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!

Love, exciting and new.  Come aboard, they’re expecting you …. welcome aboard, it’s looooooooove!  Yes, it’s time to take another cruise on the Pacific Princess.

Episode 7.10 “Julie and the Bachelor/Set-up for Romance/Intensive Care”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on November 19th, 1983)

As always, we start with one very important question.

Engelbert Humperdinck is on this cruise so the answer is 11 on a scale of 10.

Engelbert plays Colin Crawford, who is Julie’s favorite film star and singer.  Julie is superexcited to meet him and even more thrilled when Colin appears to be romantically interested in her.  What Julie doesn’t know is that Colin’s loyal secretary is actually his wife, Gina (Penny Fuller).  To maintain Colin’s romantic image, they’ve kept their marriage under wraps.  However, Gina is sick of the deception and Colin eventually realizes that major film stars actually can be married.  By the end of the cruise, Colin has announced to the world that he’s married and Julie is surprisingly okay with having been manipulated.  The cocaine probably helped.

Meanwhile, Herbert Chandler (Tom Bosley) is a grump old man who has been in a wheelchair ever since he was in an accident 8 months ago.  Herbert boards the boat with his nurse, Donna (Patricia Carr).  “I’m the purser and you’re the nurser,” a smitten Gopher says.  Doc. meanwhile, figure out that, after 8 months, Herbert’s legs should be healed and able to walk.  It turns out that Herbert is faking his condition because he’s in love with Donna.  It turns out that Donna is in love with Herbert and is remarkably forgiving.  What better way to start a relationship than with eight months of lies?

Finally, Rick Tucker (Mark Harmon) boards the boat with his boss, Mr. Chandler (Bradford Dillman).  Rick also meets Christine Barton (Cristina Raines), who happens to be Chandler’s mistress.  Rick is devastated because he likes Christine too.  Once Rick discovers that Mr. Chandler is lying about leaving his wife for Christine, he’s able to not only end his boss’s relationship but also to get one of his own.  Strangely, it doesn’t occur to Rick to tell Christine that Chandler’s lying about leaving his wife until Rick has a conversation with Isaac.  Isaac apparently has the ability to help people realize things that they should have been able to figure out for themselves.  As Rick runs off to tell Christine, Isaac mentions that everyone he helps always runs off without leaving a tip.  That made me laugh because it’s true.

The Tom Bosley storyline did not work for me.  My Dad spent the last three months of his life in wheelchair and watching Herbert pretend that he needed a wheelchair when he didn’t did not sit well with me.  Otherwise, this was a pleasant episode.  It was one of the episodes that was shot during an actual cruise so it was nice to see the ocean in the background and the wind ruffling everyone’s hair.  None of the stories were particularly complicated but Mark Harmon’s easy going charm kept me watching and even Engelbert Humperdinck was tolerable.  It’s too bad that Julie once again missed out on love but I’m sure the cocaine helped.