Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 6.6 “The Beautiful Skeptic/The Last Platoon”

Posted on February 18, 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 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, someone tries to expose Fantasy Island!

Episode 6.6 “The Beautiful Skeptic/The Last Platoon”

(Dir by Ricard Montalban, originally aired on November 27th, 1982)

Your eyes do not deceive you. This episode was directed by Mr. Roarke himself, Ricardo Montalban!

The main fantasy deals with Jack Oberstar (Gary Frank), who wants to go back to World War II so that he can find proof that his brother, Ken (Steve Kanaly), was killed in action and did not, as the army claims, desert and become a black market smuggler. After the customary warnings from Mr. Roarke, Jack finds himself serving alongside his brother in France. Jack not only gets to bond with his brother but he also discovers that it was the evil Galloway (Don Stroud) who stole his brother’s identity and went on to become a criminal. Ken did die heroically but, without his dog tags, he was misidentified. No sooner does Jack learn all this then he finds himself back in the present. Jack is happy to know the truth but he regrets not having returned with proof.

However, Mr. Roarke reveals that, while Jack was having his fantasy, a career criminal died while serving a life sentence in France. By checking his fingerprints, the authorities discovered that the criminal was Galloway, who was long believed to have died in World War II. Jack realizes that he can now argue that Galloway stole Ken’s identity! He’s happy, even if he doesn’t have his definite proof. Myself, I started thinking about how different the world must have been in the days before DNA testing. Today, Jack presumably wouldn’t even have to go Fantasy Island to prove that the body buried in “Galloway’s” grave was actually his brother.

As for the other storyline, it features Connie Stevens as journalist Christine Connelly, who is determined to prove that Mr. Roarke is a fake. She tells Roarke that she interviewed eleven former guests and all of them were happy with how their fantasies went. Christine argues that there’s no such thing as “eleven satisfied customers,” which is a weird way to put it.

Christine brings along two people who have fantasies. Jay (Jimmie “JJ” Walker) wants to win a weight-lifting competition, despite being Jimmie “JJ” Walker. Luckily, Roarke has some magic chalk dust that allows Jay to do just that. (You have to feel bad for everyone who actually wasted their time training for the competition.) Frank (Herb Edelman ) wants to be reunited with his estranged wife, Connie (Ruta Lee). This actually proves somewhat difficult, as Connie really doesn’t want to see Frank. But it turns out that this is because Connie thinks that Frank is having an affair with Christine. I’m not sure that Roarke reunited Connie and Frank is really greater proof than Jimmie Walker winning a strongman competition but the important thing is that Christine learns to be less of a cynic and to open her mind to the magic of Fantasy Island.

This was not a bad trip to the Island. Much as Mr. Roarke did with the Island, Ricardo Montalban kept the episode moving quickly and efficiently. It’s interesting that Fantasy Island started out as this place that was shrouded in mystery but, by the sixth season, it was apparently well-known enough to attract the attention of tabloid television. In the end, Mr. Roarke proved his good intentions and protected the Island. Good for him!

Airplane! (1980, directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker)

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Airplane!, which may be the funniest movie ever made, has made me laugh every time that I’ve watched it. And I’ve watched it a lot!

Whenever I’m getting ready to travel for my day job, I watch Airplane! Whenever I’m going to Baltimore or West Virginia for the holidays, I watch Airplane! Whenever I’m in a bad mood and I need something lighten me up, I watch Airplane! Whenever I’m in a good mood and I want to be in an even better mood, I watch Airplane!

I can’t remember how old I was when I first saw Airplane! but I know I wasn’t yet ten. While a lot of the humor went over my head at that young age, it did not matter because I laughed at all the sight gags, like the heart hopping around on the doctor’s desk and the line of passengers waiting to “calm down” the hysterical woman. I laughed when Ted Stryker (Robert Hays) and Elaine (Julie Haggerty) got covered in seaweed while making out on the beach. I laughed at the people dying while listening to Ted’s story, even though I didn’t fully understand that it was because of Ted boring them to death. I loved it when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar got annoyed with the kid in the cockpit, even though young me really didn’t know who Kareem was other than he was a basketball player. Otto the autopilot was the coolest character around. Stephen Stucker’s Johnny made me laugh with his nonstop energy. “Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive.” “And don’t call me Shirley.” “It looks like I picked the wrong time to stop sniffing glue.” Every time I heard them, I laughed at all of those lines. I didn’t have to understand why Lloyd Bridges was suddenly upside down. I just knew it was funny.

As I got older and rewatched the film, I started to pick up on the humor that earlier went over my head. I traveled to Turkey when I was twelve and our tour guide spent an hour telling us that Midnight Express was not a fair representation of her country. After that, I suddenly understood why Captain Oveur (Peter Graves) wanted to know if Joey had ever been to a Turkish prison. I came to appreciate Julie Hagerty and Lorna Patterson as the two flight attendants. Airplane! still made me laugh but I came to understand that it was also a love story. What adolescent boy watching Airplane! didn’t want to be Robert Hays, not only landing the plane but also getting kiss Julie Hagerty at the end of the movie?

And then, as I learned more about the movies, I realized that Airplane! was a pitch perfect parody of the disaster genre and I came to understand the brilliance of casting actors like Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and especially Leslie Nielsen in this film. From the first time I saw the movie, Nielsen always made me laugh because he had the best lines and he delivered them with deadpan perfection. But, as I got older, I came to understand that Nielsen was doing more than just saying funny things. He was sending up his entire career. I’m a part of the generation who grew up laughing at Leslie Nielsen the comedy superstar and it’s always strange for me to see him in one of his older, serious roles. I have Airplane! to thank for that.

There’s so much to say about Airplane! I could write a thousand words just talking about my favorite jokes and one-liners or how much I enjoyed Stryker’s flashbacks. It’s my favorite movie and one that still makes me laugh even though I know all of the jokes by heart. (I’ve always thought Howard Jarvis waiting for Stryker to return to the taxi was one of the best, though underrated, jokes in the movie.) Airplane! is close to 50 years old and it’s still just as funny today as when I first saw it.

In fact, I think I’ll go watch it right now!

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.5 and 4.6 “The Mallory Quest/Julie, the Vamp/The Offer”

Posted on February 28, 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 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, it’s a special two-hour episode of The Love Boat!

Episodes 4.5 and 4.6 “The Mallory Quest/Julie, The Vamp/The Offer”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on November 15th, 1980)

This week, The Love Boat heads off on a two-week cruise that will take the ship, its crew, and its passengers through the Panama Canal. There will also be stops at all the various islands on the way. This is important because this is one of the episodes that was actually filmed on location. Instead of the usual sets, we get to watch the action play out on an actual cruise ship.

Unfortunately, the actual cruise ship is kind of …. well, tacky. Seriously, it’s hard not to notice that the hallways and the front lobby all look considerably more cramped and weathered than they have in other episodes of The Love Boat. It’s also hard not to notice that the extras (who were apparently actual passengers) are all considerably older than the usual Love Boat background actors.

In fact, with the ship in such disrepair, it is any shocked that Captain Stubing is thinking of leaving? When his old friend, Charlie (Dick Van Patten), boards the ship, he brings him a job offer. If Stubing accepts the offer, he’ll be living in New York, he’ll be making three times the money, and Vicki will get to have a normal life. Stubing loves the sea but he also wants Vicki to have a good future. Vicki — in a scene that was well-acted by both Jill Whelan and Gavin MacLeod — tells him not to worry about her and that he needs to do what makes him happy. And so, the Captain stays with the boat and I presume Vicki will continue to be taught by the tutor that we occasionally hear about but never actually see.

Meanwhile, Julie McCoy has been accused of being a vamp! Maude Victor (Lani O’Grady) is convinced that Julie is trying to steal her fiancé, Roger (Bart Braverman). Eventually, Roger himself become confused and Julie pretends to be interested in Roger just to get Roger and Maude back together again. This was a dumb story and I don’t want to waste any more time on it.

Indeed, for all the Stubing drama and Julie silliness, this two-hour episode was dominated by one story. Arrogant novelist Brian Mallory (Pernell Roberts) boards the boat with his long-suffering wife, Janet (Gayle Hunnicutt). Brian has secretly bought tickets for three other passengers. Peter (Skip Stephenson) is an insurance agent who is due to donate a kidney to his brother. Marvin (Jimmie Walker) owns a bookstore. Marcia Rand (Connie Stevens) brings along her fitness-obsessed boyfriend, Dave Porter (Peter Lupus). Mallory reveals that Peter, Marvin, Marcia, and Gopher were the last four people to see his nephew, Tom. Mallory has never met his nephew but he wants to track him down and apparently, Tom is living on one of the islands that the cruise is scheduled to visit. Brian wants the four of them to help him look for Tom and he offers a $10,000 reward to make things interesting. Why does Brian want to find his nephew? Eventually, it is revealed that Tom is in possession of a family heirloom that Brian feels is rightfully his. Sinister Lucius Kergo (Sorrell Brooke) is also on the cruise and he is determined to get the heirloom for himself.

Janet grows so tired of Brian’s arrogance and his obsession with finding his nephew that she declares that she’s leaving him. Since the cruise is booked up, she ends up staying with Doc Bricker. Doc falls for Janet but he realizes that she truly loves Brian and, when Brian starts to show some humility and some remorse for the way that he’s treated her, Doc encourages her to go back to him …. which she does because this is The Love Boat, not The Divorce Boat.

Anyway, Tom Mallory is eventually tracked down to a monastery in Puerto Rico. Tom gives Brian the heirloom but the newly kind Brian gives it back to him so that he can sell it and use the money to build a free clinic. Good for Brian!

Disheveled cruise ship aside and ignoring that terrible Julie plot, this was a fun episode. The island scenery was gorgeous and the mystery of Tom’s location actually turned out to be a lot more intriguing than I was expecting it would. Watching this episode made me want to take a cruise, even if it is a tacky one.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.12 “The Brotherhood of the Sea/Letter to Babycakes/Daddy’s Pride”

Posted on October 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This cruise is all about deception! Welcome aboard, it’s love!

Episode 3.12 “The Brotherhood of the Sea/Letter to Babycakes/Daddy’s Pride”

(Dir by George Tyne, originally aired on November 17th, 1979)

Julie’s birthday is coming up and the crew is planning to throw her a surprise party. However, to keep Julie from catching on to what they’re planning, Doc, Gopher, and Isaac decide that they need to keep her occupied. They tell her that they are all member of the “The Brotherhood of the Sea” and that they’re now prepared to make Julie a member as well.

Somehow, Julie falls for this very obvious lie and she spends almost the entire cruise doing all of the silly activities that Doc, Gopher, and Isaac have set up for her. As I watched this, I found myself wondering if maybe Julie had somehow forgotten when her birthday was because, seriously, it couldn’t have been any more obvious what Doc, Gopher, and Isaac were doing. Even worse, Julie gets so busy trying to join the Brotherhood of the Sea that she neglects her latest romantic partner, Rory Daniels (Christopher Connelly).

It’s time that we just face facts. Until Julie gets off that boat, she’s never going to find the husband that she always says that she’s looking for. The Boat pretty much dominates Julie’s life and there’s no way that her male co-workers are ever going to stop out of the way and allow Julie to find any sort of happiness. It’s an interesting dynamic and I think it’s one that’s familiar to any woman who has worked with mostly male co-workers. On the one hand, the ground you walk on is worshipped. On the other hand, they don’t ever want to let you go.

While Julie is trying to join the Brotherhood of the Sea, Olympic gymnast Penny Barrett (Nancy McKeon) just wants to hang out with Kevin (Stephen Manley), a passenger who is her own age. Unfortunately, Penny’s father (Alex Cord) is also her coach and he wants her to devote all of her time, even her time on the Boat, to training. Poor Penny! Seriously, back when my whole life was about going to dance class, I met so many people like Penny, whose parents basically lived their entire lives through them and never allowed them to have a childhood. I was glad my parents supported me but didn’t pressure me.

Finally, wealthy Bart (Demon Wilson) boards the ship with his girlfriend, Tracy (Telma Hopkins), and his assistant, Wally (Jimmie Walker). After Bart meets Ginger (Sydney Goldsmith), he decides that he wants to cheat on Tracy and he expects Wally to help him pull it off by keeping Tracy busy while Bart goes off with Ginger. Needless to say this leads to Tracy and Wally falling in love. Ha! Take that, Bart! This storyline would have been a bit more interesting if the two leads actors weren’t so boring in their roles.

This was a so-so cruise but at least Julie knows where she stands now.

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

Posted on April 12, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

Spring Breakdown: Super Shark (dir by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, here’s the thing: when I was making out my list of films to review for Spring Breakdown, I was under the impression that the 2011 film, Super Shark, was a Spring Break film. I was convinced that it was a film about a giant shark that ate a bunch of people over the course of Spring Break.

Fortunately, right before posting this review, I decided to rewatch Super Shark. Normally, I probably wouldn’t have because I’m currently on vacation but it’s also currently raining and it’s also about 7 degrees outside. (That’s 7 degrees Celsius but it’s still pretty cold.) It’s like God was reading through my drafts folder last night and said, “Uh-oh. Lisa needs to rewatch the movie before she posts the review.”

Anyway, upon rewatching Super Shark, I discovered that 1) the film is still awesome as Hell and 2) it’s not actually a Spring Break film. Instead, it’s a summer film. There’s even a scene where two lifeguards talk about what a great time they’re going to have working on the beach during the summer. So, technically, I probably shouldn’t be reviewing this film as part of a Spring Break series but …. well, I’m going to do it anyways. I mean, it may be a summer film but it plays out like a Spring Break film. Plus, it’s got a giant shark.

Not surprisingly, for a film called Super Shark, the giant shark is the main attraction. The CGI’s a bit dodgy and the shark does look a bit cartoonish but that actually adds to the film’s charm. Whereas Steven Spielberg dealt with the reality of a fake-looking shark by keeping the shark off-screen as much as possible, directed Fred Olen Ray takes the opposite approach and seriously, more power to him. Ray puts the shark in as many scenes as possible, as if he’s saying, “Yes, this is a low-budget B-movie and why should we pretend that it’s anything other than that?” There’s an honesty to this approach that’s impossible not to respect.

The shark is prehistoric in origin. It was safely separated from society until the big bad oil company did some bad corporate stuff and, as a result, the shark is now free to ruin everyone’s summer. You know that whole thing about how sharks have to stay in the water or they’ll die? That’s not a problem for Super Shark. Super Shark will jump on the beach and eat you, he doesn’t care. In fact, Super Shark is such a rebel that he’ll even take on a tank and win! WE LOVE YOU, SUPER SHARK!

As always, there’s a group of humans around who don’t love Super Shark as much as the viewers. There’s the evil corporate guy played by John Schneider. He’s into money and drilling. And then there’s the scientist played by Sarah Lieving. She hates corporations and she doesn’t like sharks. There’s a DJ played by Jimmie “JJ” Walker. And then there’s the lifeguards and the beachgoers and the people who just want to participate in a wholesome bikini contest. Sorry, everyone, Super Shark has other plans.

Anyway, I have a weakness for films about giant sharks attacking oil wells and eating people on the beach. It’s a silly film but it’s obviously been designed to be silly. This isn’t Jaws nor is this a serious film about the issues surrounding underwater drilling. This is a B-movie about a giant shark and if you can’t enjoy something like this, I worry about you. This is a film that you watch with your friends and you have a lot of fun talking back to the screen. Don’t take it seriously and just enjoy the giant shark action. Who could ask for a better summer? Or a better Spring Break for that matter?