‘Rescue HI-Surf’ Review: Fox’s Hawaii-Set Lifeguard Drama Struggles to Make a Splash

Never let it be said that Fox’s Rescue HI-Surf doesn’t try to deliver what’s expected of it. The action drama regularly metes out dangerous rescues of the lifeguarding variety, plunging deep into the Pacific or zipping around on a succession of jet skis. When its hard-bodied heroes aren’t saving each other’s necks or bickering over office politics, they’re dutifully making eyes at one another.

The series functions simultaneously as a safety warning (the currents around Oahu’s North Shore can be intense, apparently!) and a tourism ad (… but don’t they still look so pretty and fun to splash around in?). Most of all, it aims to execute on the dependable formula of life-and-death stakes plus interpersonal intrigue plus attractive stars. There’s only one problem: It’s just … not that fun.

As diligently as creator Matt Kester checks off all these narrative boxes, he struggles to shade them in with any specificity or originality. Across the four hours sent to critics, most of the leads remain broad, bland archetypes: Laka, the party boy (The White Lotus’ Kekoa Kekumano); Kainalu, the rich kid rookie (Alex Aiono); Em, the hyper-competent lady badass excelling in a mostly male field (Arielle Kebbel); and so on. Though each has been assigned the broad outline of a backstory, none has demonstrated quirks more distinctive than “likes pretty girls” (that’d be the party boy) or hobbies more notable than sneaker collecting (that’d be the rich kid, as mentioned in a single throwaway line). None of them is dour enough to drag the show down, but none demonstrates any particular sense of humor, either.

The will-they-won’t-they pairings that should light up these characters feel similarly perfunctory. We know Em and her ex, extravagantly Australian lifeguard Will (Adam Demos), still have feelings for each other because Will’s current fiancée is so jealous about it, not because Kebbel and Demos display any notable chemistry. Kainalu halfheartedly hits on fellow newbie Hina (Zoe Cipres) because there are no other available young women in the cast, and she halfheartedly rejects him because the drama needs to stretch this flirtation out over a season. Laka has exactly the same dynamic with a cute recurring EMT, Jenn (Sea Shimooka), because this series has somehow already run out of ideas for romantic subplots.

The show is somewhat more adept at coming up with new ways that beachgoers (often tourists, but not always) might run into trouble. There are the usual cases of an inexperienced surfer getting pulled in by a strong tide, or a snorkeler getting clipped by a passing boat. But there’s also one episode that opens with a family hiking in a mountain, and another that starts with a group of young people leaping around a sand pit; in both cases, part of the amusement is wondering what series of catastrophes might befall these guest stars to necessitate emergency assistance. Just don’t expect anything too bonkers. Even in the face of a horrific shark attack, Rescue HI-Surf resists sensationalism.

For that matter, the series faces pretty much everything with an even keel and a straight face. It’s not entirely allergic to frivolous fun — while Rescue HI-Surf eschews the blatant ogling of its most obvious predecessor, Baywatch, it’s not above making Will and Laka lift weights shirtless while making expository small talk. But it is far less invested in serving up juicy drama or splashy adventure than in reminding you of its characters’ stalwart heroism.

Sometimes, this works in the show’s favor. Station chief Sonny emerges as the series’ most compelling lead in part because actor Robbie Magasiva is good at exuding a warm but quiet gravitas, but also because, though he’s not really written with that much more nuance than any of his colleagues, he’s been given the show’s most bittersweet arc: He blames himself for the death, one month earlier, of a beloved nephew. If he comes across as entirely too reasonable, even in his more heated moments, to justify Em’s concerns that he’s become unmoored, the pair’s rapport benefits from an easy mutual respect that eludes the series’ more strained romances.

Rescue HI-Surf also makes a point of confronting less glamorous problems in the area, many of them caused by the increasing flow of outsiders. (Though you might nevertheless be tempted to book a plane ticket — coastlines this naturally gorgeous will do that.) The characters, most of whom have been living on the North Shore for years if not decades, bemoan the changing times. More visitors mean more people stumbling obliviously into danger, taxing emergency services’ already limited resources. More new residents mean increasing rents pricing out lifelong locals like Hina. At the same time, foreigners like Will still struggle to find their footing in an insular community built around longstanding familial connections. Yet without characters charismatic enough to build a bridge to the audience, these valid concerns still feel distant. There’s a difference between understanding intellectually that something is sad or important, and feeling heartbroken or fired up while watching it.

In fairness, the four installments I’ve seen comprise only a small slice of a planned 19-episode season. There’s plenty of room yet for the characters to evolve beyond these focus-group-friendly tropes into sharper versions of themselves, for their chemistry to heat up, for the storylines to let themselves get wilder or weirder. I hope for its own sake that Rescue HI-Surf might eventually float itself toward a sense of humor, or a taste for drama, or a tolerance for messiness. But for now, it’s the TV equivalent of one of those big waves that lose steam before hitting the shore. It merely looks like it promises excitement from afar. Up close, it’s so mild it barely makes a splash.