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, a familiar passenger returns.

Episode 8.8 “Aerobic April/The Wager/Story of the Century”

(Dir by Ted Lange, originally aired on November 3rd, 1984)

April Lopez (Charo) is back!

After appearing at least once during each of the The Love Boat‘s first six seasons, Charo was absent during the seventh season.  She finally returns in this week’s episode, which sees April being hired as the ship’s aerobics instructor.

And that’s fine, I guess.  Charo brings a lot of energy to the role, as she did in her previous appearances on The Love Boat.  That said, it feels a bit like everyone is just going through the motions this time.  Previous April stories featured her looking for love, trying to make it as a performer, or helping to raise a family.  This episode basically just features her chasing around the members of the crew and demanding that they exercise.  She does leave the ship with a passenger (played by Gordon Jump) but it’s hard not to feel that the relationship won’t last.  We’ve seen April fall in love many times but she’s always single whenever she returns to the ship.

While April is forcing the crew to exercise, wastrel Brandon Summerville (Ben Murphy) bets his wealthy brother, Clayborn (Charles Siebert), a million dollars that Clayborn will fall in love during the cruise.  And Clayborn does fall in love!  But it turns out that Brandon actually hired Anne Loring (Mary Kate McGeehan) to seduce his brother so that Brandon could win the bet.  Anne really does fall in love with Clayborn and she confesses everything to him.  Clayborn doesn’t care.  He thinks that Anne showed good business sense and now he’s more in love with her than ever.

Finally, journalist Harold Fleming (Ralph Bellamy) is convinced that passenger Sarah Webster (Dorothy McGuire) is actually the long-missing Amelia Earhart.  Sarah insists that she’s not.  Eventually, Harold and Sarah fall in love and agree to disagree.

This was a bit of a silly episode.  None of the stories carried much weight but Ralph Bellamy and Dorothy McGuire were both charming, two old pros giving it their best.  Otherwise, this was a pleasant but fairly forgettable cruise.  Not even Charo could liven things up.