THE TUBE

Hallelujah, the bay is saved. No, not the filth-ridden Santa Monica bay. “Baywatch,” NBC’s paean to the bronzed and beautiful, will be back this fall, thanks to fans on the other side of the other ocean: the Atlantic, that is.

“Babe Watch,” as the series was known to many viewers, focused on the trials and tribulations of lifeguards. It never ranked very high in the Nielsens, but it did manage to remind the landlocked masses, here and abroad, that the California Beach Scene was alive and well. When NBC canceled “Baywatch” after only one season, howls of protest came from a most unlikely source--viewers in London, Paris and Bonn (the show was the 1 import in Germany and Great Britain) wanted more, more, more. Come September, they will get what they crave--a conglomeration of international and do mestic distribution syndicates is bankrolling the show’s revival. “Every critical crew and cast member is back,” says executive producer Greg Bonann, the driving force for both the old and new “Baywatch.” This includes the stars: David Hasselhoff as the princely lifeguard Mitch Buchannon and Erika Elinak as Shauni McClain, the beautiful love interest.

The show’s new incarnation could be called “Baywatch on a Budget’--each episode will be made for $900,000, contrasted with the $1.2 million NBC allotted. To save money, the action will be shot in sound studios in Culver City, of all places. Rankled by NBC’s desire to make the show into “CHiPs on the Beach,” Bonann and his crew are reveling in the most sought-after commodity in Hollywood: Total Creative Freedom. “The enemy in ‘Baywatch’ is simply the Pacific Ocean. No other villain is necessary,” Bonann says. “The show is about regular guys who save people’s lives for a living.”

No changes in the nickname, however, are anticipated.