Before Lori Loughlin encountered the deadly pools of Amityville (in Amityville 3-D) and the teenage tyrants of The New Kids, she almost became a waterlogged beach corpse. Yes, Uncle Jesse’s favorite bride faced down a Great White in a first season episode of Matt Houston, a detective show that ran for three seasons in the early ’80s, and lived to tell the tale.

There, as Sue Landa. a sweetly determined lifeguard, she helps private investigator Houston, played by the swaggering Lee Horsley, discover that a series of attacks by the deadliest predator this side of Jaws are caused by the vibrations emanating from a sand dollar necklace, gifted to the victims by a vengeful billionaire.

Thus, the episode’s title, Shark Bait, and a seasoned group of guest stars including Dynasty‘s Lloyd Bochner, Family‘s Gary Frank and The Mamas and the Papas’ Michelle Phillips, hired by producer Aaron Spelling to help this preposterous tale ring with a semi-dash of truth.

Hollywood legend Dorothy Malone also stops by for a scene as Landa’s concerned mother and Houston’s hardworking employee. Malone, as many Academy-nominated greats before her, wound up her career doing such genre projects as The Day Time Ended, The Being and Rest in Pieces. For lovers of celluloid grue, of course, this is a boon of epic proportions, and her appearance here ultimately appeals on multiple levels.

The same can also be said for this episode’s nature-gone-wild meets twentieth century TV excessiveness esthetic.

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