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!

This week, season 7 comes to an end,

Episode 7.27 “Best Ex-Friends/All the Congressman’s Women/Three Faces of Love”

(Dir by Ted Lange, originally aired on May 12th, 1984)

This week, on The Love Boat, Gopher fires Isaac!

You read that right.  Gopher told Isaac, “You’re fired,” and it was one of the most shocking things I’ve ever seen on The Love Boat.  Some of that was because Gopher and Isaac were best friends.  Most of it was because I had no idea that Gopher could fire people.

Why does Gopher fire Isaac?  Because Isaac refuses to fire Tina Burnell (Eugenia Wright), the new barmaid that Isaac is currently dating.  In Gopher’s defense, Tina is terrible at her job.  Also, in Gopher’s defense, it really doesn’t seem ethical for Isaac to hire someone just because he wants to sleep with her.  In fact, that seems kind of icky by today’s standards.  Then again, this episode aired in 1984.  Times were apparently different back then.

The next morning, Gopher rehires Isaac and the two of them forgive each other.  But then Gopher puts in for a transfer to another ship because he feels that he’s too close to everyone on the boat to do a good job.  (Gopher is probably correct about this.)  Isaac finally admits that Tina is not a good enough barmaid and he gently fires her.  He assures her that, with her looks and personality, she’ll be able to find a new boss who wants to sleep with her and she’ll get a new job in no time.  Isaac chooses friendship over meaningless sex.  Awwwww!

I’m being snarky but this story actually worked far better than it had any right to.  Ted Lange and Fred Grandy always made for a good team.  Their friendship always feels real and, all other issues aside, it’s hard not be happy that they’re still friends at the end of this episode.

As for the other stories, Sal Viscuso plays a movie makeup artist who fears that his girlfriend (Heidi Bohay) is going to cheat on him.  He disguises himself as both Burt Reynolds and Doc Bricker in order to test her loyalty.  Amazingly, she’s touched by his devotion.

And finally, 11 year-old Tori Spelling plays a sociopathic little brat who doesn’t want her Congressman father (Sam Goom) to run for governor or marry his campaign manager (Phyllis Davis).  So, Tori starts cutting up newspapers and magazines and using the headlines to create threatening letters.  Somehow, no one has figured out that Tori is the culprit and the Congressman is traveling with a bodyguard.  (Hopefully, the Congressman is paying for the bodyguard himself and not charging the taxpayers.)  Eventually, Tori comes clean but only after she’s caught with a scissors, glue, and cut up magazine.  Personally, I think Tori should have been tossed overboard but instead, she accepts her father’s ambition and her new stepmother’s love.

This was the final episode of Season 7 and it wasn’t a bad one to go out on.  Tori Spelling was a terrible actress even at the age of eleven but the Gopher/Isaac storyline was touching.  Sadly, this was Lauren Tewes’s final episode and she did not get a grand send-off.  Instead, she was fired after this season because, as Tewes has admitted in several interviews, she was struggling with a serious cocaine addiction.  Tewes didn’t get to do much during Season 7 and, when you consider how important Julie was during the early seasons of The Love Boat, that’s a shame.

Out of respect for Lauren’s final episode, we’re retiring the HOW COKED UP WAS JULIE scale.  What’s important is that Lauren herself got clean and went on to appear in Twin Peaks: The Return.  Good for her!