The Emmy Ballots have been released and I have a lot of shows and movies that I need to watch between now and the end of July! I got started this week but I’ve got a long way to go. Luckily, this is going to be a harsh and hot summer so I’m going to have a lot incentive to sit inside my air-conditioned private office and spend a lot of time watching stuff.
Here’s what I watched, read, and listened to this week!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1971’s Dr. Cook’s Garden! It can be viewed on YouTube!
Everyone loves Dr. Leonard Cook.
Played by Bing Crosby, Dr. Cook has been the doctor in the small town of Greenfield for as long as anyone can remember. He has delivered almost the entire town. He’s the friendly face that everyone sees whenever they have an ache or a pain. He’s the somber source of comfort whenever the time comes from someone to pass. Dr. Cook has lost some patients but he’s saved even more and no one doubts that Dr. Cook always does his best. As admired as Dr. Cook is as a doctor, he’s almost equally admired for the beautiful garden outside of his office. Cook maintains the garden by always pulling out any plants that he feels would not serve the best interest of the garden. That’s Dr. Cook. He’s always doing whatever needs to be done to make the world a nicer place.
Unfortunately, Dr. Cook is getting old and he’s slowed down a bit. He has a heart condition and he can no longer be as physically active as he once was. Dr. Cook’s former student, Jimmy Tennyson (Frank Converse), returns to Greenfield so that he can help out his former mentor. Dr. Tennyson is going to help ease Dr. Cook into retirement and then eventually take Cook’s place as the town doctor. Dr. Cook may say that he’s not planning on retiring anytime soon but it’s obvious that he has faith in Dr. Tennyson’s ability to eventually replace him.
Or, at least, Cook feels that way until Dr. Tennyson starts asking about some of Cook’s patients who have died over the years. Tennyson discovers that many of Cook’s patients died despite not being seriously ill and that Dr. Cook also has a surprisingly large supply of poisons. When it’s mentioned that no one in town has ever wondered why Dr. Cook has lost so many patients because only the “mean” patients tend to die, Dr. Tennyson realizes that Dr. Cook has been doing his bit to make sure the town of Greenfield stays a nice place. Dr. Cook calls it “community service.” Dr. Tennyson calls it murder but can he turn on his former mentor and the most beloved man in town? And when Tennyson starts to pressure Cook to stop practicing medicine and playing God, Dr. Cook starts to make his own plans to put his former student in his place.
An adaptation of a stage play by Ira Levin, Dr. Cook’s Garden is a suspenseful and short made-for-TV movie. Director Ted Post does a good job of opening up the action and preventing the film from becoming overly stagey. The main reason the film succeeds is due to the performance of Bing Crosby in the role of Dr. Cook. Crosby’s kindly and cheerful demeanor keeps the viewer off-balance but, once Dr. Cook decides to target his former student, the friendly surface evaporates and Dr. Cook is revealed to be just as ruthless and cruel as those who he targets. This is the type of film that will inspire you to wonder just what exactly your neighbors may be hiding in their gardens.
The Emmy submission ballots dropped this week and with it, I was reminded that there’s a lot of things that I still need to watch between now and the end of July. Here’s what I watched this week as I tried to get caught up.
A Small Light (National Geographic)
Liev Schrieber and Bel Powley turned in powerful performances as the father of Anne Frank and the brave woman who helped the Franks as they hid in that Amsterdam attic for two years. I’m going to try to write up a review of this important and heart-breaking miniseries next week. Keep an eye out for it!
Agent Elvis (Netflix)
I watched the first episode of this animated series on Thursday. The show imagines Elvis Presley as a secret agent in the late 60s. The first episode featured him battling Charles Manson and the Family. This is the type of pop culture sideshow that I would normally expect to enjoy but the first episode left me cold. The humor was a bit too crude and mean-spirited. I love Matthew McConaughey but he sounds nothing like Elvis and casting him only served to undercut what should have been the show’s best joke. This was definitely a disappointment.
Andor (Disney Plus)
I just started binging Andor today. I’m four episodes in. I’ll give my thoughts after I finish the first season next week. So far, I will say that I’m enjoying the show. I think it helps that it’s a Star Wars show that, so far at least, hasn’t gotten bogged down in all of the Star Wars mythology.
Archer (FX)
On Thursday, I watched the episode of Archer that was submitted for this year’s Emmy Awards. Archer and the Gang attended a spy convention and reluctantly saved the life of their new boss. “Are we really going to save this guy?” Archer asked. I always enjoy Archer whenever I see it so it’s strange that I haven’t gotten into the habit of regularly watching. Seeing as how the series is coming to an end, I might finally binge the whole thing.
Bob’s Burgers (Fox, Sunday Night)
On Thursday, I watched the latest Bob’s Burgers Christmas episode and it was so sweet that it brought tears to my eyes. “Louise is going to read a sincere poem!”
Captain Power & The Soldiers of the Future (Nightflight Plus)
I watched the first episode of this very cheesy Canadian show on Saturday morning. According to the description of the video, it aired in the late 80s. As you can probably guess from the title, it was a sci-fi show. I had no idea what was going on for the majority of it but there were a lot of people carrying laser guns.
I watched an episode on Tuesday. The first guest asked her sister to forgive her for getting her hooked on crack cocaine. No, she was not forgiven. The second guest asked her former best friend to forgive her for skipping her wedding. Again, there was no forgiveness. The third guest wanted his wife to apologize for piercing their daughter’s ears without asking him beforehand. There was no apology. The fourth guest apologized for sleeping with his friend’s girlfriend. He was not forgiven. This was a harsh episode!
I watched another episode on Saturday. This one featured Robin Givens as host. She spent a lot of time yelling, especially at this woman who lied about her husband threatening to kill her and didn’t say a word as he was sent to jail for several days. Everyone was forgiven, even though some definitely did not deserve it.
Harley Quinn (Max)
I watched an episode of this animated show on Thursday. Harley Quinn entered Bruce Wayne’s mind while searching for her friend, Frank. In doing so, she discovered not only that Bruce Wayne was Batman but she also came to understand Bruce’s obsession with his parent’s death and fighting crime. The episode managed to be both wonderfully satiric and surprisingly poignant. After years of grim and serious Batman films, it was nice to see an episode that was all about just how ludicrous the whole thing is. The animated version of Harley Quinn is far less annoying than the version that shows up in the movies.
I finally got around to watching this miniseries this week. Set in the Star Wars universe, it followed Ewan McGregor as he battled the Empire and saved the lives of both a young Princess Leia and a young Luke Skywalker. If you were Luke, wouldn’t it piss you off that your sister got to grow up in an air-conditioned palace while you got shuffled off to a crime-ridden, poverty-stricken desert? I mean — what the Hell, Yoda!?
Anyway, this miniseries wasn’t bad. It was typical Star Wars stuff but worth it for the performances of Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen. Still, I did find myself wishing that everyone stop saying the word “youngling.”
Rick and Morty (Adult Swim)
Over the past few months, with the accusations against Justin Roiland, Rick and Morty has gone from being one of the top cult shows around to being the show that people now pretend that they never watched in the first place. Accused of domestic battery and kidnapping, Roiland was dismissed from the show. The fact that the D.A. subsequently dropped the charges did not win back Roiland’s job but it did put the show in the unenviable position of being cited in multiple articles about cancel culture. The show is set to continue without Roiland but I think Rick and Morty‘s days may be limited.
That said, I watched the Night Family episode on Thursday. (This is the episode that was submitted to the Emmys.) It was a great episode, as the family went to war with the “night” versions of themselves. It’s the type of episode that definitely deserves at least an Emmy nomination but, with all the recent controversy, it probably won’t happen.
Rollergames (YouTube)
Roller derby! I watched the first episode of this show on Friday night, with Jeff and our friend, Pat. The show aired in the late 80s and it featured a lot of people in a lot of costumes beating each other up. At the end of the show, everyone had to jump over a bunch of alligators. It was fun!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Welcome Back Kotter, which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1979. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!
This week, Vinnie Barbarino runs for president!
Episode 1.5 “The Election”
(Dir by Bob LaHendro, originally aired on October 7th, 1975)
At their apartment, Gabe asks Julie if he ever told her about the time that he thought he was adopted. Julie, looking very concerned, tells Gabe that he has never told her about that. Gabe replies that he was worried until the night of his high school graduation, when his father, Ling Ping, told him that he was not adopted. Julie is very amused, especially when Gabe imitates Ling Ping’s accent. It was 1975.
Speaking of 1975, America was in the early days of the ’76 presidential election when this episode aired. On the Republican side, Richard Nixon had resigned. Gerald Ford was President but was being challenged for the nomination by Ronald Reagan. On the Democrat side, Ted Kennedy’s refusal to say whether or not he was running left the party feeling as if they had been driven off a bridge and left to drown. Dull Henry Jackson and racist George Wallace were the front runners, even though an obscure and not particularly well-regarded governor named James Carter was insisting that people should give him a look. My point is that it was a political time and it’s not surprising that this episode of WelcomeBack, Kotter reflected that.
How did the show reflect that? By having Vinnie Barbarino run for student body president!
Epstein is Vinnie’s campaign manager, which means that he spends his time hanging out in the hallway and threatening people until they say they’ll vote for Vinnie.
Washington is Vinnie’s press secretary and happily shows off his ability to avoid taking a definite stand on any issue.
And Vinnie’s slogan? Vote for Vinne and nobody gets hurt.
“I’m a law and order candidate,” Vinnie explains, “I make the laws and I give the orders.”
Running against Vinnie is Scott Phillips, the president of the Debate club and Judy Borden who, according to Horseshack and Epstein, “is so fat that last year, she ran for homecoming queen and was elected the float.” Perhaps realizing that the election is not going to make his remedial class look like the future upstanding citizens that he claims they are, Kotter encourages Barbarino to run a real campaign, one that will make people reconsider the way that they view the Sweathogs.
“If elected,” Barbarino says, “there will be less homework.”
“How are you going to keep that promise?” Kotter asks.
“If I’m president, I’m going to do less homework.”
Unfortunately, Vinnie gets tired of Kotter pressuring him to take the election seriously and he decides to withdraw as a candidate. No sooner has the bell rang and the Sweathogs have left the classroom then Scott and Judy (who is not fat at all) enter the classroom and inform Mr. Kotter that, due to all of the Sweathog bullying, they’re withdrawing as well.
Realizing that the Sweathogs have a chance to win their first ever victory at Buchanan High, Kotter has a meeting with Barbarino and Epstein and attempts to talk Barbarino into running again. Barbarino is not interested until he learns that Scott and Judy have quit. Kotter admits that he made a mistake in pressuring Barbarino to change his image but he does ask Barbarino if he wants to win the presidency just because Scott and Judy were intimidated into quitting.
“Yeah,” Barbarino replies.
Scott and Judy arrive at the office and Kotter leaves them alone with Barbarino and Epstein so they can work out their problems.
Which I guess they do because the episode abruptly jumps to election day. Barbarino and the Sweathogs are convinced that Barbarino is going to win. However, Mr. Woodman stops by the room and announces that Scott won the election. In order to cheer up Barbarino, Kotter points out that Barbarino got 47 votes. (He also mentions that Scott got 322.) Barbarino points out that, if he stays in school long enough, he’ll win an election eventually. That’s the spirit!
Back at the apartment, Kotter tells Julie a story about how his family’s chicken recipe isn’t that good.
As is becoming a recurring theme with these Welcome Back, Kotter reviews, I enjoyed this episode a lot more than I thought I would. From Barbarino’s earnest stupidity to Epstein’s cheerful love of violence, this episode featured the students at their best and, even more importantly, Mr. Kotter really did seem to care about whether or not Barbarino learned something from his experience as a political candidate. Even Mr. Woodman’s barely supressed glee over Barbarino’s defeat made me smile. This was a good episode.
Episode 1.6 “No More Nice Guy”
(Dir by Bob LaHendro, originally aired on October 14th, 1975)
At the apartment, Kotter tells Julie about the time he dated a girl who was just like his mother. “What happened?” Julie asks. “My father hated her,” Kotter says, with a big grin. (In response, Julie smiles politely.)
At the school, Kotter witnesses Mr. Woodman having a nervous breakdown because someone has been stealing the chalk from his classroom. Realizing that Woodman is having an existential crisis, Kotter suggests that Woodman should go out with a friend and have dinner. Woodman interprets this as Kotter inviting him over to his apartment.
That night, after a little awkward conversation, Kotter and Julie both tell Woodman that he should get back into teaching. (Kotter explains that Woodman was the greatest history teacher that he ever had. Woodman says that it was because he has always enjoyed talking about guns and war.) Woodman takes Kotter’s advice and, the next day, he teaches the Sweathogs about the Revolutionary War.
He starts the lesson by dressing up as a redcoat.
He ends it by transforming into George Washington.
The Sweathogs love the lesson and Mr. Woodman is overjoyed to discover that he can still teach. Unfortunately, Woodman is so happy that he stops being a disciplinarian. This means that Mr. Kotter now has to be the disciplinarian. Soon, the Sweathogs are angry at Kotter and chaos is running rampant through the school. Fortunately, Kotter discovers that the Sweathogs have been hiding Woodman’s chalk in his desk. When Kotter shows Woodman all of the stolen chalk, Woodman snaps back into being his usual grouchy self.
Back at the bar, Kotter tells Julie about what happened when a man and a mouse walked into a bar. Julie has the patience of a saint.
This was a good episode, largely because it highlighted John Sylvester White’s wonderfully eccentric performance as Mr. Woodman. White played Woodman as a man who was always on the verge of having a complete breakdown and he got a lot of laughs from the way his facial expressions and his body language with communicate Woodman’s repressed rage. This episode, White showed us another side of Woodman and proved that he could be just as funny while being likable as he was when he was being an obsessive authoritarian. It was hard not to get caught up in Woodman’s joy over getting to teach but it was also hard not to feel a bit of relief when Woodman went back to being his usual self. The high school, like any institution, needed someone who was willing to play the bad guy. Again, this was another episode that was far better than I was expecting.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1988’s Maniac Cop! Directed by William Lustig and starring Bruce Campbell, Tom Atkins, William Smith, Richard Roundtree, and Robert Z’Dar, Maniac Cop is a pulp classic!
If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime. I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
This Saturday, at 9 pm et, it's Bruce Campbell and Tom Atkins vs. MANIAC COP! Join us for this horror classic! The film is on Prime and Tubi! #DontWatchAlonepic.twitter.com/ZlM9JQTslI
4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.
96 years ago today, Lucio Fulci — the maestro of Italian genre filmmaking — was born in Rome. Fulci would go on to direct some of the most visually stunning (and, occasionally, most narratively incoherent) films ever made. Fulci worked in all genres but he’ll probably always be best remembered for launching the Italian zombie boom with Zombi2. His subsequent Beyond trilogy continues to fascinate and delight lovers of both horror and grindhouse filmmaking.
Lucio Fulci, needless to say, is a pretty popular figure here at the TSL. In honor of the date of his birth, it’s time for….
6 Shots From 6 Lucio Fulci Films
Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971, dir by Lucio Fulci, DP: Luigi Kuveiller )
Don’t Torture A Duckling (1972, dir by Lucio Fulci, DP: Sergio D’Offizi)
Zombi 2 (1979, dir. Lucio Fulci, DP: Sergio Salvati)
The Beyond (1981, dir by Lucio Fulci, DP: Sergio Salvati)
The House by The Cemetery (1981, dir by Lucio Fulci, DP: Sergio Salvati)
Murder Rock (1984, dir by Lucio Fulci, DP: Guiseppe Pinori)
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing The Master, which ran on NBC from January to August of 1984. The show can be found on Tubi!
After spending last week in Las Vegas, John Peter McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) and Max Keller (Tim Van Patten) drive Max’s van across the country in search of McAllister’s daughter.
Episode 1.6 “Fat Tuesday”
(Dir by Sidney Hayes, originally aired on March 9th, 1984)
This episode opens not with a scene of Max Keller in training but instead with Okasa (Sho Kosugi) visiting a dojo in Las Vegas. The master of the dojo explains that he does know where John Peter McAllister is but that he will not tell Okasa because he is not sure that Okasa is actually a former student of McAllister’s. Okasa responds by 1) fighting every student at the dojo and 2) proving that, unlike Lee Van Cleef, Sho Kosugi didn’t need a stunt double for his scenes. Having proven that he trained under the legendary McAllister, Okasa is informed that McAllister and Max Keller are in New Orleans.
That’s right! This week, we’re in the Big Easy!
Of course, any show that takes place in New Orleans has to take place during Mardi Gras. This episode is full of stock footage of the Mardi Gras celebrations but, at the same time, we never see McAllister or Max taking part in any of them. In fact, other than a trip to a jazz club and a fight on a dock, McAllister and Max do very little that one would normally expect to see a visitor doing in New Orleans. New Orleans is one of the most distinctive city in the U.S. but, in this episode of The Master, it might as well be Houston.
McAllister and Max are in New Orleans because a reporter named Eve Michaels (Susan Kase) has been writing a series of stories about how a wealthy businessman named Beaumont (Robert Pine) has been smuggling drugs into the city and selling weapons to Middle Eastern terror groups. In her stories, Eve claims that her source is named Terri McAllister. Could Eve’s source also be John Peter McAllister’s daughter?
Eve, The Reporter
No, she’s not. However, it’s not just a case of mistaken identity. As Eve eventually confesses to Max, Terri McAllister is a name that she assigned to a source that she made up. It turns out that Eve never had a source for her stories about Beaumont but apparently, Beaumont is such a shady character that it was easy for Eve to imagine what Beaumont was probably doing. Because Eve’s made-up story was too close to the truth, Beaumont kidnapped and killed Eve’s friend. That just made Eve even more determined to make up additional lies, all of which turned out to be true. As crazy as that sounds, what’s even crazier is that neither McAllister nor Max are particularly upset to discover that they’re no closer to finding the real Terri. Indeed, McAllister seems to find the whole thing rather amusing which makes me wonder if he really cares about Terri or not.
Beaumont, the bad guy
Of course, Max and McAllister are also busy proving the Beaumont is a criminal. They crash Beaumont’s Mardi Gras party. McAllister wears his ninja costume. Max dresses up like a …. well, I guess he’s supposed to be a pirate.
Okasa also shows up at the party, also dressed as a ninja. In fact, this episode’s saving grace is that it features more of Okasa (and Sho Kosugi’s determined performance in the role) than any episode so far. Not only do McAllister and Okasa fight at the party but they have a later confrontation at a park. What’s interesting about this scene is that McAllister isn’t in his ninja uniform so Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double was required to put on a really phony looking bald cap for the fight scenes. Needless to say, the fight scenes are filmed in long shot and McAllister never faces the camera.
Along with fighting Okasa, McAllister also faces off against two of Beaumont’s men. In this fight scene, Van Cleef is actually shown throwing a punch and kick but he does so in slow motion and we don’t really see him making contact with anyone.
Oh, Lee!
This was a fairly generic episode. The most disappointing thing about it is that it didn’t really have any New Orleans flair to it. As well, the plot depended on a huge amount of coincidence and character stupidity. (Just imagine if Beaumont had just threatened to sue Eve for libel, as opposed to sending his hired goons to kidnap her.) Lee Van Cleef came across as being a bit tired and cranky in this episode. To his credit, Tim Van Patten tried to inject some energy and some humor with his pirate disguise. It didn’t work but at least he tried.
Next week: Max and McAllister take on an evil trucking company!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix has got 1985’s Commando!
How much do you like Sully?
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Commando is available on Prime and Tubi! See you there!
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, on City Guys, Ms. Noble attempts to kill the neat guys! Who can blame her?
Episode 5.5 “Red Dawn”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on September 29th, 2001)
Ms. Noble is upset that all of her students keep looking at their phones so she decides that the perfect solution is to take Chris, Jamal, and L-Train and force them to compete for the title of Manny High Survivor. How do they win that title? By spending three days in Central Park without food and shelter.
Uhmmm….
This episode is yet another example of Ms. Noble proving herself to be the worst principal in New York and her students blindly obeying her every whim. I mean, Central Park is not exactly the safest place in the city and Ms. Noble is basically abandoning her students there for 72 hours. Did she ask their parents beforehand? If one of them gets killed by a mugger, wouldn’t Ms. Noble and Manny High and the entire New York City school system be legally liable? Fortunately, Chris, Jamal, and L-Train are not mugged but a bear does escape from the zoo and chases them out of the park. The bear then shows up at Manny High, interrupting the school dance.
Speaking of that school dance, Dawn is upset because Al is already dating a new girl. She befriends Al’s new girlfriend and then tells her a lot of lies in order to make her and Al break up. Fortunately, Dawn sees the error of her ways and, after Dawn comes clean, Al forgives her and then goes off and dances with his new girlfriend. This is one of those storylines that would have been more effective if not for the fact that Dawn and Al as a couple never really made much sense to begin with.
Then again, this is a show where a high school principal forces three of her students to live in Central Park. Nothing has to make sense anymore!
Episode 5.6 “Dances With Malcolm”
(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 6th, 2001)
According to Wikipedia, here’s the plot summary of Dances With Malcolm:
Jamal teams up with Malcolm, his dance nemesis to audition as backup dancers for a group called six-street. Dawn and Cassidy ask Al and El-Train to secretly take over their advice column for women temporarily. So they can attend a taping of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. The column becomes a bigger success, but it proves to be an unfavorable double-edged sword for the two when Al and El-Train decide to manipulate the column for their own purposes.
I’m giving you the Wikipedia summary because this is one of the episodes that is not on YouTube. That’s a shame because it sounds like it involved dancing and I always love any show that features dancing. That said, this is City Guys so they would have found someway to screw it up. I will say that I doubt Conan O’Brien made an appearance on this episode. If he had, he probably would have been shown taping his show on the roof of Manny High. As for Al and L-Train manipulating the column to their own purposes, that sounds more like a Chris and Jamal subplot.
Next week, we will be one step closer to the final episode of City Guys and that day I’m finally free from having to review this show.
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, it’s disco, high school, and alcoholism on The Love Boat!
Episodes 1.18 and 1.19 “Alas, Poor Dwyer/After the War/Itsy Bitsy/Ticket to Ride/Disco Baby”
(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on February 3rd, 1979)
It’s time for the Haney High class reunion and one of the school’s most beloved graduate, Julie McCoy, has arranged for her former classmates to celebrate their 10-year reunion on the Pacific Princess!
This was a special double-sized episode of The Love Boat. (It was split into two episodes for syndication.) Along with being twice as long, this episode also features twice as many guest stars and a twice as much romance and drama. It turns out that Haney High’s Class of ’69 was a large one indeed.
(It’s not really made clear as to whether everyone on the cruise is there for the reunion or if there are passengers on the cruise who are just trying to enjoy a vacation. I have to say that I would be a bit annoyed if I boarded a cruise just to discover that it was being used for someone else’s loud and crowded high school reunion. Seeing as how the entire boat has been decorated with signs welcoming the “class of Haney High,” I hope that it was just Hany High alumni on the cruise. Otherwise, some people definitely ended up feeling left out of all the fun.)
Along with being a supersized episode, quite a bit of this episode was filmed while the ship was on an actual cruise. (The Love Boat would always take one or two actual cruises during each season. That was one reason why so many actors were eager to be on a show that was never really a critical favorite.) As a result, the characters in this episode spend far less time in their cabins than usual. Instead, almost every scene takes place on one of the decks. The ocean looks lovely. A scene where Doc talks to Gopher and Isaac features a striking sunset in the background.
As for the storylines, it’s a little bit hard to know where to start with this episode. Not only did the passengers all get storylines but so did Captain Stubing, Doc Bricker, and Julie McCoy. I guess as good a place to start as any would be with Malcolm Dwyer (Raymond Burr), the high school’s beloved drama teacher. Mr. Dwyer boards the ship and, rather than talk to any of his former students, he immediately starts drinking. It quickly becomes apparent to everyone that Mr. Dwyer has a drinking problem. He’s haunted by the fact that, rather than becoming a star himself, he instead just became a teacher. Fortunately, Captain Stubing immediately realizes what is going on with Mr. Dwyer and he takes it upon himself to help. When Mr. Dwyer demands to know why Stubing cares so much about his drinking, the Captain lets down his guard and reveals that he too is an alcoholic.
This episode was the first time that the show directly acknowledged that Captain Stubing was a recovering alcoholic, though it was something that was occasionally hinted at. While Raymond Burr occasionally seems to be trying too hard to turn Mr. Dwyer into a grandly tragic figure, the scene where the Captain talks about his alcoholism is still a surprisingly poignant moment. Gavin MacLeod really captures the vulnerability of the moment as the normally reserved Captain opens up about something in which he takes no pride. Gavin MacLeod was, himself, a recovering alcoholic and, when he warns Dwyer about his drinking, it’s obvious that it’s not just Captain Stubing talking to a passenger. It’s also Gavin MacLeod talking to the show’s audience. It’s a surprisingly poignant moment.
Speaking of poignant moments, Jack Forbes (John Rubinstein) is on the cruise with his wife, Kathy (Judi West). When Jack sees Mike Kelly (Michael Cole), he freaks out. Mike was the king of Haney High, the high school quarterback with a bright future ahead of him. In school, he was Jack’s best friend. After they graduated, both Jack and Mike received their draft notices. Mike went to Vietnam and returned in a wheelchair. Jack fled to Canada with Kathy. When Jack sees Mike, he feels ashamed of himself and lies about what he did during the war. Jack worries that, if everyone finds out that he was a cowardly draft dodger, they’ll toss him overboard.
(To be honest, if Jack should be worried about anything, it should be running into the guy who got sent to Vietnam in his place. When someone dodged the draft, that meant someone else has to go in his place and that person was usually someone who didn’t have the resources to just pick up and leave the country.)
With Kathy’s encouragement, Jack finally confesses to Mike and Mike tells Jack that he already knew. Mike forgives Jack and, again, it’s a surprisingly poignant moment. John Rubinstein and Michael Cole both gave heartfelt and committed performances and the show approached the issue with the type of nuance that I don’t most people would necessarily expect from an episode of The Love Boat.
While this is going on, Doc is spending the cruise with Bitsy (Conchata Ferrell). When Doc saw Bity’s high school yearbook photo, he insisted that Julie sit him up with her. (Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.) Doc is shocked to discover that Bitsy has gained weight since high school. Gopher and Isaac give Doc a hard time for dating Bitsy during the cruise. After getting to know her and discovering her quick wit, Doc announces that Bitsy is beautiful even if she is “chubby” and, believe it or not, as bad as it is to read about it, the whole thing feels even more cringey and awkward when you watch the episode. This was another storyline that existed to confirm that Doc and Gopher were walking HR nightmares.
Meanwhile, Wendy (Kim Darby) is trying to figure out which one of her former classmates anonymously paid for her ticket and sent her a love poem. Was it Ross Randall (Christopher George), who is now a television star? Was it former class clown Pete DeLuca (Kelly Monteith)? Or was it the class hippie, Jason Markham (Bob Denver)? What was odd about this storyline was that the cruise was for Julie’s ten-year class reunion but both Christopher George and especially Bob Denver were obviously quite a bit older than the other members of their class. (If either one of them was 28, one can only assume they spent the past decade drinking 24/7.) Ross, at one point, talked about how Mr. Dwyer was the teacher who inspired him but Ross appeared to be roughly the same age as Mr. Dwyer. It was weird but hey, that’s The Love Boat!
As for who sent Wendy the ticket, it turned out that her secret admirer was her husband, Tom (David Landberg). Tom and Wendy were separated so Tom decided to send her on the cruise so she could find someone better. (That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever written.) In the end, Wendy realizes that she still loves Tom. Yay!
Finally, Julie is super-excited because her ex-boyfriend, Joey (Michael Lembeck), is on the cruise. Joey is now a disco instruction (yay!) and he works with Sherry (Lisa Hartman), who was the most popular girl at Haney High. Julie wants to rekindle her romance with Joey but it soon becomes clear that Sherry has feelings for Joey too. Sherry even asks Julie to back off a little when it comes to Joey. However, when Gopher and Isaac take a break from fat-shaming Bitsy and Doc, they encourage Julie to fight for what she wants. Julie pursues Joey even more aggressively. In the end, Julie, Joey, and Sherry all realize that Joey and Sherry belong together but it was still interesting to see Julie in a less than heroic role for once.
Of course, the best thing about the Julie/Joey/Sherry love triangle is that it featured disco! Joey not only taught everyone how to dance but he also turned the ship’s ballroom into a huge discotheque. By the end of the episode, everyone was dancing while a disco version of the Love Boat theme played. It was great!
As you may have guessed, I really enjoyed this episode. Yes, the stuff with Bitsy was cringey and it was annoying that Bitsy never got a chance to really stand up for herself and tell everyone to just accept her for who she was. (Conchata Ferrell was an actress who was at her best when she was telling people off.) But the rest of the episode was surprisingly well-written and acted and the fact that the cast and crew went on an actual cruise while filming only added to the fun. If nothing else, this episode showed why the cruise industry continues to go strong, despite all of the shipwrecks, hijackings, and pandemics that have plagued it for the past few decades. This was a fun episode, one that definitely made me want to set sail for adventure!
Through the Shattered Lens 