Season 4 Episode 3 "Lover's Cove"

Mitch (David Hasselhoff)'s preteen-aged son, Hobie, falls in love with a girl who he is told is from Portland, and visiting Malibu as part of the "junior lifeguard exchange program." Of course that's ridiculous and, characteristically, the show only sees fit to insult your intelligence occasionally and in short bursts. As such, we find the little girl is actually terminally ill and, through the Make A Wish Foundation, is fulfilling a lifelong dream. That dream? To save someone's life. Ahhhh, see? Uh huh.  

Full disclosure: most scenes not insulting your intelligence are montages of beach life. Moving on.
 
So Hobie ends up saving her life first, for which she becomes determined to return the favor. All the while two totally incongruous relationships have suddenly formed; one between lifeguards and "best friends" Summer and Matt (or is it Craig? The actor was on this and Melrose Place. No wait, the Craig from Baywatch left after season 1. He was cool though.), and Mitch and Summer's mom Jackie, the worst actress on the show. These sudden romantic entanglements are constructs of only this episode, serve only to fill one montage and make Mitch sympathetic to Hobie's hormonal dilemma, respectively, and end as jarringly as the obtuse exposition scenes would have us believe they began.

CJ (Pamela Anderson) is not featured except in (hilarious 90's) street clothes talking whimsically about love and the "legend of Lover's Cove" (which is not a real legend or place): that a church on the hillside rings its bells and if you are to kiss someone during said cacophony, you will remain amorously entangled "forever". Hobie overhears this and, convincing the girl to go along, they somehow manage to procure a Baywatch wave-runner and find themselves in an awkward, tight-lipped little kid kiss.

So enthralled is he by this experience that Hobie leaps into the sea, whereupon he is promptly stung by a jellyfish, necessitating rescue. Of course, the actual life-saving professionals have noticed their absence, CJ has used her keen mental skills to ascertain the likelihood of their absconding to Lover's Cove, and are already on the way. So the little girl, who we learned earlier shouldn't be swimming at all, who was allowed by The Make A Wish Foundation to train for less than 5 minutes as a junior lifeguard, saves the life of a drowning main character. They're both exceedingly happy (presumably they know their having a harrowing adventure will excuse them from any kind of disciplinary action, because apparently it does) and quickly the scene wraps itself up.

Afterwords Mitch, deciding he should have been straight from the beginning, tells Hobie about the little girl's condition (it's worsened, big surprise) and that she is to be returning to Portland that very night. Hobie and the girl are allowed one last moment together to say goodbye, have a heartfelt exchange and a second awkward kiss, and in doing so learn the adult lesson that memories last forever. I think?

There was no slow-motion cheesecake, random characters were in love for no reason, there were no sleazy rock tunes in the montages, and Hasselhoff didn't punch out a single scumbag. Whereas most episodes have the unmistakable hallmarks of a male writer, this one did not.