Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion.

Today, I discovered that the YouTube account that was home to every episode of Fantasy Island has been taken down.  This frustrated me.  Fantasy Island is no longer on Tubi or Prime.  In both cases, the original has been pushed to the side to make room for the reboot.  So now, Daily Motion appears to be the only platform to have every episode.  Bleh!  Daily Motion includes so many commercials that it takes forever to get through one hour-long show.

*Sigh*

That said, I’m dedicated to this show.  If I have to watch it on Daily Motion, I’ll shudder and do it.

Episode 4.12 “The Heroine/The Warrior”

(Dir by George McCowan, originally aired on January 24th, 1981)

This week, two more guests come to Fantasy Island with a desire to discover and prove who they really are.

For instance, Bob Graham (James MacArthur, who I just previously saw on The Love Boat) may seem like a rather mild-mannered fellow but he’s actually obsessed with the martial arts and his fantasy is to challenge and defeat the world’s greatest martial artist, Kwong Soo Luke (played by Mako).  Bob wants to impress his wife, Linda (Shelley Fabares).  Personally, I think it’s kind of sad that Bob thinks that beating someone up is the only way that he can impress his wife, especially since Linda seems to be pretty impressed with her husband already.  Mr. Roarke also explains to Bob that Kwong Soo Luke traditionally kills his opponents after he defeats them.  Again, you have to wonder why anyone would volunteer to go up against Kwong Soo Luke.

Anyway, this fantasy suffers from the fact that we know, from the start, that there’s no way that Bob is going to die on Fantasy Island.  But again, there’s no way that, after all of the build-up, Bob isn’t going to get his fight.  As a result, Bob’s survival and his victory are pretty much guaranteed.  It brings Bob and Linda closer together but I get the feeling that divorce is still waiting for them in the future.  “Remember that time you took me to an island and then spent the whole time fighting some guy I didn’t even know?”  Bob better get used to hearing that.

Meanwhile, when Florence Richmond (Mary Ann Mobley) steps off the plane, Tattoo immediately guesses that she must be a teacher.  Roarke explains that Florence is actually a writer, one who has had a good deal of success with a series of trashy romance novels.  However, the prim and proper Florence feels that she’s never experienced a grand romance of her own so her fantasy is to be the heroine of one of her own books.  Roarke grants her fantasy and soon, Florence is falling in love with the enigmatic and possibly duplicitous Brent Hampton (Cesare Danova) and nearly getting raped by the vile Porter Brockhill (Robert Loggia).  Florence is shocked to discover that her novels take place in a world where lust is more important than love and true romance does not exist.  Suddenly, Florence understands why her latest books were so uninspired and she leaves Fantasy Island determined to write about true romance.

This storyline featured nice performances from Mary Ann Mobley, Cesare Danova, and Robert Loggia.  For me, it was mostly interesting as an examination of a fantasy that I’m sure every writer has, the fantasy of living inside of one of their own stories.

Next week …. hopefully, someone will have been kind enough to upload the show back onto YouTube!