back with a grin, “The one and only,” and when she says she is looking for the captain, the reply, “Oh, you’re looking for Hobie Buchannon,” cuts straight to Hobie Buchannon (Stephen Amell), shirtless on a lifeguard station deck and squinting out at the water. Fox released the full trailer for its “Baywatch” reboot on Tuesday, October 13th, and at just over three minutes it has room to show the whole machine running at once. The series premieres in January on Fox, with episodes streaming the next day on Hulu, though Fox has not named a date yet.
Fox calls Hobie a “wild-child legacy character,” the son of Mitch Buchannon, the head lifeguard David Hasselhoff played in the original, now grown up and serving as a Baywatch Captain himself. Jeremy Jackson played the younger Hobie on the original series. The engine of the new show is Charlie Vale (Jessica Belkin), the daughter Hobie never knew, who turns up on his doorstep wanting to carry on the Buchannon family legacy. Around them is a team of Hassie Harrison as Nat, Shay Mitchell as Trina, Thaddeus LaGrone as Brad, Noah Beck as Luke and Brooks Nader as Selene, with Livvy Dunne making her acting debut in a recurring role as Grace. Matt Nix, whose credits include “Burn Notice,” runs the show, McG directed the premiere, and Fox Entertainment and Fremantle co-produce. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for “Baywatch” and for everything shown in the reboot’s first full trailer.
Fox released the full trailer for its “Baywatch” reboot on Tuesday, October 13th, and at just over three minutes it has room to show the whole machine running at once.”
The first rescue arrives fast. A small plane towing an advertising banner flies straight into a yellow parasail carrying two women, and one of them screams as she drops toward the ocean. Hobie grabs a radio on the tower deck, then charges down the stairs with a rescue can. The plane, still tangled in yellow fabric, goes into the water. After a card reading “This January,” the rest of the team scrambles. A blonde lifeguard in a red jacket runs down a pier with a phone at her ear as someone reports the Coast Guard is inbound for support, another vaults off the railing of tower 12, and a dark-haired lifeguard lands in a crouch on the sand.
Cards spelling out “The Return Of The Most Popular Show In Television History” are cut between shots of the plane sinking and five lifeguards running in slow motion from the headquarters tower into the surf, red cans in hand. The Hollywood Reporter notes that the trailer is set to “I’m Always Here,” the original show’s theme song. A rescue boat tears across the water, and a lifeguard dives down to the plane where it rests on the seabed and hauls at it. Back on shore, the pilot lies on the sand with defibrillator pads on his chest. Hobie leans over him and says, “Welcome back,” and a dark-haired lifeguard smiles down beside him.
The story half of the trailer starts after sunset. Charlie turns up at a door at night, Hobie answers with “Can I help you?” and she lays it out for him: “Biological daughter, any of that ring a bell?” Over shots of her in a locker room, holding up a red lifeguard suit, the follow-up lands, “I’m not looking for money or a father. Just need a job.” Hobie, sitting in an office lined with binders, says he has been “dreaming of a relationship with my daughter, but I’m worried about her out there.” Charlie, in a pink top, gives the answer the whole series seems to be built on: “Saving people is my purpose.”
The smartest shot in the trailer is a prop. A plaque wall headed “Wall of Heroes, Baywatch Venice Beach” ranks the lifeguards with the most saves, with Mitch Buchannon on top at 263, Greg Bonann, one of the reboot’s executive producers, second at 198, and Hobie’s own name written in chalk at 135. Further down sit plates for Shauni McClain, C.J. Parker and April Giminski, names any fan of the original will know on sight. Over the wall and a packed briefing room, a voice lays out the job, “To be a Baywatch lifeguard, you have to be the best of the best because it’s our responsibility to protect the people of this city, no matter the cost.” The scene ends on Hobie at the front of the room telling everyone, “Get to work.”
Then the trailer turns into a soap, full of the “tangled relationships” Fox promises. On the beach, a blonde lifeguard who appears to be Charlie tells a young lifeguard, “I’m focused on lifeguarding right now,” he asks, “I’m a distraction?” and she answers, “I think you’re trying to be.” Charlie walks out of headquarters in the red suit, a lifeguard with dark curly hair asks, “You the new girl?” and she answers, “Hi. Yeah, I’m Charlie.” Cards reading “Same Beach” and “New Blood” lead into two lifeguards washing a red Baywatch truck, a quick shot of three lifeguards posing around a woman in an orange bikini, which looks like the Megan Thee Stallion cameo Variety and Polygon both flagged, a kiss in a gym and a crowded bar. There, a man in a palm-print shirt throws his arms wide, and TVLine pictures him as Cody Madison (David Chokachi), one of the lifeguards from the original.
The final minute is pure escalation. Someone tears along the sand on an ATV, Hobie roars at the camera, a lifeguard vaults the hood of a moving SUV, and a lifeguard tower explodes on the beach. At night Hobie, hands raised, shouts, “What the hell were you thinking?” and the trailer cuts to Charlie, looking stricken. A Coast Guard helicopter hovers over two rescuers in open water, a marina erupts in flames, and a bar brawl breaks out. A blonde in a red suit warns, “Get your beach in order, Buchannon, or I will,” then a wildfire climbs the hills above the coast and a lifeguard leaps from a burning boat. The trailer closes on a woman in red asking Hobie, “Best job in the world?” and him answering, “Best job in the world,” before the words “Coming January” fill the screen.
The returning faces are the part longtime fans will care about most. Chokachi recurs as Cody, a role he played from 1995 to 1999, while Erika Eleniak comes back as Shauni McClain and Michael Bergin and Kelly Packard return as J.D. Darius and April Giminski, all three as guest stars. Variety reported that Shauni is now a Santa Monica city councilwoman who helps Hobie kick off the annual “Beach Games” between Baywatch and the Coast Guard. Deadline reported that J.D. and April were in Hobie’s rookie class. Mary McDonnell, who starred in “Battlestar Galactica,” recurs as Gayle, Hobie’s mother, a part TVLine notes Wendie Malick played on the original.
Fox ordered 12 episodes in September 2025, and the history it is trading on is real. The original premiered in 1989 and became the most-watched show in the world, airing in more than 200 countries, while the 2017 film with Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron played it as a comedy and landed with a thud. At a MIPCOM panel in Cannes, Amell said putting on the red trunks felt familiar “because it’s a superhero show,” as Variety reported. Fox president Michael Thorne said the team “tried to capture the heart and the humanity, the juicy soap” while going bigger on the rescues. That might be the right instinct, since this trailer is sincere where the film was smirking, but three minutes of explosions leave the question of whether anything smaller can breathe.
What Do You Think? Does a father and daughter story give the new “Baywatch” enough heart to carry all the explosions, or will the rescues end up doing the heavy lifting? Which of the returning lifeguards, Cody, Shauni, J.D. or April, do you most want to see back on the sand? And after the 2017 film, is playing it straight the right call, or does a show this famous for slow motion need a wink?
See you on the next binge!
