Pilot of the popular syndicated series introduces a close-knit group of lifeguards at Baywatch, a Los Angeles beach, who protect the lives of people that come to the beach everyday. They include the team leader, the recently promoted Lieutenant Mitch Buchannon, whose devotion to his job has recently cost him his marriage. His lawyer ex-wife, Gayle, wants him to limit visits with their 10-year-old son Hobie. Craig Pomeroy is a part-time lawyer, who rescues an emotionally disturbed teenage girl, named Laurie, after falling off a pier in which she gets obsessed with him and when he rejects her advances, Laurie begins to go 'Fatal Attraction' by targeting Craig's wife Gina. Jill Riley is a veteran lifeguard who takes the eager rookie, Shauni McLain, under her wing to show her the ropes of rescue, while Shauni develops a crush on the rookie Eddie Kramer, a brooding loner with a mysterious past. Also, Trevor Cole is an arrogant, but incompetent, Australian lifeguard from a private beach club down the coast who could spell trouble for everyone. Captain Don Thorpe is Mitch's officious boss who wants things done right, while Hobie is taken out on a fishing boat by Mitch's friend, the grizzled veteran lifeguard Al Gibson, it leads to danger when their fishing boat sinks, and Al risks his life to try to save Hobie.

Two reckless teenage friends of Hobie are involved in power-ski hit and run accident that leaves a windjammer rider dead. When Hobie discovers that they are responsible, he is torn between protecting his friends identity and leaving the case unsolved to the local beach patrol officer, Sgt. Garner Ellerbee, or telling Mitch and risk facing his anger since he has repeatedly warned Hobie over the dangers of water skiing. Meanwhile, Craig discovers that Eddie is in fact homeless after catching him sleeping in his lifeguard tower in which he and Gina offer their storage closet for him to crash until he finds a place of his own. Also, Trevor continues to stir up more trouble for the Baywatch lifeguards in which Jill is both drawn to and repulsed by his arrogance and disregard for the local county regulations.

During the hottest day of the summer, Mitch's old friend, Steve, and his young son, Mike, show up for a surprise visit. But when Mike is trapped with a local boy in a storm drain and is in danger of drowning, Steve is forced to admit to Mitch that he kidnapped his son because he is in a custody battle with his ex-wife. Meanwhile, Craig is forced to decide by his demanding law firm boss between being a lifeguard, or staying at the law firm. But Gina suggests to him a third option: open up his own law firm.

Eddie is haunted by his bitter past when a former friend of his, named Jimmy, arrives from his home in Philadelphia and immediately causes friction over personal issues they had while they were in a street gang. Then, Eddie gets suspended for getting into a fight with Jimmy at the beach, and Craig has to bail him out of jail for fighting on the streets with Jimmy and his gang. When Eddie comes clean and decide to turn Jimmy in, the thug slips away and decides to get even with Eddie once and for all by setting his lifeguard tower afire, with Eddie and Shauni still inside. Meanwhile, Mitch stresses over his upcoming lifeguard re-check with Captain Thorpe, which turns out to be quite different than he expected. Also, Trevor begins to re-think his lifeguard career at the beach club after he rescues his current girlfriend, Lisa Peters, and she later nearly dies from secondary drowning.

Hobie is once again caught in the middle of Mitch and Gayle's custody battle when Gayle gets a new job at a law firm in Ohio, and Mitch tells her that he will not give up Hobie without a fight. However, both Mitch and Gayle must put aside their personal differences to help the rest of the Baywatch squad find Hobie and two of his friends when they get stranded on a channel island that is the hideout of a pair of modern day pirates. Meanwhile, Eddie and Shauni squabble with each other again after they're reluctantly paired for a 24-hour shift, where they encounter an naive and obnoxious tourist couple stranded on the beach and are forced to take them along with them on their beach patrol

When Gayle's job transfers her to Ohio sooner than expected, she makes plans to take Hobie with her. But Mitch is determined not to let go of Hobie and the two of them fight it out in the courtroom. Meanwhile, two robbers attempt to retrieve a suitcase full of cash left floating in the ocean after their plane crashes. Also, Captain Thorpe assigns himself to Eddie and Shauni's tower to help watch the beach