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, we have a special two-hour episode!
Episodes 6.18 and 6.19 “Isaac’s Aegean Affair/The Captain and The Kid/Poor Rich Man/ The Dean and the Flunkee”
(Dir by Alan Rafkin, originally aired on February 5th, 1983)
The Love Boat is going to Greece!
This is another one of those two-hour Love Boat episodes. The crew is assigned to work a Greek cruise. Love and sight-seeing follow. Isaac, for instance, falls in love with a passenger named Reesa (Debbie Allen) and even resigns from the crew so that he can spend the rest of his life in Greece with her. Unfortunately, Isaac forgets to ask Reesa ahead of time and, when Isaac returns to Reesa’s Greek flat, he discovers that she had reconciled with her husband (James A. Watson, Jr.). It’s back to the Love Boat for Isaac!
Meanwhile, the graduating class of Captain Stubing’s old college is holding their graduation ceremony at the ruins of a Greek temple. The class valedictorian (Jameson Parker) give a speech in which he shows appreciation to his Greek aunt (Eva Marie Saint), even though he’s discovered that she’s not as a wealthy as he originally assumed she was. The Dean (Eddie Albert) is finally convinced to give a makeup exam to a student (Leigh McCloskey) who missed his history final. A teacher (Shirley Jones) finally agrees to marry the dean. And Vicki briefly falls in love with a 16 year-old prodigy (Jimmy McNichol) and she gets engaged to him for about an hour or two. Captain Stubing wonders how Vicki would be able to continue her education if she got married. I’m wondering how she’s continuing her education while living and working on a cruise ship.
There was a lot going on in this episode but the true star of the show was the Greek scenery. This episode was filmed on location and, as such, it’s basically a travelogue. Fortunately, Greece looks beautiful! Seriously, the 2-hour, on-location episodes of The Love Boat must have been a blast to shoot.
This week? This week was probably a 10 out of 10 on the How Coked Up Was Julie Scale but hey, she was in Greece. She had every right to live a little.
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 Puppetman, which aired on CBS in 1987. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, we have the pilot for Puppetman, a sitcom that was created by the people behind the Muppets.
Episode 1.1 “Puppetman”
(Dir by Alan Rafkin, originally aired on July 3rd, 1987)
Gary (Fred Newman) is a puppeteer who spends most of his day hiding beneath a cardboard wall while speaking in the voice of a naive dragon. Much like the guy from the Police Academy films, Gary does a lot of other sound effects as well. Who needs to pay for an SFX department when Gary can perfectly duplicate any sound that’s needed? Gary works on a PBS puppet show that is hosted by the mercurial Rita (Julie Payne). His co-puppeteers are Del (Richard Hunt) and Holly (Lisa Waltz). It would seem that he has the perfect life, though it’s hard not to notice that Gary seems to be a lot more comfortable expressing his emotions through his puppets than through face-to-face conversation.
Gary’s ex-wife calls and explains that she has an audition for a play. She asks if Gary can look after their six year-old son, Zack (Michael Patrick Carter). Gary agrees, though he worries about whether or not he’ll be as good a full-time father as he was a part-time father. At first, Zack is excited to spend time with his father but then he’s bitterly disappointed when Gary has to keep abandoning him because of the demands of his job. Gary is good at holding the show together but he’s less skilled at meeting the emotional needs of a six year-old.
Gary’s going to have to get better at it, though. When his wife calls and says that she got the part and she’s going to be on the road for the next six months, she asks Gary to take Zack. Gary agrees but first, he has to ask Zack. And what better way to ask Zack than to have a puppet do it for him?
The Puppetman pilot was co-written by Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets. Perhaps not surprisingly, the pilot is at its best when it deals with what goes on behind-the-scenes of a PBS children’s show. The stuff with Zack is rather rudimentary but the pilot actually comes to life when it deals with temperamental grown-ups and idealized puppets. When Rita decides to sing a song without giving anyone any advance warning and the puppeteers decide to upstage Rita by having one of the dragon puppets sneeze on her, it’s obvious that Henson was writing from his own personal experiences.
To be honest, this was kind of a depressing pilot. Gary is a nice guy and he’s likable and he wants to be a good father but it’s obvious that he can only express his emotions through his puppets. As a result, Zack is far more comfortable talking to the puppets than talking to his own father. Throughout the whole pilot, one gets the feeling that Gary has been so deeply wounded in the past that he’s scared to open up. Even the show’s laugh track sounds kind of sad.
Perhaps that explains why only one episode of Puppetman aired. Gary agreed to watch Zack for six months but America would not be watching either one of them.
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, Captain Stubing’s in love again. Things don’t work out.
Episode 3.13 “Not Now, I’m Dying/Too Young To Love/Eleanor’s Return”
(Dir by Alan Rafkin and Roger Duchowny, originally aired on November 24th, 1979)
The first thing that I noticed about this episode is that the name of guest star Jon Cypher was misspelled as “Jon Cyphers” on his intro card. I’m sure that Cypher appreciated that. Jon Cypher may never have been a household name but he appeared in several movies and a ton of television shows, usually cast as autocratic authority figures. Misspelling his name is an odd error for a guest star-driven show like The Love Boat to make.
The other thing I noticed was that Jill Whelan was not listed in the opening credits and indeed, Vicki is not in the episode. The simple explanation is that this episode was originally meant to air before Stubing adopted Vicki. Still, I did find myself wondering if maybe Captain Stubing finally realized that it was kind of weird for a 12 year-old to live on a cruise ship. Vicki living on the ship has always confused me. I mean, she’s 12 and she’s apparently now working for the cruise line. Shouldn’t she be in school? Does she have a tutor on the boat? I mean, how is any of this legal?
Captain Stubing didn’t say anything about Vicki in this episode but that’s because he was devoting most of his attention to Eleanor (Barbara Rush). Eleanor previously appeared during the second season, during which Stubing fell for her. Stubing is excited that Eleanor will be taking the cruise for a second time but, before he can ask her out, Eleanor is approached by Russell Evans (Jon Cyphers Cypher). Russell asks Eleanor to dance with him and Stubing can only watch helplessly as Eleanor has a whirlwind romance with Russell. Unfortunately, Russell turns out to be a bit of a cad but, by the time time Eleanor realizes this, the cruise is almost over! Stubing chastely comforts her and I did appreciate that the show didn’t have her just magically get over her broken heart and have her hook up with the Captain. At the end of the cruise, Eleanor says goodbye once again and Stubing can only hope that she’ll take a third trip on the boat.
While this is going on, Doc is excited because his friend, Lucy (Barbi Benton), has boarded the boat with her fiancé, Peter Welch (Dack Rambo). Lucy is really enthusiastic about getting married but Peter’s not sure if he wants to settle down. So, in an example of incredibly weird thinking, Peter lies and tells Lucy that he’s dying of a tropical disease and it wouldn’t be fair of him to marry her. When Lucy tells Doc the news, Doc informs Lucy that Peter’s disease doesn’t exist. In order to get back at Peter, Lucy arranges for Peter to be examined by Doc. The plan is for Doc to violate his Hippocratic oath and risk his medical license by giving Peter a false diagnosis. However, Doc discovers that Peter actually is sick. He has Lou Gehrig’s Disease. This leads to Peter and Lucy realizing that they really do love each other.
Finally, two underage kids — Terry (Timothy Patrick Murphy) and Monica (Christen Kauffmann) — board the boat under false names and check into the honeymoon cabin so that they can take their relationship to the next level. However, Monica is the daughter of one of the cruise line’s executives and, when he discovers what is going on, he orders Stubing to keep the kids apart. Since Stubing is more interested in pursuing Eleanor, he gives the job to Gopher.
Instead of just confronting the kids about lying to get the honeymoon suite and assigning them to different cabins, Gopher decided to rely on his mastery of disguise. Gopher disguises himself as both an old man and a bearded Scotsman and continually makes sure that Terry and Monica never get any time alone. Terry is annoyed but Monica is happy because she’s not sure if she actually wants to lose her virginity to a handsome and considerate guy who has enough money to afford a luxurious cabin on a cruise ship.
This episode was …. well, it was okay. It was a typical episode of The Love Boat, in that everyone was attractive and the boat looked really nice. With the exception of Eleanor’s story, this was a fairly superficial 45 minutes. That said, it was a pleasant episode even if it wasn’t particularly memorable.
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, Gopher sings!
Episode 3.6 “Gopher’s Greatest Hits/The Vacation/One Rose A Day”
(Dir by Alan Rafkin, originally aired on October 13th, 1979)
What a pleasant cruise this turned out to be!
Two sisters, Joan (Joanna Cassidy) and Olivia (Jaye P. Morgan), are apparently regulars on the boat. They sail so often that Captain Stubing literally jumps for joy when he sees that they are once again on the ship. Joan and Olivia always take the cruise together and usually, they have a wild time. But this year, Olivia is shocked when Joan shows up with her husband, Byron (Conrad Janis)! Byron is a bit uptight and not at all happy when he starts to hear stories about how wild his wife and sister-in-law have gotten in the past. He assumes that Joan has cheated on him. She hasn’t but Olivia has cheated on her husband. In the end, Olivia continues to have fun and Joan decides that it’s time to settle down. This story suffered a bit because Byron came across as being insufferably self-righteous but Joanna Cassidy and Jaye P. Morgan were believable as sisters. As someone who has enjoyed a wild vacation or two with her sisters, I could relate.
Meanwhile, Janet Latham (Martha Scott) is taking her first vacation since the death of her husband. Her florist, Henry (Don Ameche), is also on the cruise. Every day, during their marriage, Janet’s husband would have Henry deliver a single white rose to Janet. After her husband died, Henry continued to deliver the roses to Janet. He allowed Janet to believe that her husband had arranged for her to continue to receive the daily roses but it turns out that Henry has been delivering them on his own because he’s fallen in love with her. Janet does fall in love with Henry on the ship, though she fears that she’s betraying her husband’s memory. Fortunately, by the end of the cruise, she’s ready to take another shot on love. This story worked wonderfully, largely due to the sincere and heartfelt performances of Martha Scott and Don Ameche. There was a tremendous amount of sincerity to their love story and it was impossible not to smile at the sight of them leaving the cruise together.
Finally, Julie has a problem! The singer that she scheduled to perform in the Acapulco Lounge gets the mumps and has to cancel at the last minute. Julie has to find a replacement. Fortunately, it turns out that Gopher has a great singing voice. He performs at the Lounge, wearing a pink tuxedo and acting like a drunk brat packer. The audiences loves him. The captain, once skeptical, applauds. Gopher thinks that they love his singing but actually, they all think that he’s parodying a bad lounge act. When the captain congratulates Gopher for being a brilliant comedian, the crestfallen Gopher says that he’s only going to sing in the shower from now on. So, Julie arranges for a fake shower to be placed in the middle of the Acapulco Lounge so that Gopher can sing Danny Boy while Isaac holds a watering can over his head. Again, the captain loves it. This was undoubtedly a goofy storyline but goofiness was Fred Grandy’s strong suit and it’s hard not to smile at his over-the-top interpretation of Mack the Knife.
This was a good episode that really showed how much fun The Love Boat could be at its best. From the sentimental Don Ameche/Martha Scott storyline to Fred Grandy dancing around the pool, this was an entertaining cruise.
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!
For this week’s cruise, Julie learns that she’s not the only person who can do her job!
Episode 3.3 “The Grass is Greener/Three Stages of Love/Oldies But Goodies”
(Dir by Alan Rafkin, originally aired on September 22nd, 1979)
This week, Julie is super excited when her friend, Tina Philips (Joan Hackett), boards the cruise with her young son, Brian (Adam Rich). Tina and Julie went to cruise director school together, where they were both taught by none other than Captain Stubing.
(As I’ve mentioned before, there have been a lot of weird continuity issues with establishing just how long anyone had actually known Captain Stubing. During the first season, everyone was unsure of what to make of Captain Stubing and none of them had any experience sailing with him. But, in the second season, Stubing was suddenly celebrating his five year anniversary as the ship’s captain. And, in this episode, Stubing is established as being Julie’s mentor.)
Tina had a crush on Stubing while she was a student and Stubing had a bit of a crush on her as well. Though Tina could have had a great career as a cruise director, she decided to get married and settle down instead. Now, with her marriage falling apart, Tina boards the boat and immediately starts giving Stubing and Julie advice. Julie, meanwhile, takes care of Brian while Tina dances with the captain. Tina lives Julie’s life and Julie lives the life she could have had if she had stayed in Alaska and gotten married. It turns out that Julie’s a great substitute mom but Tina is a terrible substitute cruise director. Her idea of throwing a sock hop is a huge bust and, to be honest, it does seem a bit childish for a luxury cruise. In the end, Tina returns to being a single mom and Julie returns to being childless and career-driven. Yay, I guess.
Meanwhile, Nora (Amanda Blake) boards the ship with her daughter, Daphne (Karen Morrow). Daphne is determined to marry a millionaire but Nora is the one who finds love when she meets the wheelchair-bound Phillip (Barry Sullivan). Unfortunately, Phillip’s stuffy valet, Perkins (Werner Klemperer), insists that Philip needs to stay in his cabin and watch his blood pressure. Fear not, though. Daphne finds a millionaire and the millionaire hires away Perkins so now Phillip and Nora are free to have fun. Yay!
(Though, really, Phillip should keep an eye on his blood pressure….)
Finally, Mike (Eddie Mekka) and Robin (Lani O’Grady) seems like a perfect couple, except for the fact that Mike is convinced that all relationships go through three stages before ending and he has an annoying habit of saying stuff like, “We’ve just entered stage two!” Robin gets tired of Mike and his cynicism and eventually, Mike decides to give love a try because …. well, I’m not sure why. I think it was because the episode was nearly over.
This episode was pleasant but, ultimately, rather forgettable. Nora and Phillip were a nice couple but Perkins was portrayed in an over-the=top villainous light, especially when one considers that he was just doing the job he was hired to do. Mike and Robin seemed like they were still destined to break up, even as they left the ship in love. I did enjoy the scenes in which Tina’s sock hop party turned out to be a bust, just because it seemed like a dumb idea from the minute she mentioned it. That said, the main message of this episode seemed to be that having a family and career were two mutually exclusive things, which I certainly did not agree with.
Again, this was not necessarily a bad episode. It was just kind of a bland one.
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, the Love Boat departs on one weird cruise.
Episode 2.12 “The Captain’s Cup / The Folks from Home / Legal Eagle”
(Dir by Alan Rafkin, originally aired on December 2nd, 1978)
This was a strange episode.
Let’s start with the simplest of our three stories first. Danny Holt (Bert Convy) is recently divorced and still crying over having to pay his wife alimony. When he boards the boat, he specifically asks Gopher if there are any single men onboard who might be interested in marrying his ex-wife. His ex isn’t even on the cruise! Danny is one bitter passenger. From the minute he boards the boat, he’s whining about how unfair his divorce was and how badly he was treated by his wife’s divorce lawyer, Ann Sterling (Leigh Taylor-Young).
Uh-oh, it turns out that Ann is one the cruise as well! And she’s been assigned to be Danny’s dinner companion. Danny isn’t happy about this but then, from out of seemingly nowhere, the two of them end of falling in love. It’s hard to say why they suddenly fall in love. Danny is superbitter over his divorce and Ann knows all of the details about what type of husband he was so it seems like the last thing that would ever happen would be them leaving the ship, arm-in-arm. But somehow, that’s what happens. It was a straight-forward story but it lacked any scenes that would have explained why the two of them fell in love. They just did because they were characters on The Love Boat. (It certainly wasn’t due to any noticeable romantic chemistry between Bert Convy and Leigh Taylor-Young.) This story felt lazy and generic.
In the episode’s second storyline, Captain Stubing is excited because he’s due to receive the Captain of the Year Cup. Diane DiMarzo (Florence Henderson, proving that former Bradys just cannot stay off The Love Boat) boards the ship with the Cup but she’s shocked to discover that 1) her boss — the guy who actually decided to give Stubing the Cup — will not be on the ship and 2) Stubing fully expects her boss to personally present him with the Cup. Now, I’m not really sure how the logic works here but apparently, Diane could lose her job if her boss isn’t there to give Stubing the cup. But why would that be Diane’s problem? She did what she was supposed to do. She boarded the ship with the Cup. Her boss is the one who decided not to show up and he is the boss so it’s not like there was anything Diane could have done about it.
Anyway, Diane recruits one of the ship’s handymen to pretend to be her boss. Though he works on the boat and the rest of the crew know him, it appears that the Captain himself has never met Hank Vosnik (Pat Harrington, Jr.), which kind of leads one to wonder if Stubing really deserves his award. Anyway, Hank falls in love with Diane and is crestfallen when she turns down his marriage proposal. (Seriously, at this point, they had only known each other for like three days so I’m not sure what Hank was expecting.) But, despite being turned down, Hank still pretends to be Diane’s boss. So, Diane decides that she might as well marry him. WHAT!?
Finally, Doc Bricker is happy to meet two passengers from his hometown. George (John McIntire) and Gloria (Jeanette Nolan) spend every moment with Doc and they even announce that, as far as they’re concerned, the 40-something Doc is a member of their family. Doc is touched. But then Gloria falls down a flight of stairs and Doc has to do emergency surgery on her. Gopher calls a doctor in San Francisco and he talks Doc through the surgery. Doc removes Gloria’s spleen and saves her life! Yay! Only at the end of the surgery does he get George to sign a consent form. In real life, that would lead to Doc to losing his job and the cruise line getting sued. But, on The Love Boat, it just leads to more laughter.
On the plus side, this storyline featured the charming performances of McIntire and Nolan, who were married in real life. The story was also written by Fred “Gopher” Grandy and Bernie “Doc” Kopell so, not surprisingly, it actually allowed Grandy and Kopell to do something more than just leer at the passengers. The show rarely gave Grandy or Kopell a chance to show off the fact that they were both capable of giving good dramatic performances so, whenever they got that rare chance to do so, they took advantage of it. That said, it was still a bit awkward to see Doc suddenly performing major surgery in his tiny examination room. It was all for the best on the show but, in real life, it would have led to a major lawsuit. Even though Doc Bricker saved Gloria’s life, it still seems like the ship could probably be held liable for her getting injured in the first place. I mean, the boat is in the middle of the ocean. Shouldn’t there at least be a warning posted on the stairs?
Well, who knows? Strange things happen at sea. Let’s just be happy that everything worked out in the end.
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!
Come aboard, we’re expecting you….
The Love Boat 1.5 “The Joker Is Mild / Take My Granddaughter, Please / First Time Out”
(Dir by Richard Kinon and Alan Rafkin, originally aired on October 29th, 1977)
This week’s cruise is all about remaining true to yourself!
For instance, Julie makes what appears to be a big mistake when she agrees to let a washed-up comic named Barry Keys (Phil Foster) do a show in the ship’s lounge. Throughout the cruise, Barry gets on everyone’s nerves with his old-fashioned jokes and his vaudeville stylings. Captain Stubing gives Julie an annoyed look whenever Barry starts to speak. Julie knows that her career is on the line but she made a promise. And Barry, it turns out, know what he’s doing. When it comes time for his performance, he asks for a stool so that he can sit in the middle of the stage and talk about the generation gap. (“Let’s rap, as the kids say,” Barry says.) Hooray! Barry has revived his career and Julie still has a job.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Warner (Ruth Gordon) is determined to find a husband for her granddaughter, Shirley (Patty Duke, who spends the entire episode looking as if she’s wondering how she could go from winning an Oscar to this). Shirley would like to hook up with the pleasantly bland Dave King (played by Tab Hunter). Mrs. Warner wants her to go out with Dr. Bricker! In the end, Shirley stands up for herself, as any single 30 year-old should. (To be honest, I thought Patty Duke’s character was closer to 40 but that’s mostly the fault of whoever in the costume department decided to make her wear some of the least flattering outfits available.) It’s all for the best. Dave is a nice guy and Doc has an exam room full of pornographic magazines to take care of.
Finally, a group of college students board the ship with one mission in mind. They want their friend Dan (Robert Hegyes, who has a truly impressive head of hair) to lose his virginity. Dan, it turns out, is not only shy but he also has no idea how to talk to women. Fortunately, her runs into Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick) and it turns out that Marica likes shy, socially awkward guys with a lot of hair. Okay, technically Maureen is playing Barbara Holmes but seriously, we all know that Barbara was actually Marcia.
This was a majorly uneven episode. Barry’s revised act didn’t seem any funnier than his old stuff and it was kind of hard to sympathize with Shirley and her inability to make her own decisions. That said, Maureen McCormick and Robert Hegyes made for a cute couple and their storyline was the most satisfying of the episode. Personally, I think this episode would have worked better if Ruth Gordon had played Maureen McCormick’s grandmother as opposed to Patty Duke’s. McCormick was young enough that it would have been a bit less pathetic for her to be bossed around by her grandmother and one can imagine how Ruth Gordon would have reacted to McCormick picking hairy Dan over a doctor.
Oh well! The important thing is that everything worked out in the end and love won’t hurt anymore.
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!
Welcome aboard, it’s love!
Produced by Aaron Spelling, The Love Boat is one of the signature shows of the 70s and the 80s. Each week, the Pacific Princess would set off for a different location with a different group of guest stars. Typically, each episode would feature three stories. One story would be silly fun. One story would be a dramedy. And then one story would typically feature a member of the Love Boat crew either falling in love or worrying about losing their job. It was a tremendously silly show but, from the episodes I’ve seen, it was also very likable. If nothing else, the ship looked really nice.
While the passengers changed from week-to-week, the crew largely remained the same. During the show’s first season, the crew was made up of:
Captain Merrill Stubing (Gavin MacLeod), who started out as a stern, no-nonsense captain but who became significantly nicer and a good deal goofier as the series progressed,
Adam “Doc” Bricker (Bernie Kopell), the ship’s doctor who hit on every woman who boarded the boat and who probably would have been an HR nightmare if the show actually took place in the real world,
Gopher (Fred Grandy), the ship’s purser who …. well, I’m not sure what a purser does but hopefully it wasn’t too important of a job because Gopher was always getting into weird situations,
Isaac (Ted Lange), the ship’s bartender who spent the entire cruise getting people drunk,
and Julie (Lauren Tewes), the cheerful cruise director.
And, of course, we can’t forget the true star of the show, the theme song!
Before the series, there were three made-for-television movies: The Love Boat (1976), The Love Boat II (1976), and finally The New Love Boat (1977). These movies served as pilots for the show. The first movie featured an entirely different cast playing the ship’s crew. Kopell, Lange, and Grandy first played their roles in The Love Boat II. MacLeod and Tewes came aboard in The New Love Boat. Unfortunately, these pilots aren’t available on Paramount Plus but, fortunately, the rest of the series is.
So, let’s set sail on a course for adventure with the first episode of The Love Boat!
Episode 1.1 “Captain & The Lady/Centerfold/One If By Land….”
(Directed by Richard Kinon, Stuart Margolin, and Alan Rafkin, originally aired on September 24th, 1977)
The Pacific Princess is about to set sail but all is not right on the cruise ship that some call The Love Boat.
Ginny O’Brien (Brenda Sykes) just wants to get away from her longtime boyfriend, Ronald (Jimmie Walker). Ginny wants to marry Ronald but Ronald just wants to have a good time. When Ginny boards the cruise, Ronald decides to follow her. The only problem is that the cruise is sold out and Ronald can’t break the law by stowing away. (I was actually surprised that didn’t happen. I can imagine The Love Boat writers room descending into chaos as the writers argued about whether or not it was too early to do a stowaway story.) Ronald decides to follow the Love Boat from port to port, just so he can show Ginny that he is committed to something. Ginny ends up spending her entire cruise wondering if Ronald is going to be make it to every port. To me, it felt as if her cabinmate (Suzanne Somers) seemed to be kind of annoyed about getting sucked into all of Ginny’s personal drama but that could just be projection on my part. I know that I would certainly get annoyed by it.
Meanwhile, Congressman Brad Brockway (Shelly Novack) has set sail with his fiancée, Sandy (Meredith Baxter-Birney). When Sandy was younger, she posed for a sleazy photographer. Now that she’s engaged to the Congressman, a tabloid has published those pictures. Sandy spends the entire cruise trying to keep Brad from seeing any copies of the magazine. The only problem is that the magazine is sold in ship’s gift shop! (Did most cruise ships sell adult magazines in their gift shop? I supposed it’s possible. It was the 70s….) Sandy manages to get almost every copy of the magazine but misses the copy that Doc keeps in his examination room. Doc looks at the pictures and tells her that she has nothing to be ashamed of because the pictures look good. That really wasn’t her main concern, Doc. Anyway, it turns out that the Congressman doesn’t care. Personally, I would have preferred that the story had ended with Sandy announcing that she was the one who didn’t care.
Finally, Captain Stubing is a nervous wreck because an executive of the cruise line named Aubrey Skogstad (Robert Symonds) is on the cruise and so is his wife, Stacy (Bonnie Franklin). While Aubrey is quiet and polite, Stacy proceeds to tell every member of the crew that they are inadequate and that she will personally make it her duty to get them all fired. It turns out that Stacy is hostile because she’s Captain Stubing’s ex-wife. Since Captain Stubing is still new to the ship and has kept himself aloof from the rest of the crew, they wonder if he’ll ever stand up for them. Eventually, the captain tells Stacy off and, in doing so, he finally wins the loyalty of his crew. Yay!
Anyway, the first episode of The Love Boat was very, very 70s. The only thing that could have made it more 70s would have been a disco ball on the lido deck. Fortunately, as our long-time readers know, I’m a total history nerd so I enjoyed the show as a floating time capsule. It’s one thing to watch a movie that’s set in the 70s and which features everyone going out of their way to bring to life every stereotype. It’s another thing to actually view something that was specifically made during the time period.
Unfortunately, the stories and the passengers themselves were pretty forgettable. The whole thing about the Stacy and the Congressman was slightly interesting just because, with the rise of social media, everyone’s got smutty pictures out there now. For the most part, though, this first episode was about introducing Captain Stubing and the crew and the cast did display a good deal of chemistry together. They were all likable. Even Doc Bricker, with his stash of cruise porn, seemed to be well-intentioned. They came across as people who most viewers would want to take a cruise with, which is exactly what the show required to be a success.
Next week …. more love, more 70s fashion, and more intrusive laugh tracks as we set sail on another voyage!
Through the Shattered Lens 