Brendon Lunney | Through the Shattered Lens

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 two-hour special!

Episodes 5.8 and 5.9 “Farnsworth’s Fling/Three in a Bed/I Remember Helen/Merrill, Melanie & Melanesia/Gopher Farnsworth Smith”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on November 21st, 1981)

The Love Boat crew is back in Australia, sailing from Sydney to Fiji and back again. The Captain remembers his time in the Navy and a lost love who he met while serving in the South Pacific. Julie remembers her love affair with Tony and how he left her at the altar after he discovered that he was dying. Anthony Andrews, who played Tony, is listed as being a guest star on this episode but he only appears in archival footage. Tony, we learn, has died but his brother, David (Brendon Lunney), assures Julie that her letters to him provided him with much comfort during his final days.

(David only appears for a minute or two, when Julie visits the animal preserve where Tony worked. Still, in that minute, he and Julie have so much chemistry that I found myself hoping that David would spontaneously propose to her.)

As for the cruise, the majority of the cabins are populated by the relatives of William Otis Farnsworth (Lloyd Bridges). Farnsworth is one of the richest men in the world and he’s taking a cruise with his entire family because he wants to see who is truly worthy of inheriting his fortune. The ship is full of people looking to get rich, including:

Jenny (Moran Fairchild) and Bud Boyer (Grant Goodeve), who are hoping that William will not discover that they’ve recently gotten divorced,
Hazel (Patti MacLeod) and Frank Fransworth (Russell Newman), who hope that Hazel imitating William’s deceased wife will cause William to mention them favorably in his will,
Marcia (Jessica Walter), who was married to William’s brother and who has basically hired gold digger Jessica Halberson (Linda Evans) to seduce and marry William, and
Burl “Gopher” Smith, who thinks that he might be distantly related to William and who, with Isaac’s encouragement, tries to get close to William. Gopher even calls his mother (Ethel Merman) to find out if he’s a relative. She’s not much help.

Not interested in the money is William’s niece, Eloise (Beth Howland). Eloise, who is William’s administrative assistant, finds herself falling in love with William’s valet, country boy Wayne Burton (Jim Nabors). Words cannot begin to express just how annoying Jim Nabors is in this episode. “Surprise surprise surpise!” Wayne says when he shows up on the boat. “Golly!” Wayne says when a conscience-stricken Jessica tries to break up with William. I found myself covering my ears whenever Nabors appeared on screen.

The main problem here is that none of these people are remotely likable. Not even William Farnsworth is likable. He’s meant to be likable but really, he comes across as being a judgmental jerk. When Jessica tries to leave the ship and fly back to Sidney, William reacts by buying every single plane ticket on the island. Jessica can’t leave but hey …. neither can anyone else!

Far more likable was Melanie (Margaret Laurence), the daughter of the Captain’s former lover, Madeleine. Melanie is a dead-ringer for her mother and the Captain falls in love with her. Melanie also falls in love with him. She proposes marriage. Awwww! But then she realizes marrying the Captain would mean abandoning her job as a teacher so she calls the wedding off. So now, both the Captain and Julie have had their heart broken in Australia. At least they now have something to bond over.

For a two-hour episode, there really wasn’t much plot to this episode. It was largely a travelogue. There were a lot of kangaroos and koala bears and they were certainly cute. The scenery was lovely. Otherwise, this was a cruise full of rather unlikable people. Australia deserved better.

This week, we start season 5 of The Love Boat!

Episode 5.1 and 5.2 “The Expedition/Julie’s Wedding/The Mongala/Julie’s Replacement/The Three R’s/The Professor’s Wife”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on October 10th, 1981)

The fifth season of The Love Boat opens with a two-hour spectacular. Our Love Boat crew is in Australia, where they will be guiding The Sea Princess on a voyage through the South Pacific. It’s a bit odd to start off a season of The Love Boat on a different boat but I guess the plan was to show off all the different ships that sailed for Princess Cruise Lines. This episode was actually shot on the boat during a cruise. It’s interesting to see how different the Sea Princess is from the show’s usual location. It has nicer hallways than the Pacific Princess and a much larger lobby. However, I prefer the relative privacy of the Pacific Princess’s multi-level dining room to the wide open space provided by the Sea Princess.

Captain Stubing, Gopher, Isaac, and Doc are shocked when Julie does not board the ship. She’s been on vacation with her boyfriend, Tony (Anthony Andrews), for the last few months. Tony lives in Australia so, really, it shouldn’t be too hard for Julie to make it to the ship. Instead, a substitute cruise director named Yvonne (Delvene Delaney) shows up. Doc and Gopher are happy because it gives them a new co-worker to lust after. Captain Stubing is upset because Julie has sent them all a letter in which she explains that she will be marrying Tony and retiring to the animal habitat where he works. She asks Stubing to give her away and she invites Vicki to be a bridesmaid. Gopher, Isaac, and Doc will be ushers.

Doc is briefly distracted from chasing Yvonne when he spots Barbara Carroll (Michelle Phillips) boarding the boat. However, Barbara has eyes for Ralph Sutton (Patrick Duffy), a rancher who is blind without his glasses. Unfortunately, that means that he can’t read the love letter that Barbara wrote him. Because she wants Ralph for herself, Connie Walker (Jennilee Harrison) lies about what the letter says. *GASP* (Don’t worry, it all works out.)

Meanwhile, an expedition headed by shady Deke Donner (Jose Ferrer) goes to an island and captures a hairy man (Patrick Ward) who they believe is the Mongola, a.k.a., the missing link! (Wait, what?) They hide the ape-man in the ship’s cargo area (huh?) and try to keep anyone else from learning that they’re transporting a living thing. Everyone acts like he’s a caveman but it’s kind of obvious that the Mongola is just a confused guy with a beard. Dr. Jill McGraw (Donna Dixon) falls in love with the Mongola, much to the consternation of her colleague, Dr. Barry Mason (Gary Frank). Meanwhile, Deke’s old friend, Prof. Milo Ender (Harry Morgan), is stunned to discover that the Mongola has a vaccination scar. Milo’s wife, Vivian (Katherine Helmond), encourages Milo to keep the secret to himself so that they can at least make some money off of the Mongola. (Like, seriously, what the Hell is even going on with this story?) Milo agrees, though it doesn’t seem to occur to him that, if he could notice the vaccination scar, then pretty much anyone could notice the vaccination scar. Eventually, the Mongola gets loose from his cage and jumps overboard. “He’s shark food,” Deke says. (What in the name of God is going on here?) However, the Mongola apparently survives because the police are waiting to arrest Deke as soon as the ship docks in Australia.

But what about the wedding!? you’re saying. Well, the wedding doesn’t happen. It nearly happens. Julie shows up at the church. However, Tony finds out that he’s going to die in a month or two so he leaves Julie at the altar. Julie flies back to Los Angeles with the rest of the Love Boat crew.

Seriously, this is the most morbid episode of The Love Boat that I’ve ever seen.

Still, morbid or not, it’s an entertainingly weird episode and the Australian and New Zealand scenery is lovely to look at. (As with all of the two-hour episodes of The Love Boat, there’s a lot of travelogue padding.) There’s something oddly appealing about seeing the usual Love Boat shenanigans mixed in with a story about the Missing Link and Julie discovering that the love of her life is terminally ill. I mean, the song isn’t lying. The Love Boat really does promise something for everyone.

I mean, in the end, we all know that Julie couldn’t get married because then she’d have to leave the show and that wouldn’t happen until Lauren Tewes’s cocaine use became a problem during the seventh season. Tony could either cheat on her or he could die. (Better he die than do what almost every man does at his bachelor party.) The episode ends with Tony still alive so I guess the show’s writer were leaving their options open. Maybe Tony will make a miraculous recovery, who knows?

Myself, I’m just happy that the crew is back together. It’s time to set sail …. again!