Breaks of Life”

Posted on May 7, 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!

This week, Charo’s back!

Episode 5.27 “April in Boston/Saving Grace/Breaks of Life”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on May 1st, 1982)

April Lopez (Charo) is back! This time, she has given up show business and is now working as a Spanish tutor for stuffy private school headmaster Bradford York (David Hedison). She is falling for Bradford but she knows that he would never accept her as an entertainer. Or would he? We’re about to find out because the entertainment that Julie booked, probably while in a cocaine-fueled haze, fails to show up. Would April be willing to perform?

April sings “Let’s get physical, physical,” in the ship’s lounge but when Bradford stops by to get a drink, April covers her face with a mask. “If I sang like that,” Bradford says, “I’d wear a mask too….”

And that really gets to the main problem with this story. Bradford York is jerk! Seriously, I know why some people find Charo to be annoying and I do think The Love Boat tended to overuse the character but she deserves a lot better than Bradford York! Eventually, of course, Bradford leans that April is the singer and he tells her that he loves her in Spanish. (He has to ask April how to say it first.) So, I guess it’s a happy ending but we all know that April’s going to be single again once the sixth season starts.

As for the other storylines, Gwen (Jayne Meadows) and George Finley (Gene Rayburn) are a divorced couple who end up in the ship’s infirmary together. We’ve never seen the infirmary before and I assume we’ll never see it again. The two of them fall in love all over again. It tuns out Gwen was just faking her injury so she could be with George. It seems like Doc Bricker should have noticed that.

Finally, Grace Bostwick (Jane Powell) is a widow who is prevented from jumping overboard by Gabriel (Hugh O’Brian). Gabriel says he’s angel, sent from Heaven to help Grace move on from her grief. It turns out that he’s not. He’s just someone who knew Grace was suicidal and figured he would have to come up with something dramatic to keep her from plunging into the ocean. Everyone on the boat acts as if this makes total sense. Grace is very forgiving. Never has one lie been responsible for so much love.

What a weird episode. A man pretended to be an angel, Charo performed while wearing a mask, and the ship has an infirmary! Weird as it was, the episode kept me entertained. I’ve always liked Charo’s mix of sincerity and flamboyance. That said, she deserves better than Bradford York. The angel storyline was problematic for all sorts of reasons but at least Jane Powell and Hugh O’Brian gave good performances. They almost sold it. Almost.

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 5.20 “Forget-Me-Not/The Quizmasters”

Posted on December 3, 2024 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 1984. Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites. Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week, Tattoo is still missing.

Episode 5.20 “Forget-Me-Not/The Quizmasters”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on April 10th, 1982)

Amnesiac Ellen Layton (Jill St. John) comes to the Island in hopes of remembering who she was in her past life. Ever since she was tossed off a horse and struck her head, Ellen has not been able to recall a single detail of her old life. Roarke agrees to help, using another one of those magic plants that seem to grow in abundance on Fantasy Island. However, Roarke also shows Julie a hologram that reveals that, in her previous life, Ellen was a ruthless businesswoman who fired people at the drop of a hat.

As quickly becomes obvious, amnesiac Ellen is far happier than corporate Ellen. Afterall, amnesiac Ellen has all sorts of friends on the Island and she even has sleazy Mike Collins (Dan Gautier) pretending to be in love with her. (In what I believe is a Fantasy Island first, we hear the thoughts of Mike and several other men when they first learn that the wealthy and beautiful Ellen can’t remember anything about her past life.) But when Ellen’s real husband (Brett Halsey) comes to the Island looking for her, she has to decide if she wants to go back to who she used to be or if she wants to continue being the carefree amnesiac that she’s been for the last several months. Which will she choose?

You already know the answer to that one. Ellen’s fantasy really wasn’t that interesting. I preferred the first part of the show’s other fantasy. Two game show hosts (Gene Rayburn and Jan Murray), who are both in love with the same woman (Vikki Carr), come to the Island because they want to compete in the ultimate game show. Roarke actually sets up a game show for them, with himself as host and a studio audience. The two men are asked a question. The first man to answer correctly is given the choice of opening one of four doors. Three of the doors contain prizes, like love and money. The other door is the …. DOOR OF DEATH!

One of the joys of this episode is watching Ricardo Montalban play a game show host. He appears to be having a blast, especially when he gets to dramatically remind the two contestants about “the Door of Death!” And, while the two men do manage to open up two of the doors successfully (leading one contestant rescuing Vikki Carr from being burned at the stake as a witch and the other contestant robbing a 1920s bank), the third door that the two men open is THE DOOR OF DEATH!

Unfortunately, the Door of Death turns out to be a bit anticlimatic. The two men and the women they love have to survive in the wilderness while being pursued by an archer whose fantasy is to — *sigh* — hunt the most dangerous prey of all, man. The show just did a Most Dangerous Game knock-off just two episodes ago so why do it again? Fortunately, both of the game show hosts and the woman they’re fighting over survive. They leave the Island together, their love triangle unresolved.

The game show had a lot of potential but this episode was disappointing. Unfortunately, Tattoo was not in this episode and Julie served as Roarke’s assistant. Nothing against Julie but the whole game show thing seemed like it would have been a perfect set up for some Roarke/Tattoo banter. This show was definitely better with Tattoo than without him.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 3.22 “Not So Fast, Gopher/Haven’t We Met Before?/Seoul Mates”

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s cruise is actually a pretty good one.

Episode 3.22 “Not So Fast, Gopher/Haven’t We Met Before?/Seoul Mates”

(Dir by Gordon Farr, originally aired on February 9th, 1980)

This week’s episode opens with Gopher in a panic. His mother, Roz (Ethel Merman), is going to be on the cruise. It’s her first big trip after the death of Gopher’s father and Gopher wants her to have fun because she’s been so depressed. However, when Roz boards the ship, Gopher is stunned to see her laughing, singing, and hanging out with a male passenger named Lyle (Gene Rayburn). Roz seems so happy that Gopher starts to worry that she didn’t love his father.

Of course, the opposite is true. Roz is miserable but she doesn’t want Gopher to know how sad she’s feeling. She doesn’t want Gopher to worry about her and she also doesn’t want to make Gopher feel any worse about losing his father.

This storyline handled loss and sadness with an intelligence and a maturity that I don’t think most people would ever expect to see on the show like The Love Boat, with both Fred Grandy and Ethel Merman giving sensitive performances as two people struggling to come to terms with their grief. Gopher comes to realize that he’s been focusing on Roz’s grief so he’ll have an excuse to not think about his own and Roz comes to realize that she’s been doing the same thing to Gopher.

Now, of course, this is still The Love Boat so, of course, Roz ends up performing during the ship’s Passenger Talent Show. And, yes, Gopher doe show up at the last minute and, in order to let her know that he now understands her feelings, sings a duet with her. It’s a bit of goofy ending for an otherwise poignant story but, in its way, it definitely works. It’s a sweet scene.

The Gopher/Roz storyline is so poignant and so well-handled that it pretty much overshadows everything else that happens on the boat.

Korean comic Jimmy Kim (Johnny Yune) finds romance with a reporter named Kendall Park (Momo Yashima) but Kendall is offended by Jimmy’s act (which is full of jokes about life in Korea). However, after Roz talks about how much she enjoyed Jimmy’s humor, Kendall changes her mind and she and Jimmy leave the ship as a couple. This was an interesting story to watch and consider in the midst of our current, scolding, “That’s not funny” culture of 2023. If anything, it showed that debates about what one can or should joke about are hardly new to this century. But it just felt strange that it took a white woman appreciating Jimmy’s humor for Kendall to no longer be offended by jokes about Korea. If anything it would seem that Roz saying that she enjoyed hearing jokes about Korea would leave Kendall feeling even more offended by Jimmy’s act. I’m just glad that all of this didn’t lead to Captain Stubing doing his “I see you’ve been reading about your history” speech again.

Meanwhile, four blue collars friends board the ship. Three of them (played by the Hudson Brothers) announce that they’re going to pretend to be wealthy professionals. However, Paul Stockwood (Nicholas Hammond) announces that he is not going to pretend to be anything than the waiter that he is. That’s before Paul realizes that the wealthy Leila Stanhope (Haley Mills) is on the boat. Paul has waited on Leila several times at the Manhattan restaurant in which he works. When Leila tells Paul that he seems familiar, Paul lies and says that he’s a wealthy writer.

It all seems to be working well, until Paul decides to bring Leila breakfast. The sight of Paul carrying a tray of food is all it takes for Leila to remember who he is. At first, Paul calls Leila a snob and Leila calls Paul a liar. But then they fall in love anyway, which means that Paul will probably never have to work as a waiter again. Yay! Unfortunately, this storyline was hampered by the lack of chemistry between Nicholas Hammond and Hayley Mills. They were both attractive but they were also difficult to buy as a couple.

Even though two of the storylines were somewhat flawed, the story about Gopher and his mother elevated this entire episode and it made it one of the best episodes of The Love Boat that I’ve watched so far. This was a cruise to remember!

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.22 “Love Me, Love My Dog/Poor Little Rich Girl/The Decision”

Posted on July 5, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s time for Isaac’s heart to get broken, yet again!

Episode 2.22 “Love Me, Love My Dog/Poor Little Rich Girl/The Decision”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on February 24th, 1979)

Isaac has sworn off falling in love with passengers. As he explains it, he’s fallen in love with a movie star, a singer, a criminal, and a journalist and, every time, the romance ended as soon as the ship docked. Isaac is tired of getting his heart broken and, unlike Doc and Gopher, he doesn’t view romance as just being a game.

Still, as soon as Isaac spots Selena Moore (Debbie Allen) boarding the ship, he’s interested. He insists that he’s not going to act on his attraction but both Gopher and Doc tell him that it’s okay to just have some fun. And when Selena starts showing up at the bar and telling Isaac about her doubts about whether or not she wants to get married to her fiancé, Isaac decides to follow Gopher and Doc’s advice. He and Selena have a shipboard romance.

And, of course, Isaac falls in love. He said that he wouldn’t but he does because that’s just who Isaac is. Isaac is the most sincere character on the show. Gopher is goofy. Doc is a walking HR nightmare. Julie is practical. The Captain is stern. And Isaac is the one who impulsively falls in love, even though he knows he’s probably going to get hurt.

When Isaac trips and falls after one night of dancing, Doc jokingly declares that Isaac will never walk again. Selena runs away in tears. That really should have been a clue that she loved her fiancé more than she was letting on. When the ship finally returns home, Isaac can only watch as Selena greets her fiancé, who turns out to be an older man who uses a wheelchair. Isaac can only wipe away a tear and hand the roses that he got for Selena to a random passenger. It’s a bit sad, even though the outcome was predictable. Ted Lange and Debbie Allen both made the story work far better than one might expect it to.

And it’s a good thing that Lange and Allen worked so hard because the other two stories are nowhere near as strong.

One of the stories features Fannie Flagg as Alicia Finch, an eccentric woman who sneaks her terrier (played by Cricket) onto the boat. (Cricket gets her own credit, which is cute). Alice meets Mason Randolph (Gene Rayburn), a single man who also loves dogs! Unfortunately, Cricket starts yapping and biting whenever she sees Mason. It looks like Alicia and Mason will never be. However, when the boat docks, Mason’s dog is waiting for him. Even though Mason’s dog is quite a bit bigger than her, Cricket takes a liking to him. This story was extremely predictable and Gene Rayburn was a bit annoying as Mason. (Apparently, he was a game show host and he delivers almost all of his lines as if he’s waiting for the audience to applaud.) On the plus side, Cricket was really cute.

Finally, Suzanne Welles (Maren Jensen) is a waitress who has won the lottery but now that she’s rich, she’s not sure if auto mechanic Alan Harmon (Dennis Cole) really likes her or just wants her money. Alan is also the Captain’s mechanic and Stubing comes up with a plan that’s so stupid that it makes you wonder if he should really be in charge of cruise ship. Basically, Stubing tells Suzanne that she’s right about Alan and that he’s only after her for the money. Alan then says that the Captain is correct. Stubing thinks that if Suzanne’s suspicions are confirmed, she’ll be able to relax and fall in love with Alan without worrying about why he’s pursuing her and …. wait, what? How does that make any sense? Why would Suzanne continue to spend time with Alan after he tells her that he’s only interested in her for the money? I mean, the boat is full of single, handsome men. The plan is idiotic but somehow, it works! Everyone tells the captain that he’s a genius. Seriously, what a weird story. I mean, Isaac is pouring out his heart and getting hurt again and the Captain is busy encouraging his passengers to lie to each other.

The cruise was definitely mixed bag. The Ted Lange/Debbie Allen story was nicely done. Cricket was cute. Lauren Tewes got to wear a really pretty dress for the ship’s Mexican Fiesta Night and I loved the sparkly blue evening gown that Maren Jensen wore while having dinner at the Captain’s table. But the non-Isaac stories were, respectively, bland and incredibly dumb. I guess no vacation is perfect.