CPR IOU”

Posted on October 29, 2025 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!

Love …. exciting and new!

Episode 6.24 “So Help Me Hannah/The Maid Cleans Up/C.P.R, I.O.U.”

(Dir by Kim Friedman, originally aired on March 12th, 1983)

This episode features Gopher bringing a CPR dummy on board. No one is that interested in learning how to perform CPR, at least not until one of the passengers, Dwaine Fenley (Steven Keats), has a heart attack. Fortunately, because of his CPR training, Gopher is able to save Dwaine’s life. Not only does this lead to Dwaine forging a stronger relationship with his father (Milton Berle) but it also leads to Gopher getting promoted to Head Purser.

(Erin doesn’t like to brag so I’ll brag for her and say that she is not only CPR-certified but she also saved someone’s life a few years ago. CRP is a good thing to learn!)

While Gopher is trying to get everyone to learn CPR, there are other things happening on the boat and, to be honest, they’re all kind of annoying. For instance, Hannah (Mary Martin) boards the boat and she’s immediately giving everyone advice and singing Cole Porter tunes. I kind of knew that this story was going to be annoying from the minute Hannah first boarded the ship and the camera zoomed in for a close-up, which was usually a sign that a guest star was going to spend the entire cruise overacting. That’s the case here, with Mary Martin delivering every line and playing every emotion as if she’s on Broadway as opposed to a television soundstage. Hannah meets an ex-boyfriend named Jarvis (Max Showalter) and they sing It’s De-Lovely while standing against the ship’s railing and, for me, it was De-Cringey. Maybe if I was of Mary Martin’s generation, it would have been less cringey. But I have to admit that I listen to most of those old songs and I think to myself, “De-lovely is not a word.” Hannah encourages Jarvis to allow his son (Timothy Patrick Murphy) to play piano instead of becoming a real estate agent.

Finally, a maid (Judy Landers) boards the boat because she knows that her employer (Caren Kaye) is cheating on her boyfriend (Ben Murphy). It’s actually a bit of a complex storyline, at least by the typical standards of The Love Boat. Personally, I like Judy Landers and Ben Murphy was appropriately rugged and handsome. Unfortunately, Landers and Murphy didn’t have much chemistry.

A mixed review for this episode, I’d say. I appreciated the CPR subplot because that was The Love Boat at its most well-intentioned. The whole thing with Mary Martin singing old songs was cringe city. And the maid subplot was just kind of boring. This was not a great cruise but it wasn’t a terrible one either. At least, after six seasons, Gopher finally got his promotion.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 5.29 “Mothers Don’t Do That/Marrying For Money/Substitute Lover”

Posted on May 21, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, season 5 comes to a close!

Episode 5.29 “Mothers Don’t Do That/Marrying for Money/Substitute Lover”

(Dir by Jerome Courtland, originally aired on May 15th, 1982)

Glamorous Marian Healy (Eva Gabor) boards the boat and is reunited with the son that she barely knows, Danny (Brad Savage). Danny, however, reads Marian’s diary and declares, “Mother don’t do that!” Hey, you little brat, how do you think you came into existence?

Meanwhile, yet another old high friend of Julie’s board the boat and proceeds to lie to a passenger. It seems like this happened every week. This time, it’s Bert (Eddie Mekka) who pretends to be the pen pal of Marla Bennett (Audrey Landers). Don’t worry, Marla forgives Bert when she learns the truth. If there’s anything I’ve learned from watching The Love Boat, it’s that romantic relationships that start off with some horrible lie always work out for the best.

Finally, Gopher and Isaac are worried that Lola Trout (Caren Kaye) is trying to kill her new husband, Orville (Arte Johnson), by forcing him to exercise. They can’t think of any other reason why Lola would marry Arte, other than to murder him and take his money. If they spent more time watching Fantasy Island, they would know that there are simpler ways to kill your husband than by making him exercise. You could challenge him to a pentathlon for instance….

This was the final episode of the fifth season and everyone seemed to be a little bit tired. None of the three stories is particularly developed and you can really tell that everyone’s eager to get off the boat and spend some time on dry land. That’s fine. Season 5 was a pretty good season, even with that terrible musical episode. Everyone deserves a break and if that means the finale is a bit underwhelming, so be it!

Next week, we start Season 6! I have a feeling I will never finish reviewing this series and that’s okay. The Love Boat is a show that I could happily watch forever!

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.1 and 3.2 “The Alaskan Wedding Cruise: Carol and Doug’s Story/Peter and Alicia’s Story/Julie’s Story/Buddy and Portia’s Story”

Posted on August 16, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Love Boat sets sail for season 3!

Episode 3.1 and 3.2 “The Alaskan Wedding Cruise: Carol and Doug’s Story/Peter and Alicia’s Story/Julie’s Story/Buddy and Portia’s Story”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on September 15th, 1979)

The third season of The Love Boat starts with a special voyage to Alaska and a two-hour running time. It’s double the guest stars, double the melodrama, double the goofiness, and double the romance! The opening also features new clips for Doc, Gopher, and Julie. Whereas the first two seasons introduced Doc listening to his own heartbeat, the third season opening features him laughing while leaning against a railing. Gopher’s new opening credit features him looking wistfully out at the ocean and it’s a much more mature look for him. As for Julie, she’s still smiling and perky but she’s let her hair grow out. If the first two seasons of The Love Boat featured Julie looking like the star of the high school drama department, she looks more like the most popular cheerleader now. As for the Captain, he continues to salute the camera and Isaac continues to do his signature pointing.

The episode opens in Canada. The boat is docked in Vancouver, where it has been rented out by a huge and wealthy wedding party. The boat will be sailing to Alaska. Isaac has been reading everything that he can find about Alaska and he spends most of the episode sharing trivia about the state’s history. Gopher, preparing for Alaska’s cold weather, buys a gigantic coat. Meanwhile, Doc Bricker makes jokes about his ex-wives and Capt. Stubing tries to keep everything professional. (“You’re not going to the North Pole!” he snaps at Gopher when he sees the size of his new fur coat.)

As for Julie, her mind is elsewhere. Alaska is where Jack (Tony Roberts) lives. Who is Jack? During the second season, he was a passenger who fell in love with Julie and who asked Julie to marry him. She knows that she’s going to see Jack in Alaska and she’s going to give him an answer as far as his proposal is concerned. (If you don’t remember Jack asking Julie to marry him, don’t feel bad. I had forgotten about it, too. Fortunately, the first hour of this episode is full of flashbacks to Jack’s previous episode.) Is Julie ready to settle down? While Julie tries to make up her mind, she also has to deal with the romantic intentions of the wedding party’s dorky best man (Donny Most).

As for the wedding party, Carol (Lisa Hartman) and Doug (Mark Harmon, sporting a truly unfortunate haircut) are looking forward to getting married, even though Doug’s ex-girlfriend (Caren Kaye) is also on the boat and determined to win Doug back. If that means jumping out a cake while wearing a bikini, she’ll do it. Doug is more concerned about the fact that his estranged, alcoholic father, Peter (Ray Milland) had turned up on the cruise despite having not been invited to or even informed about the wedding. Peter has stopped drinking and is trying to make peace with his son and his ex-wife, Alicia (Eleanor Parker). What Doug and Alicia do not know is that Peter is terminally ill. And what neither Doug nor Peter knows is that Alicia is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, Carol’s plain-spoken grandfather (Lorne Greene) feels uncomfortable with all of the rich folks but then he meets Doug’s equally plain-spoken aunt (Audra Lindley). Could we be heading for a double wedding? It is The Love Boat, after all!

There aren’t really any big surprises on this episode but it’s likable nonetheless. For this episode, the crew and the cast actually sailed to Alaska and all the action was filmed during an actual cruise. The scenery is gorgeous, even if it’s obvious that the cast was frequently freezing while filming their scenes. By this point, the show’s regulars had their chemistry down perfectly and all of the 3rd season premiere’s guest stars are well-selected. I especially liked the performances of Lorne Greene, Audra Lindley, the great Ray Milland, and Tony Roberts. Julie and Jack’s reunion was far more touching that I think anyone would expect from a show like The Love Boat, with Tony Roberts playing the role of Jack so well that the viewer really did believe that, under different circumstances, he and Julie truly would have had a wonderful life together. This was a great way to start the third season.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 1.24 “This Business of Love / Crash Diet Crush / I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”

Posted on February 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s set sail for adventure!

Episode 1.24 “This Business of Love / Crash Diet Crush / I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on May 13th, 1978)

This week’s episode of The Love Boat is all about dealing with the past.

For instance, Captain Stubing is shocked when his old high school girlfriend, Jocelyn (Jessica Walter), boards the boat. He’s even more shocked when Jocelyn points out that he’s gained a bit of weight since high school. I have to admit that I was also shocked that Jocelyn — or anyone for that matter — would react to seeing an old friend by immediately pointing that out. Even worse, Jocelyn makes a joke about how one of their other friends no longer has his hair. This, of course, leads to the Captain refusing to take off his hat and going on a crash diet in an effort to lose weight. This makes the Captain cranky and his beleaguered staff finally rig his scale to make Stubing think that he’s lost more weight than he has. This gives Stubing the courage to tell Jocelyn that he’s fallen in love with her.

I had two thoughts on this storyline. First off, Jocelyn’s kind of a bitch and Captain Stubing, while being a bit of a handful himself, still deserves better than someone who greets him by informing him that he’s no longer as impressive as he was in high school. Secondly, I didn’t really buy that Stubing would be that insecure in the first place. He’s the captain of the ship! He’s in charge! That takes a certain amount of confidence. In order to be a captain, you have to have the respect of your crew and it’s hard to imagine the crew respecting a captain who literally refuses to take off his hat because his high school girlfriend is on the cruise.

Meanwhile, Nate (Michael Callan) and Roberta (Annette Funicello) are both depressed because, over the past year, they’ve both lost their spouses. They meet on the boat and it’s obvious to everyone that they’re meant to be together. Isaac certainly sees it! But both Nate and Roberta say that they’re through with love. Fortunately, an obnoxiously happy couple (played by Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie) are also on the ship as a reminder that love can live forever. This was a standard Love Boat storyline. (Even though the show was still only in its first season, this was not the first time The Love Boat featured a depressed widow finding love on the cruise.) But Funicello and Callen were both sympathetic in their roles and I was happy they found each other.

Finally, Jill (Caren Kaye) is a former high-priced escort who is setting sail for a new life. On the Boat, she meets Bill (Christopher George) and they fall in love. Jill doesn’t want Bill to find out about her past life. Unfortunately, one of her former clients (Jack Carter) is also on the boat, traveling with his wife (Jayne Meadows). Again, this was a standard Love Boat story but it worked largely due to the chemistry between Caren Kaye and Christopher George.

This was an okay episode. The storylines were predictable and a bit forgettable but the guest stars brought a lot of charm to their roles. It was an pleasant cruise. I just hope Captain Stubing stops being so hard on himself!

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 1.13 “Fool For A Client/Double Your Pleasure”

Posted on December 6, 2022 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week’s episode of Fantasy Island is …. well, let’s just say that not every fantasy can be a winner.

Episode 1.13 “Fool For A Client/Double Your Pleasure”

(Dir by Earl Bellamy, originally aired on May 13th, 1978)

This episode begins with Tattoo suffering from a toothache and Mr. Roarke giving him a hard time about it. Indeed, Mr. Roarke seems to take an almost sadistic delight in telling Tattoo that he shall have to see a dentist. The relationship of Mr. Roarke and Tattoo strikes me as being an odd one. On the one hand, Roarke allows Tattoo to handle the money and Tattoo appears to be the second-in-command. One assumes that, if Mr. Roarke ever went on vacation, Tattoo would be left in charge. At the same time, Mr. Roarke doesn’t seem to particularly like Tattoo and he seems to take a lot of pleasure from the various humiliations that Tattoo suffers on a weekly basis. From what I understand, Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize were not exactly friends offscreen so perhaps, this is just a case of reality bleeding into fiction.

Anyway, Tattoo’s toothache is perhaps the most interesting thing about this episode. Both of the fantasies are kind of lame.

In the first fantasy, Ken Berry plays Larry, a blue collar guy who has spent 12 years working on the Alaskan pipeline. His fantasy is to spend the weekend with two beautiful women. No sooner has Larry arrived on Fantasy Island, then he meets Nina (Caren Kaye). She’s beautiful and Larry’s happy. Then he meets Dina, who is Nina’s twin sister and, because of the whole twin thing, she’s beautiful and Larry is happy. EXCEPT …. it turns out that there’s only one woman and her fantasy was to pretend to be a twin for the weekend. Wait …. what? I mean, it works out. Dina and Larry fall in love and they leave together but it seems like Larry didn’t really get his fantasy and, at the very least, he deserves a partial refund.

In the second fantasy, comedian Rich Little plays Herb Costigan, a paralegal who wants to be the world’s greatest lawyer. Mr. Roarke sets him up with a house on the “other side of the island,” which Roarke explains is populated by rich people who apparently have vacation homes on Fantasy Island. Roarke has told everyone that Costigan is a world-famous attorney. However, when a murder occurs, Costigan is framed for the crime and soon, he’s defending himself in court! Eventually, it turns out that there was no murder and the supposed victim just faked his death and is now wandering around the Island with a fake beard glued to his face. It really doesn’t make any sense but this fantasy does establish that the island is, at the very least, a territory of the United States as there’s a big American flag in the courtroom.

Neither one of these stories really worked for me, largely because neither Ken Berry nor Rich Little seemed to be particularly invested in their characters. It also doesn’t help that Berry and Little shared a superficial physical resemblance, to the extent that it was often a struggle to keep straight who was having which fantasy.

In the end, Tattoo’ toothache was the highlight of this show. Fortunately, it just turned out to be his wisdom teeth coming in. Take that, Mr. Roarke!

A Movie A Day #267: Satan’s Princess (1990, directed by Bert I. Gordon)

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Lou Cherney (Robert Forster) was a top police detective until a perp with a shotgun shattered his leg. Now, Lou’s a private investigator with a limp, a girlfriend (Caren Kaye), and a learning disabled son named Joey (Philip Glasser). When Lou is hired to track down a missing girl, he discovers that she is now the lover of Nicole St. James (Lydie Denier), the head of a modeling agency. Nicole seduces Lou within minutes of meeting him but, when Lou attempts to return the missing girl to her family, Nicole reveals that she is actually an ancient demon and she possesses Joey. Soon, Joey is carrying an ice pick and throwing people out of windows.

An example of the type of movies that Robert Forster was stuck making before Quentin Tarantino engineered his comeback with Jackie Brown, Satan’s Princess is also noteworthy for having been directed by Bert I. Gordon. Gordon is best known for making cheesy giant monster movies, like The Amazing Colossal Man, Beginning of the End, and Empire the Ants. There are not any giant monsters in Satan’s Princess, which instead emphasizes lesbian sex scenes, possessed children, and Robert Forster using a blowtorch to take on a demon. Satan’s Princess also features the spectacle of a demon fleeing the scene of a crime by stealing a car. Why a demon who can possess people and do almost anything would need to steal car in order to make escape is a question that Satan’s Princess never answers.

Satan’s Princess is even dumber than it sounds but Robert Forster delivers. There is no real reason for Lou to be crippled so I like to think that, one day, Forster announced that if he was not allowed to carry a cane in all of his scenes, he wouldn’t do the movie. Watching Forster give a good performance in even a piece of dreck like Satan’s Princess makes me all the more grateful that Tarantino cast him in Jackie Brown and allowed Forster the chance to once again appear in movie worthy of his talents.

Bert I. Gordon’s career as a filmmaker began in 1954. Satan’s Princess was his 23rd movie and, for over 20 years, it was also his last. In 2014, Gordon finally returned to directing with Secrets of a Psychopath.

“DAMN YOU, KENNEDY!”: Assignment — Kill Castro (1980, directed by Chuck Workman)

Posted on June 18, 2016 by Jedadiah Leland

7d9oDL3Y5kupCGgUsR6Jh5ZU1Kf One of my earliest memories of staying up late and watching cheesy movies on local television was the sight of Robert Vaughn standing on a beach and cursing, “Damn you, Kennedy!” An echo effect kicked in, making the line: “Damn you, Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy!”

The name of the movie was Assignment — Kill Castro and sometimes it seemed like it came on every other night. The movie started with a title crawl that was so lengthy and so set the tone for the entire film that I feel it is worth quoting in its entirety:

From 1961, the year of the Bag of Pigs to today, the Government of the United States has been embroiled in a series of events which have continually led our nation to crisis after crisis and to the brink of war.

ASSIGNMENT — KILL CASTRO, a true story is one of the most confusing and frustrating historical events that might have led to a world power showdown. It happened yesterday! It happened today! It can happen again!

Names of persons and places have been changed to protect the individuals who were called upon to aid their country and in doing so placed their lives in jeopardy.

“I WILL GIVE ALL FOR THE LOVE OF MY COUNTRY … RIGHT OR WRONG! — G.W. Bell, Chief of Carribean (sic) Operations, Central Intelligence Agency”

This motion picture is dedicated to all people who desire to live in a free democratic society.

Robert Vaughn plays Hud, a former CIA agent who was involved in the original Bay of Pigs invasion. When the mysterious Mr. Bell (Raymond St. Jacques) and a gangster named Rossellini (Michael V. Gazzo) agree to finance an operation to kill Fidel Castro, Hud recruits a Key West bar owner named Tony (Stuart Whitman) to take him to Cuba. However, Mr. Bell and Rossellini are just using Hud to secretly smuggle heroin into Florida and, much like John F. Kennedy in 1961, they are planning on abandoning him on the beaches of Cuba.

The main problem with Assignment — Kill Castro is that we already know that Hud is not going to succeed in his mission because Fidel Castro is still alive and probably still bragging about how he sent Tony Montana to Miami. The other problem is that the movie does not make any damn sense. That title crawl was not kidding when it said the story was confusing and frustrating. Everyone is so busy double-crossing everyone else that it is hard to keep track. There has to be a simpler way to get heroin into Florida. Surprisingly, this incoherent movie was written and directed by the legendary editor, Chuck Workman, the same Chuck Workman who puts together those montages for the Oscars.

Kill Castro does have a good cast, though none of them are at their best. Along with Whitman, Vaughn, St. Jacques, and Gazzo, the cast includes Woody Strode, Albert Salmi, and Sybil Danning (whose last name is misspelled Daning in the end credits). Fidel Castro plays himself and the film’s ending is provided by cannibal turtles.

Assignment — Kill Castro was just one of the many titles that this movie was released under.

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It was also known as Cuba Crossing,

Key West Crossing, The Mercenaries, and my personal favorite, Sweet Dirty Tony.

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Back to School #30: My Tutor (dir by George Bowers)

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s the house.

I was recently trying to figure out what it was exactly that I enjoyed about the 1983 teen comedy My Tutor and I finally realized that it all came down to the house. Like almost every other teen film released in the 1980s, My Tutor is about rich people. The main character, recent high school graduate and frustrated virgin Bobby Chrystal (Matt Lattanzi), lives in an absolutely gorgeous house. There’s a huge pool in back and even the guest house appears to be bigger than any place that I’ve ever lived. Bobby lives in the type of mansion that I’ve always wanted to live in. For me, the best parts of My Tutor are the scenes that simply follow Bobby as he walks around the grounds of his home.

I just like seeing where people live.

I first came across My Tutor about two years ago when I got the Too Cool For School DVD box set from Mill Creek Entertainment. My Tutor was one of the 12 movies included in the box set and it was one of the first that I watched, just because the title seemed to promise all sorts of sordid fun. Looking back on the first time that I ever watched the film, my main impressions were that the film’s central plot — the affair between Bobby and his French tutor, Terry (Caren Kaye) — was actually handled with a surprising amount of sensitivity, that the great Kevin McCarthy was ideally cast as Bobby’s wealthy but sleazy father, and that the house was really nice.

Is that really proper teacher attire?

When I rewatched the film for this review, I quickly discovered that I had either forgotten or managed to block from my mind about 5o% of the movie. Because, before Bobby and Terry take the fateful midnight swim that leads to their affair, the movie largely focuses on the efforts of Bobby and his friend Jack (the reliably weird and nerdy Crispin Glover) to each lose his virginity. The first half of the film is pretty much dominated by cartoonish scenes of Bobby passing out drunk at a brothel and Jack and his brother Billy (Clark Brandon) trying to pick up two female mud wrestlers. (If you have bondage fantasies about Crispin Glover, I guess this is the film to see.) At one point, all of the film’s action stops so that Bobby can have an elaborate fantasy about having sex with a girl that we’ve barely seen before and will never see again.

Bobby has problems beyond just his virginity. A recent high school graduate, he still has to retake and pass a French exam if he’s going to have any hope of getting into Yale. (Yale was where his father went to college. Bobby says he wants to go to UCLA and study the skies, even though he doesn’t ever say anything about astronomy beyond that he wants to major in it.) Bobby’s father hires him a tutor. Terry is only ten years older than Bobby and has just recently broken up with her boyfriend. She enjoys nude midnight swims, riding on motor scooters, and aerobic exercise. Before you know it, Terry and Bobby are having an affair, Bobby’s father is hitting on Terry, and Terry’s ex-boyfriend keeps coming up to the house searching for her.

The perfect couple

And what’s surprising is that, once Bobby and Terry become lovers, the film changes. Well, it changes a little. Don’t get me wrong — it doesn’t suddenly turn into a great (or even a good) movie or anything like that. But the film really does make an attempt to realistically deal with the relationship between Bobby and Terry. Terry doesn’t suddenly abandon her dreams or her plans just because she’s now secretly sleeping with Bobby. Instead, Terry remains just as independent as before and, unlike a lot of films of the period, the film doesn’t condemn her for wanting a life of her own. If anything, the film chastises Bobby whenever he gets overly possessive of her. In the end, the movie suggests that the most important lessons Bobby learned weren’t about sex but instead, were about Terry’s right to live her own life.

Oddly enough, hiding within this typical teen comedy, there’s a surprisingly bittersweet film. Perhaps less surprisingly, this film — like The Young Graduates, The Teacher, Trip With The Teacher, Coach, and Malibu High — was yet another teacher-student-sex film produced by Crown International Pictures. Nobody handled potentially icky exploitation with quite the wit and grace of Crown International.