Chris Capen | 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. Almost the entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube!

This week, Fantasy Island goes to ancient Egypt!

Episode 3.22 “My Fair Pharaoh/The Power”

(Dir by George McCowan, originally aired on May 10th, 1980)

This week, Mr. Roarke welcomes two people with two very different fantasies. Neither one of their fantasies really make much sense but you know Mr. Roarke. He’s going to give the people what they want, unless he takes some sort of personal dislike to them. Then, they’re totally going to get screwed.

Lucy Atwell (Joan Collins), for instance, has always fantasized about going back to ancient Egypt and living the life of Cleopatra. Now, you may wonder why that is, seeing as how Cleopatra lost every man that she ever loved and was eventually killed by an asp. But no matter! Mr. Roarke sends Lucy into the past and Lucy quickly discovers that …. wait a minute! She’s not Cleopatra! Instead, she’s a part of the harem of Ptolemy (Michael Ansara)! What the Hell, Mr. Roarke!? What part of “I want to be Queen of Egypt” sounds like “I want to be a part of some old guy’s harem?”

However, Lucy does look exactly like the real Cleopatra and that might be useful, seeing as how the real Cleopatra is currently being held prisoner. After a proper amount of royal training, Lucy fills in for Cleopatra and gets to meet and fall in love with Marc Anthony (Ron Ely). When the real Cleopatra is killed by an asp, the fake Cleopatra gets to rule Egypt and it all works out nicely until …. the fantasy ends.

Oh well, it was a nice weekend. Time for Lucy to go home except …. who is that waiting for the airplane? Why, it’s Marc Anthony! Except his real name is Eric Williams and apparently, he was just a guy living out a fantasy of his own. He always wanted to know what it would be like to be Marc Anthony because who hasn’t fantasized about briefly ruling Rome and then being exiled and hounded to death by the forces of Augustus? Anyway, Lucy finds her love and Joan Collins finally gets to play Cleopatra, the role that she was nearly awarded in 1960 before Elizabeth Taylor was selected instead.

Meanwhile, in the episode’s comedic fantasy, dorky Fred Webster (Larry Linville) wants to impress his girlfriend, Laura (Julie Sommars) by being telekinetic. What? Seriously, that’s how he wants to impress her? I mean, it’s Fantasy Island! Ask for a better job or a nicer car or something. Anyway, Fred gets his power of telekinesis and uses it to cheat at gambling. This brings him to the attention of Stephanie (Carol Lynley) and her goons. When Fred realizes that Stephanie is evil, Stephanie has Laura kidnapped but she’s forgotten that Fred has telekinesis and can just mentally cause a fishing net to wrap up her and her men. This was an extremely silly fantasy. In fact, it was too silly for its own good, right down to the scenes where Fred’s eyes take on a green glow while he uses his powers.

This was a pretty forgettable episode but at least there were some nice costumes in the Egyptian fantasy. Next week, season 3 comes to an 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!

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.