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 1984.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion.

Oh my God, this week’s episode….

Episode 4.18 “The Searcher/The Way We Weren’t”

(Dir by Leslie H. Martinson, originally aired on March 7th, 1981)

This week’s episode was just silly and it’s going to be a struggle to even come up with the usual 500 words to say about it.

Fred Cooper (Jerry Van Dyke) is worried that married life is losing its spark so he wants to relive the early days of his marriage to Dottie (Laraine Stephens).  After going through a magic time travel cloud, Fred and Dottie find themselves living in their old house, which they share with Fred’s aunt.  Their neighbors are Vic (Jack Carter) and Myra Fletcher (Dawn Wells).  Vic is Fred’s boss.  He and Myra are also swingers!  Apparently, Fred forgot about that but I have to wonder how anyone would forget that?  Anyway, Vic offers Fred a promotion but only if Fred will allow Vic to sleep with Dottie.  Fred responds by punching Vic out while Vic is hosting a Swingers Convention on Fantasy Island.  (Tattoo must have been very happy this week.)  Vic realizes that he was in the wrong and Fred still gets his promotion.  But is it a real promotion or just a fantasy promotion?  Seriously, what the Hell is going on here?

Meanwhile, young heiress Karen Saunders-Holmes (Laurette Spang) comes to the island with her husband, Brian (James Darren).  Brian thinks that they’re just on their honeymoon but Karen actually has a fantasy.  She wants to be reunited with her father, a man named Noah who supposedly abandoned her when she was an infant and whom she has never met.  Mr. Roarke arranges for Noah (Paul Burke) to be released from prison for the weekend and….

PRISON!?  Yep, Noah is a convicted murderer and has spent the last two decades in a prison camp.  Noah claims that he was innocent of the crime.  Anyway, Mr. Roarke introduces Noah to Karen and Brian and says that Noah will be their guide on the Island….

Brian freaks out!  It turns out that Brian is actually the man who Noah was framed for murdering.  Brian went off and got plastic surgery after faking his own murder, which is why Noah doesn’t recognize him.  But Noah soon learns the truth when Brian tricks him into entering a bog of quicksand!

Does Noah survive the quicksand?  He does but we’re never told how.  Does Brian then freak out and run into the quicksand as well?  Of course.  Fantasy Island is such a dangerous place!

This was a silly episode.  Brian apparently not only had plastic surgery to change his face but also to reduce his age because there was no way he was old enough to a contemporary of Noah’s.  And for the swinger’s convention on Fantasy Island …. I mean, what?  Mr. Roarke is suddenly okay with a big key party on his Island?  How do you forget that you used to live next door to a swinging couple?  Like I said, this was just silly.  One fantasy features Jerry Van Dyke being way too goofy and the other features James Darren being way to obviously sinister.  Neither worked.

So far, the fourth season has really been a mixed bag, hasn’t it?  Hopefully, things will improve next week.