Tag Archives: Allen Baron

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.11 “That’s My Dad/Captive Audience/The Captain’s Bird”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

Merry Christmas!

Episode 4.11 “That’s My Dad/Captive Audience/The Captain’s Bird”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on December 20th, 1980)

It’s time for the Love Boat’s annual Christmas cruise and, appropriately enough, this cruise is all about family.

For instance, Captain Stubing has decided that the perfect Christmas gift for Vicki would be a parrot.  After the bird is brought on board, Stubing decides that the perfect place to hide it would be in Gopher’s cabin.  Gopher goes along with this because it’s something of a miracle that he hasn’t been fired yet.  I mean, when you’ve screwed up as much as Gopher has, you’re not really in a position to argue with your boss.  The only problem with all of this is that the parrot won’t talk.  Stubing isn’t happy about that so Isaac and Gopher try to teach the bird to sing a Christmas carol.  Instead, the bird starts saying, “Captain Stubing is a jerk!”  Uh-oh!

Meanwhile, singer Bobby Braddock (Jack Jones, who sang The Love Boat theme song) boards the ship with his wife, Susan (Laraine Stephens).  What Bobby doesn’t know is that his father, Richard (Allan Jones), and his mother, Lil (Dorothy Lamour), are also on the ship.  Bobby got his start as a part of Richard’s act and Richard has never forgiven Bobby for going solo.  Julie, Lil, and Susan all hope that they can bring father and son back together again.  Needless to say, Richard doesn’t appreciate being tricked into boarding a boat with his son.  He grimaces while listening to Bobby sing Winter Wonderland and then storms out of the lounge when Julie asks him to join his son on stage.  Merry Christmas, I guess!

Still, as bad as Bobby Braddock has it, it’s nothing compared to what’s going on with young Scotty (Meeno Peluce).  Looking to escape an abusive life at home, Scotty sneaks on board the ship by telling the crew that another passenger, Jeff Dalton (Dirk Benedict), is his father.  Scotty then proceeds to follow Jeff around the boat.  Jeff has no idea that everyone thinks that he is Scotty’s father.  When Jeff meets a woman and politely tells Scotty to scram, the crew is scandalized.  When Stubing sees the bruises on Scotty’s back, he assumes that Jeff is responsible.

Well, don’t worry.  Things may look bleak at the halfway mark but everything works out in the end.  Jeff realizes that maybe he would like to be a father to a random runaway.  Richard realizes that he can forgive his son for wanting to make his own way.  Crew members dress up like Santa Claus and Vicki has a happy holiday on the ocean.

You know what?  This was a silly episode but I enjoyed it.  I’m a sucker for Christmas episodes and this one had enough comedy and drama to keep me entertained and the story involving Scotty and Jeff even touched my heart a little.  This was definitely a cruise worth taking.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.23 “Another Time, Another Place/Doctor Who/Gopher’s Engagement”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, Maureen McCormick returns to The Love Boat!

Episode 3.23 “Another Time, Another Place/Doctor Who/Gopher’s Engagement”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on March 1st, 1980)

Mrs. Elliott (Audrey Meadows) boards this week’s cruise with a very specific mission in mind.  She wants to find a husband for her daughter, Celia (Maureen McCormick).  Mrs. Elliott, whose husband owns a good deal of stock in the cruise line, at first eyes Doctor Bricker as a possible suitor for her daughter, despite the fact that the doctor is considerably older than Celia and has been divorced multiple times.  However, Celia is far more charmed by Gopher, who asks Celia to dance when Julie points out how miserable Celia looks at the ship’s Charleston night.

Celia is charmed by Gopher and, when he accidentally gives her a ring that he’s been carrying around in his pocket, she assumes that he’s asking her to marry him.  (The ring was actually lost by another passenger and Gopher was just carrying it around until he could put it in the lost-and-found.)  Celia says yes and suddenly, Gopher is engaged!  Mrs. Elliott is not happy about this, as Gopher is only an assistant purser.  As for Gopher, he tries to get out of the engagement by having Isaac tell Celia that Gopher’s a drunk.  This only makes Celia even more determined to marry Gopher (so she can “save” him) and this also gets Gopher in trouble with the Captain who, as the show sometimes remembers, is a recovering alcoholic.

Fortunately, Isaac eventually tells Celia the truth about what’s going on.  Celia is surprisingly forgiving, returning the ring and announcing that she and Gopher will always be good friends.  Celia also finds the strength to tell her mother to let her live her own life.  Mrs. Elliott is okay with this, because she has another daughter who needs a husband and Doc is still single.

This was a storyline that depended too much on everyone involved acting like an idiot.  Those are my least favorite stories.  But, just as with last week, Fred Grandy got to show off his tragic clown qualities and Maureen McCormick was so convincing in her role that it was hard not to suspect that perhaps she related to a character who was tired to everyone assuming that they knew what was best for her and her life.

Speaking of storylines that required everyone to act like an idiot, this episode also featured Bert Parks as Dr. Michael Mervey, a noted sex therapist.  Dr. Mervey boards the ship under an assumed named and tells the Captain that he just wants to relax and not have anyone asking him for any help with their problems or asking him to autograph his book.  However, Evelyn Miller (Phyllis Davis) has heard a rumor that Dr. Mervey is on the boat so she boards with the intention of tracking him down and seducing him.

The only problem is that Evelyn doesn’t know what Dr. Mervey looks like.  (I find that hard to believe, considering how famous Dr. Mervey is supposed to be.)  When she hears Isaac refer to another passenger (Arte Johnson) as being a “doctor,” Evelyn assumes the passenger must be Dr. Mervey.  But instead, he’s just Wilfred Johnson (Arte Johnson), a nerdy nuclear physicist.  At first, Dr. Johnson pretends to be Dr. Mervey but when the real Dr. Mervey inevitably spots Evelyn and starts to hit on her, the truth comes out.  Evelyn dumps Wilfred.  Feeling guilty, Dr. Mervey tries to give them a therapy session.  Neither wants to listen to Dr. Mervey but they do still realize that they actually love each other.  Wilfred and Evelyn leave the cruise arm-in-arm and Mervey pats himself on the back for a job well-done.

Again, this plot was way too dependent on everyone acting like an idiot.  That said, Bert Parks made me laugh as the self-important Dr. Mervey.

Finally, Jane Wyman stars as Sister Patricia, a nun who is heading to Acapulco to be a teacher.  When she discovers that her ex-boyfriend, Steve Brian (Dennis Morgan), is on the cruise, she is forced to reconsider her decision.  In the end, she decides to follow her calling but she tells Steve that they’ll be reunited in another time and another place.  When Stubing comforts Steve, Steve replies that, “if” there’s a Heaven, they’ll be reunited.

Uhmm…. Steve, if there is a Heaven, it’s probably not full of agnostics.  Just saying.

Anyway, this was a simple story and I could tell where it was going to go from the first minute the Steve greeted Patricia on the boat but it worked because of the old school charm of Dennis Morgan and Jane Wyman.  These two Hollywood veterans knew just how to best embrace the melodrama.

Thanks to Wyman and Morgan, this was a pleasant cruise.  Hopefully, next week will be just as pleasant.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.14 “The Stimulation of Stephanie/Life Begins at 40/The Next Step”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!  They’re expecting you!

Episode 3.14 “The Stimulation of Stephanie/Life Begins at 40/The Next Step”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on December 1st, 1979)

After being unexplainably absent last week, Vicki returns this week and is once again somehow a member of the Love Boat crew, despite only being 12.  Nobody asks where she was last week and certainly, no one asks her how she’s doing in school.  In fact, not only the crew but also the passengers seem to be totally accepting of the idea of a 12 year-old working as the assistant to the cruise director.  I guess the 70s were a different time.

If I seem to be harping on the strangeness of Vicki living on the boat, that’s because this week’s episode really isn’t that interesting.  This week’s episode is a fairly bland one.  It’s so bland that it really leaves you with no choice but wonder about the logistics of how the boat works.  And really, that’s something that should never happen when you’re watching a show like The Love Boat.  If you’re worrying about real-life questions while watching a show like this, it means that you’re watching an episode that just isn’t working.  The Love Boat, like Fantasy Island, should be an escape from reality and not an excuse to wonder about how it all works.

As usual, we’ve got three storylines to deal with.  Jo Anne Worley plays Dottie Anderson, who is 39 years old and still unmarried.  She’s booked herself in the honeymoon suite because she is determined that she is going to meet a man and get married over the course of the cruise.  Julie assures Dottie that there’s nothing wrong with being single when you’re 4o, which is easy for Julie to say because someone asks her to get married during almost every cruise.  Anyway, Dottie flirts with a lot of men and ultimately, she comes to realize that Julie was right.  She embraces being single and leaves the boat happy.  Yay!  This storyline didn’t add up too much but at least Jo Anne Worley knew how to deliver a joke.

Meanwhile, pro football player Virgil Plummer (Roosevelt Grier) is upset because he’s about to retire from the game that he loves and he doesn’t know what the future holds for him.  With the help of his wife (Melba Moore) and Isaac, Virgil realizing that he can pursue a career as a cook.  Personally, I’m not sure why he wouldn’t just retire and live off the millions he made as a football player.  Or maybe he could become a coach or one of those “fight for every inch” motivational speakers.  Grier and Moore had a likable chemistry (even if it did feel more like a close friend chemistry as opposed to a married chemistry) but again, this storyline just didn’t add up too much.

Finally, sex research Norman Bridges (Dick Martin) and his assistant, Stephanie Champman (Char Fontane) board the boat.  Bridges wants to research the roots of sexual simulation.  Stephanie is in love with Bridges, though you have to wonder why because he’s kind of a boring jerk.  Still, when Norman thinks that Doc Bricker is trying to seduce Stephanie, Norman goes down to Bricker’s cabin and punches him.  Unfortunately, Norman wasn’t wearing his glasses and didn’t initially realize that the woman in Doc’s cabin was not Stephanie but was instead a passenger named Lena (Judy Landers).  Eventually, Norman does figure out that Stephanie loves him and they leave the boat together.  Somehow, Norman got away with assaulting the ship’s doctor.  This storyline was just dumb.  No one in their right mind would fall in love with someone as clueless and self-absorbed as Norman.

This was a less-than-satisfactory cruise.  But that’s what happens when you break child labor laws.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.17 “Second Chance / Don’t Push Me / Like Father, Like Son”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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’s episode of The Love Boat is all about second chances!

Episode 2.17 “Second Chance / Don’t Push Me / Like Father, Like Son”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on January 27th, 1979)

As usual, this week’s episode presents us with three different stories involving people on the cruise.  Two of them aren’t that interesting and I’m going to deal with them first.

Fred Beery (Roddy McDowall) is a nerdy guy who is sailing on The Love Boat to get away from his clingy, marriage-obsessed girlfriend, Christine (Tammy Grimes).  However, Christine shows up at the last minute and boards the boat with Fred.  Fred suddenly starts sneezing.  When Christine asks Fred to marry her, he sneezes and, for some reason, she assumes that was his way of saying yes.  Fred goes to Doc Bricker and wonders if he could be allergic to Christine.  Doc says that people can be allergic to one another.  Fred is excited because this gives him an excuse not to marry Christine.  But then Fred changes his mind and discovers that he’s no longer allergic to Christine.  However, Christine now finds Fred to be too clingy and doesn’t want to marry him and …. well, that’s pretty much the storyline.

This was a bit of an annoying storyline.  Even with Roddy McDowall in the role, Fred was not particularly likable.  Fred’s refusal to get married and his sudden “allergy” was played for laughs but, when seen today, it’s hard not to feel that Fred is basically deep in denial.  If this episode were made today, it would end with Fred finding the courage to come out and Christine realizing the real reason why he didn’t want to marry her.  But, since it was made in the 70s, it ends with Fred begging Christine to give him a second chance.

The second storyline featured Robert Mandan and Randolph Mantooth as a father and a son who were both in love with the same woman (Cathy Lee Crosby).  Crosby, however, was far more attracted to the older Mandan than the younger (and, it seemed, alcoholic) Mantooth.  In the end, Mantooth made peace with the idea of the woman he loved becoming his stepmother.  It sounds like the premise of a Lifetime movie.

But enough about those stories.  The story that actually worked featured Debbi Morgan as Stephanie Jackson, a recent parolee who Isaac convinced the Captain to hire to work in the gift shop.   When some pearl earrings go missing, Stephanie is the number one suspect because she was previously arrested for shoplifting.  Isaac has to figure out if Stephanie stole the jewelry or if she still deserves her second chance.  Eventually, it is revealed that Stephanie did steal the earrings but she also returned them hours later, locking them up in the gift shop’s safe.  Stephanie nearly returned to her criminal ways but had a change of heart.  After hearing her confession, the Captain tells Stephanie that she did the right thing and that she will continue to work at the gift shop.

I actually liked this storyline.  Some of that was because Debbi Morgan gave a good performance as Stephanie.  But also I liked the fact that The Love Boat was highlighting the importance of helping out the formerly incarcerated.  Too often, when people get out of prison, they find themselves without any opportunities.  Most businesses and stores will always find an excuse not to hire someone with a criminal record and, as a result, those recently released are not left with many options beyond returning to a life of crime.  If we’re going to insist that prison is about rehabilitation than we have to be willing to give the formerly incarcerated a chance to prove that they’ve been rehabilitated.  The Love Boat may have been a rather silly show but, with this episode, it sailed with an important message.

Next week: The Love Boat hosts a high school reunion!

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.16 “Gopher’s Opportunity / The Switch / Home Sweet Home”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 sets sail for a thoroughly pleasant cruise.  Come on board, they’re expecting you!

Episode 2.16 “Gopher’s Opportunity / The Switch / Home Sweet Home”

(Directed by Roger Duchowny and Allen Baron, originally aired on January 20th, 1979)

I’ve been watching these old episodes of The Love Boat for a while now and I have to say that I’m still not totally sure what it is that Gopher actually does on the ship.  Merrill Stubing is the captain and is responsible for the safety of all of the passengers.  Julie McCoy is the cruise director and is responsible for making sure everyone is entertained.  Adam Bricker is the doctor and is probably responsible for the cruise line getting sued by every patient that he hits on.  Isaac Washington is the bartender and is responsible for getting everyone so drunk that they’ll go back to their cabin with the first person who asks.  But what does Gopher do?

I know that Gopher is the purser but the show has never really made clear what that means.  I know I could look it up on Wikipedia but that’s not really the point.  The point is that, while Fred Grandy was certainly likable in the role, the show often seemed to be unsure of what to do with Gopher.  His cabin was decorated with posters of old movies but Gopher rarely spoke of being a fan.  Instead, while the other crew members fell in love with passengers and got involved in each other’s lives, Gopher was often left as a mere observer.

This episode is unique because it actually allows Gopher to do something.  When his old friends, Melody (Elayne Joyce) and Phil (Bobby Van), board the ship, they tell Gopher that they need a manager for their hotel and that they’re offering him the job.  Normally, Gopher would never think of leaving his friends on the Pacific Princess but this episode finds him getting on Stubing’s nerves by leaving too many suggestions in the suggestion box.  (One suggestion, which Stubing finds to be particularly egregious, is that the boat should have a designated “no smoking” area, which today just sounds like common sense,  Can you even smoke on a cruise ship anymore?)  Gopher, feeling underappreciated by the Captain, takes the hotel job.  But, after he realizes that there’s an attraction between him and Melody, Gopher decides to stay on the boat and instead, he encourages Phil to give the position to Melody.  It’s a pretty simple story but it does allow Fred Grandy to do something more than just make wisecracks in the corner.  To be honest, the main theme of this story seemed to be that Captain Stubing is an insensitive jerk who doesn’t really appreciate his crew until they threaten to quit.

While Gopher is trying to decide whether to pursue a new career, magician Al Breyer (Ron Palillo, co-star of the latest addition to Retro Television Reviews, Welcome Back, Kotter) comes to the ship as a last-minute replacement for his older brother, Ken (Michael Gregory).  Ken’s assistant, Maggie (Melinda Naud), is already on the boat and she’s disappointed when Al shows up instead of Ken.  It turns out that Maggie was more than just Ken’s assistant.  At first, she refuses to work with Al but she comes around when she discovers that Al is sensitive and nice and basically the opposite of Ken.  When Ken does finally show up on the ship, he’s such a sleazeball that you have to kind of wonder what Maggie ever saw in him to begin with.  Al responds to Ken’s arrival by locking him in a closet and then he and Maggie leave the boat, arm-in-arm.  Hopefully, someone found Ken before he suffocated because, otherwise, Al’s magic career might come to an abrupt end.

Meanwhile, Hetty Waterhouse (Nancy Walker) decides that she’s going to live on the ship.  She can do this because she’s a wealthy widow.  She books her cabin for the next five years.  Oddly, even though the audience has never seen or heard about her before, everyone else on the crew seems to know her and treats her like an old friend.  That always bothers me a little, when we’re told that a previously unknown character is apparently everyone’s best friend.  Anyway, the main reason that Hetty wants to live on the boat is because she’s in love with Charlie (Abe Vigoda), a cabin steward who has apparently been on the boat for years but who, again, the audience has never seen or hear about before.  Charlie is retiring but he wants to get an apartment on dry land.  He’s tired of the sea.  Hetty gives up her cabin so that she can move into Charlie’s apartment. Awwwww!

This was actually a pretty sweet episode.  Gopher finally felt appreciated by the captain.  Al and Maggie realized that they were both better than Ken.  Hetty and Tessio Charlie found late-in-life happiness together.  This was a perfectly charming cruise!

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.13 “El Kid/The Last Hundred Bucks/Isosceles Triangle”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!  Get ready for tonal whiplash on this week’s episode of The Love Boat!

Episode 2.13 “El Kid/The Last Hundred Bucks/Isosceles Triangle”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on December 9th, 1978)

Wes (David Madden) and Renee Larson (Dena Dietrich) are happy to be setting sail with their friend and business partner, April (Rue McClanahan).  They’re even more excited when the widowed April meets Van Milner (Dabney Coleman), a recently divorced businessman.  Not only is April falling in love with Van but it also appears that Van might even be willing to join the board of April’s hospital and invest some of his money into fixing the place up.  Except, of course, Van lost his job over a year ago and he really doesn’t have that much money left.  April is crestfallen to discover that Van is not the wealthy man that she believed him to be.  Was he just romancing her for her money?  When Van wins a few thousand dollars at the craps table, he donates the money to the hospital and April realizes that he was being honest about his feelings towards her.

This was a pretty predictable story and April was way too quick to forgive Van for his dishonesty but it was interesting to see an actor like Dabney Coleman, someone who brought a naturally cynical edge to any character that he played, on a show like The Love Boat.  As played by Coleman, Van seemed to be suffering from very real inner pain.  For once, the emotional drama on The Love Boat felt, if not quite real, then at least credible.

Speaking of pain, that’s what Larry (Robert Urich) and Cybill Hartman (Heather Menzies) had waiting for them when they took the Love Boat to Mexico so they could adopt a baby.  Upon arriving at the local orphanage, they were told that the mother of their baby had changed her mind and would not be giving up her baby after all.  Instead, Larry and Cybill left with 12 year-old Pepito (Gabriel Melgar), a little brat who steals Larry’s watch and sells it on the boat.  When Larry gets upset, Pepito grabs an inflatable lifeboat and prepares to jump overboard.  Fortunately, Larry and Cybill talk him out of it and he agrees to be their son and to stop stealing stuff.  This was an annoying story, largely because Pepito was so whiny.  It was hard not to feel that Larry and Cybill deserved better than having to raise Pepito.

Finally, Julie’s friend, Karen Maynard (Connie Stevens), boards the boat and both Captain Stubing and Doc Bricker spend the entire voyage pursuing her because it’s not like the Captain and the ship’s doctor would actually be expected do their job while the ship is floating in the middle of the ocean.  Gopher, Ike, and Julie take bets on who Karen will choose but, in the end, Karen chooses neither because both Doc and Stubing decide to respect the other’s feelings and stop pursuing Karen.  This whole storyline was silly because there was really no doubt about who Karen would have picked.  Seriously, anyone who is a passenger on a cruise is automatically going to fall for the captain because the captain is the most powerful person on the boat.  But, on the plus side, the storyline showed off the chemistry between all of the show’s regulars.  It was likable, even if it never quite felt plausible.

This was an episode about which I had mixed feelings.  The three storylines were so tonally dissimilar that they didn’t really seem that they all should have been happening on the same cruise.  Plus, Pepito was the most obnoxious orphan since the kids on One World.  I’m glad things worked out for Dabney Coleman, though.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.9 “Till Death Do Us Part–Maybe / Locked Away / Chubs”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

It’s time for another cruise!

Episode 2.9 “Till Death Do Us Part–Maybe / Locked Away / Chubs”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on November 11th, 1978)

The Love Boat is haunted!

Well, no, not really.  Instead, one of the passengers is haunted.  Ellen Garner (Vernee Watson) is having a difficult time getting over the death of her husband, Mickey (Jimmie Walker, who also appeared on the very first episode of The Love Boat, though as a different character).  It’s been two years since Mickey died and Ellen still has not been able to move on.  Some of that might be because Mickey’s ghost is still following Ellen around.  Only Ellen can see and hear Mickey.  This leads to a lot of scenes of her arguing with Mickey while everyone standing around her assumes that she’s talking to herself.

(To be honest, I think most people would be made nervous by a woman who spent the entire cruise loudly arguing with herself but the passengers and the crew of The Love Boat are oddly unconcerned.  It was the 70s so I assume everyone just assumed it was due to the cocaine.)

Mickey wants Ellen to move on and he pressures her to find a new husband on the cruise.  In fact, Mickey thinks that Ellen should spend some time with Greg Elkins (Greg Morris), who is handsome, polite and wealthy.  At first, Ellen resists Mickey’s attempts to push them together but finally, she gives in.  Suddenly, Mickey starts to get jealous.  By the end of the cruise, though, Mickey is at peace with Ellen moving on and Ellen accepts Greg’s marriage proposal.  Mickey tries to congratulate Ellen, just to discover that she can no longer see or hear him.  Mickey vanishes into thin air, giving this otherwise frothy story a somewhat bittersweet aftertaste.

Whether you were being haunted or not, would you get married after only knowing someone for a week?  I know that there are reality shows built around this very idea but still, I have to wonder how many of these spontaneous Love Boat marriages ended in divorce.  Speaking of divorce….

Also on the cruise is a young married couple, Linda (a young Jamie Lee Curtis, looking relieved to not have to deal with Michael Myers or any other knife-wielding madmen) and Wayne (Peter Coffield).  Linda and Wayne are on the verge of divorce.  Ever since her parents, Les and Gail (Conrad Bain and Curtis’s real-life mother, Janet Leigh), acrimoniously split up, Linda hasn’t believed in love.  Linda and Wayne spend most of the cruise fighting, though it’s never quite clear what they’re fighting about.  What they don’t know is that Les and Gail are on the cruise as well.  Les and Gail came to the ship to see their daughter off and then, as they tried to exit, they accidentally got locked in an unused cabin.  Trapped together and subsisting only on peanuts, water, and stowaway sex, Les and Gail discover that they are still in love and they agree to get married for a second time.  At the end of the cruise, everyone is reunited and, seeing that her parents are going to give marriage another shot, Linda agrees to give Wayne another shot. Awwwww!

(Again, it should be kept in mind that Les and Gail fell back in love because they literally didn’t have anything else to do.  They were trapped in cabin for several days!  Will their rekindled love continue once they have to deal with each other in the real world?  Considering how much they hated each other before getting trapped, it’s easy to be pessimistic.  Can you imagine how Linda will feel if her parents get married a second time just to then get a second divorce?  Then again, this is The Love Boat.  Perhaps the whole point is not to give it too much thought….)

Finally, Gopher is super excited that his sister will be celebrating her 18th birthday on the cruise!  However, Gopher is shocked and horrified to discover that Jennifer (Melissa Sue Anderson) has grown up and now has every guy on the ship hitting on her.  Gopher asks Doc Bricker to look after her, which is an odd request given that Doc is a walking HR nightmare.  That said, for once, Doc tries to do the right thing.  However, Jennifer is eager to lose her virginity and she’s decided that Doc would be the perfect man to which to lose it….

Really?  Out of all the guys on that cruise, you’re going to pick Doc?

Stories in which Doc is portrayed as being a legendary lover are always a bit strange because Doc was played be Bernie Kopell, a likable actor who gave off suburban Dad vibes as opposed to international playboy vibes.  Kopell, Anderson, and the usually underused Fred Grandy all give likable performances in this storyline but it’s still just odd to think that Jennifer has apparently spent years dreaming about Doc Bricker.

It’s also strange that Captain Stubing mentions that it’s been years since he last saw Gopher’s sister.  The previous season established that Captain Stubing had just recently been assigned to the boat and that he was still getting to know the crew.  So, either several years passed between the first and the second season or someone in the writer’s room wasn’t paying attention to continuity.  Then again, I imagine that continuity wasn’t as big a concern in the days before the Internet.  Even if someone did notice the mistake, who would they tell?

This episode was a fairly entertaining one.  Janet Leigh and Conrad Bain were definitely the highlight of this episode and it was fun to watch Leigh and Curtis acting opposite of each other.  (That said, you just know the show’s producers probably tried to convince Tony Curtis to play Janet Leigh’s ex-husband before they asked Bain.)  The ghost subplot had a few funny moments and Gopher finally got to do something.  All in all, it was a pleasant cruise on the Love Boat.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.6 “Mike and Ike / The Witness / The Kissing Bandit”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, I learned that there’s no way to escape the Bradys!

Episode 2.6 “Mike and Ike / The Witness / The Kissing Bandit”

(Dir by Allen Baron and Roger Duchowny, originally aired on October 21st, 1978)

This week, The Love Boat continued to be a floating HR nightmare as Newton Weems (a very young Billy Crytsal) donned a mask and spent his nights running around the ship and kissing every single woman that he came across.  Fortunately, Newton’s such a fantastic kisser that no one demands that the police be alerted.  Unfortunately, with every woman on board eager to get kissed, that means that no one is reacting to the lame flirtations of Doc, Gopher, and the Captain.  The Captain decides that the best way catch the Kissing Bandit would be to use Julie as a decoy.  If I was Julie, I would point out how reasonable I was about the Captain’s uncle and demand more money.  Instead, Julie allows herself to be kissed and soon, she’s in love with the Kissing Bandit as well.

However, Newton eventually realizes that he’s actually in love with another passenger, Roberta (Laurie Walters), and that he doesn’t have to wear a mask to be romantic.  Though this disappoints his biggest fans (played by Nancy Kulp, Pat Carroll, and Sharon Acker), it does make the rest of the crew happy.  It seems like the Captain should be worrying more about running the ship than hitting on every woman who comes aboard but I guess big luxury liners pretty much run themselves.

While this was going on, Isaac was reconnecting with his old friends, Lenore (Marilyn McCoo) and Mike (Billy Davis, Jr.).  When they were younger, they used to perform on street corners for spare change.  Now, Mike is an executive vice president and he’s so work-obsessed and stuffy that his own son (Todd Bridges) thinks that his father doesn’t love him!  Fortunately, things work out in the end.  Mike realizes that there are things more important than business.  Ted Lange gets to show off his dance moves, though it’s hard to forget that Isaac once accused another passenger of being a sell-out for doing the same thing.

Finally, Frank McLean (Robert Reed) is taking a cruise so that he can avoid testifying in a murder trial.  He is spotted by Suzanne (Toni Tennille), who knows Frank from the old neighborhood.  At first, Frank denies even being from New York but, eventually, he tells Suzanne his story.  Suzanne falls for Frank but she has a secret of her own.  By Love Boat standards, this story is fairly dramatic but it ultimately fails because there’s not a hint of chemistry between Reed and Tennille.  In fact, Robert Reed looks even more miserable after he falls in love than he did before.

On a personal note, I just can’t escape The Brady Bunch, can I?  Last week, even as I was finishing up The Brady Bunch Hour, Robert Reed showed up on Fantasy Island.  This week, Eve Plumb went to the island while Robert Reed boarded the ship.  There’s just no way to escape those Bradys!

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.5 “Julie’s Aunt/Where Is It Written?/The Big Deal”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

Things get a bit icky this week.  Ugh!

Episode 2.5 “Julie’s Aunt/Where Is It Written?/The Big Deal”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on October 14th, 1978)

How icky can one cruise get?

Well, consider this.  On this week’s episode of The Love Boat, Captain Stubing’s uncle (Red Buttons) is a passenger on the boat.  Uncle Cyrus decides that he likes Julie.  How does he express how much he likes Julie?  He invites her to his cabin and then lunges at her and starts kissing her.  Julie runs out of the cabin and Uncle Cyrus chases her through the corridors of the boat.  Once Julie does get away from him, she tells Doc and Gopher about what happened.  Doc and Gopher both think that it’s funny.

(Uhmm, guys, this isn’t some old guy with a crush.  This is someone who invited the cruise director to his cabin …. AND ATTACKED HER!)

Everyone agrees that Julie should just try to avoid Cyrus and that she should not tell the Captain about what happened.  Unfortunately, because Uncle Cyrus told the Captain about how much he enjoys Julie’s company, Stubing insists that Julie spend as much time as possible with Uncle Cyrus.  Every time that Julie goes down to his cabin, Cyrus grabs her and starts kissing her.  Scene after scene, Julie has to push Cyrus off of her so that she can escape, screaming, into the hallway.

Finally, realizing that she can’t go on like this, Julie realizes that she has to do something, even if both Doc Bricker and Gopher refuse to take the situation seriously.  Out of the three choice below, which do you think she goes with?

  1. Call the police
  2. Tell Captain Stubing and demand that he call the police
  3. Have Gopher dress up like a woman and pretend to be a member of the police

If you picked number three, you could have been a writer for The Love Boat!

Ugh!  I hated everything about this storyline!

I wasn’t a fan of the other two storylines as well.  The first featured Hope Lange as Sandra Newberry, the wife of publisher Alfred Newberry (Gene Barry).  She is upset to discover that Alfred has invited a Norman Maileresque writer named Mark Littlejohn (Richard Mulligan) to accompany them on the cruise.  Alfred wants Mark to hurry up and finish the final chapter of his autobiography.  Make wants to steal Sandra away.  In the end, Alfred and Mark get into a fight.  They’re too clumsy to actually hit each other but they do manage to knock out Captain Stubing.  Again, you would think that this would be the sort of thing that would eventually involve the police but instead Stubing just accepts a payment that will come from the royalties of Mark’s book.  Whatever.  Go deal with your uncle, Captain.

Finally, Martin Scott (Allen Ludden) is a businessman who is selling his business to Brad Collins (Sam Groom).  Martin’s daughter, Allison (Mackenzie Phillips), feels like she has to date Brad even though she’s actually in love with a musician named Jim Warren (Erik Estrada).  It was hard not to feel that, intentionally or not, Martin was basically pimping out his daughter.  Again, it was just icky.

This was not a fun cruise.  Hopefully, next week will be better.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.4 “The Man Who Loved Women / A Different Girl / Oh, My Aching Brother”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

Episode 2.4 “The Man Who Loved Women / A Different Girl / Oh, My Aching Brother”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on September 30th, 1978)

This week’s cruise is all about deception …. and love!

For instance, Joe (Marty Ingels) and Harold Nash (Sonny Bono) are two brothers who thrive on deception.  Harold specializes in pretending to get injured.  Joe specializes in threatening to sue until the brothers get paid off.  Apparently, it’s a scheme that works well for them, though Joe seems to be a lot more enthusiastic about it than Harold.  In fact, Harold seems to be a nice guy who mostly just wants to enjoy the cruise and flirt with another passenger, Rita (Judy Landers).  Still, Joe insists that Harold pretend to hurt his back so Harold takes a dramatic fall on the shuffleboard course.

Of course, the crew can spot a fake injury from miles away.  For once, Doc Bricker actually does his job and announces that, despite all of his yelling and groaning, there does not appear to be anything wrong with Harold’s back.  Still, if Harold goes through the entire cruise without walking, the Pacific Princess will probably pay a settlement.  Joe’s happy about that.  Harold’s unhappy because he wants to get up and walk over to Rita’s cabin.  In the end, it is Harold’s love for Rita that defeats the scheme.  When he sees Rita actually trip and take a fall, Harold can’t stop himself from jumping out of his wheelchair to help her.  Awwwwwww!

This storyline was dumb but kind of sweet.  Sonny Bono was not a particularly good actor but there was something rather genuine about his chemistry with Judy Landers.

Meanwhile, the Captain Stubing’s godson, Dave Stanton (Grant Goodeve), is taking the cruise with his wife, Laura (Bess Armstrong).  Though they’ve been married for two years, they are only now getting to take their honeymoon.  (Dave was in the army and Laura was caring for her terminally ill mother.)  During the trip, they discover that they’ve both changed over the past two years.  Laura’s more independent now.  Plus, she had an affair while  Dave was gone.  Dave gets pretty upset but Captain Stubing asks Dave if he can really say that he’s never cheated on Laura.  Dave admits that he cheated on her too.  Now that they know that they’re both cheaters, Dave and Laura’s marriage is strong than ever!

This storyline was defeated by the fact that neither Dave nor Laura were particularly sympathetic characters.  At one point, Dave actually says that his cheating was different from Laura’s cheating because he’s a guy and she’s a woman.  AGCK!  Probably the most interesting part of this story is that it gave Stubing a chance to talk about why his own marriage fell apart.  This show has often hinted that there is a lot of darkness and trauma in Stubing’s past and Gavin MacLeod always brings a lot of sincerity to the scenes where the captain admits that he has regrets.

Finally, Charlotte (Cathryn Damon), Bonnie (Jo Ann Pflug), and Anita (Brett Sommers) are three divorcees who take the cruise together.  All three of them end up meeting a man.  Charlotte meets a man named Alvin, who she decides to call him by his middle name, “Cornelius.”  Bonnie meets a man who she calls Vinny.  Anita meets a man who she calls by his last name, “McNair.”  What they don’t know is that all of them have met the same man, Alvin Cornelius McNair (David Doyle).  Alvin goes out with all three of the women but he starts to feel guilty when he realizes that they’re all cabinmates.  However, Charlotte, Bonnie, and Anita tell him that it doesn’t matter to them because Alvin was always honest with them and didn’t try to manipulate any of them.  Awwwww!  I liked this story.  Damon, Pflug, and Sommers were believable as old friends and Doyle was likable as Alvin.

This was actually a pretty enjoyable episode.  It may not have been perfect but it was a pleasant trip.