Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

Today, the IRS takes a cruise.  Agck!

Episode 3.5 “The Scoop/The Audit Couple/My Boyfriend’s Back”

(Dir by Jack Arnold, originally aired on October 6th, 1979)

Captain Stubing is being audited!

Damn the IRS!  What a bunch of money-obsessed fascists!

The IRS agent, Viola Penny (Phyllis Diller), has booked a room on the cruise so that she can look through Captain Stubing’s records and….

Wait a minute.  If you’re an IRS agent, you get to go on a luxury cruise and also look through someone’s private information?  That sounds like fun!  Sign me up!

Anyway, Viola originally seems to be tough-minded and determined to toss Capt. Stubing in jail.  But then she gets drunk at dinner and, when she wakes up in the captain’s cabin, she’s convinced that she and Stubing are now lovers.  She decides to go easy on the audit but then she comes across $50,000 hidden in an ice bucket and she becomes convinced that Stubing is cheating the government and that he seduced her to keep her from finding out.  But then she discovers that the money is actually the crew emergency fund and she falls in love with Stubing again….

Yeah, it’s hard to keep track of how Viola feels from scene to scene.  At the end of the episode, she declares her love for the captain and leaves the boat.  Stubing realizes that he forgot to ask her what the results of his audit were but he also orders Gopher not to call her back to the boat.  If there’s a new captain next week, I’ll just assume Stubing’s in USP Marion.

Meanwhile, caddish Jay Cavanaugh (Lyle Waggoner) is really excited when he sees his ex-girlfriend, Patricia Lucas (Jennifer Salt), on the boat.  Jay is determined to get back together with Patricia, despite the fact that Patricia is on her honeymoon with her new husband, Danny (Richard Kline).  Danny is instantly jealous of Jay, who has a perfect smile and a perfect tan.  However, he needn’t be insecure because Patricia is totally in love with him.  Still, Danny keeps walking in on Jay flirting with Patricia and soon, he declares that the marriage is over.

Patricia tricks Jay into stepping up on a stage in the Acapulco Lounge and announcing that he’s in love with Patricia.  Patricia then announces that Jay has no idea what love is and declares, in front of all the crew and passengers, that she’s in love with Danny.  Danny and Patricia’s marriage is saved but seriously, Danny was kind of wimpy about the whole thing.  It seems like Patricia deserved better than both Jay and Danny.

Finally, Simon Scott (Ray Buktenica) is a tabloid reporter who is on the cruise because he’s been assigned to discover who the famous actress, Jackie Landers (Joyce Dewitt), is traveling with.  It turns out that Jackie is not traveling with a romantic partner but instead with her autistic son.  At first, Jackie pretends to be in a relationship with Doc Bricker but eventually, Simon discovers the truth.  However, Simon refuses to write a tabloid-style story about her child so Jackie falls in love with him and hires him to help her write her own non-tabloidy story about her son.

This episode was a mixed bag.  The IRS storyline was frustrating, largely because it featured a lot of complications that could have been prevented by people just not jumping to conclusions.  The newlyweds story felt anticlimactic because there was never any question about who Patricia would choose to be with.  But the storyline with Jackie, Simon, and Jackie’s son was actually pretty sweet.  Ultimately, this was a pleasant but forgettable cruise.