Laurette Sprang | 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, a familiar face sets sail for adventure.

Episode 4.19 “The Return of the Ninny/Touchdown Twins/Split Personality”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on February 14th, 1981)

Oh hey, it’s Charo!

It seems like just yesterday that I was watching her on Fantasy Island. Oh wait, it was!

Charo returns to The Love Boat in her regular role as April Lopez. The former stowaway-turned-singer-turned nanny boards the ship so that she and her two charges — Gayle (Rachel Jacobs) and Jerry (Alex Woodard) — can say goodbye to their father and April’s employer, Ty Younger (Larry Linville). Ty is taking a vacation with his materialistic girlfriend (Arlene Martel), whom April dislikes. Ty is looking forward to getting away from the kids for a while but — whoops! — April and the kids don’t get off the boat in time and soon, they’re intruding on Ty’s vacation. It turns out to be a good thing because, after April learns that Ty’s girlfriend wants to send the kids away to a private school, she’s able to break up Ty’s relationship and keep the entire family together. Yay!

Frank (Vincent Van Patten) boards the boat with college football teammate, Billy (Phillip Burns). Billy can’t wait to hit on all the women who are his own age but Frank has decided that he’s in love with Billy’s mom, Meg (Samantha Eggar). Captain Stubing likes Meg to but Frank shoves him out of the way on the dance floor and says that Meg is officially his MILF. Billy gets upset and blames Frank …. no, actually, that would make too much sense. Instead, Billy accuses his mother of leading on his best friend! (Nobody mentions that Frank himself has spent the entire cruise acting like an unhinged stalker.) It all works out in the end, of course. Frank realizes that Meg doesn’t share his feelings and he decides to start dating women his own age. Billy realizes that his mom is not a tramp. Meg says she’s proud of the man that Billy has become. (A man who accuses his own mom of being a tramp? That kind of man?) Stubing, once again, fails to get anywhere in his romantic pursuits and Vicki misses out on another potential stepmother. Yay, I guess? This story was actually kind of depressing.

Finally, Nick (Michael Lembeck) is an old college friend of Gopher’s. Nick wants to be executive vice president of a company that it owned by the conservative and stodgy Arnold Hamilton (Ralph Bellamy). When he’s with Arnold, Nick dresses like Arnold and he claims to agree with everything that Arnold says. Nick also wants to marry a passenger that he just met, Linda (Laurette Spang). Linda is almost a parody of a limousine liberal so when Nick is with her, he agrees with everything she says about oppression and the evils of money and he talks about his time as a labor organizer. Nick is lying to both of them but it’s not like they’ll ever meet …. except, LINDA IS ARNOLD’S DAUGHTER! Fear not, it all works out in the end. Nick tells Arnold that he needs to change with the times and he tells Linda that she knows nothing about the working man. Nick gets his promotion and a girlfriend. Yay!

This was a pretty forgettable episode, even with Charo running around the ship in a panic over the children. The storyline that worked best was the one with Michael Lembeck, Ralph Bellamy, and Laurette Sprang, though Bellamy was perhaps a bit too naturally likable to be totally convincing as a ruthless businessman. (Even in old age, Bellamy had the simple, nice guy aura that always led to him losing the girl to Cary Grant.) For the most part, this was a serviceable but not particularly memorable cruise.

Beware the Inspector! Read on and find out more about this week’s cruise of the Pacific Princess….

Episode 1.19 “A Very Special Girl / Until the Last Goodbye / The Inspector”

(Dir by Roger Duchovny, originally aired on February 11th, 1978)

Captain Stubing starts the cruise by giving the crew some potentially frightening news. The company has sent an inspector to take the cruise and observe how everyone is doing their job. The catch is that the inspector is disguised as a passenger and the crew now has to figure out who it could be!

Marvin Waterman (Jim Backus) seems like a good suspect. He’s stuffy. He always wears a suit. He carries around a notepad. He’s always asking questions about the ship. It must be Marvin! Nope, sorry. It turns out that Marvin is just a children’s book author and he’s doing research.

Could it be eccentric Mrs. Corwin (played by Gavin MacLeod’s wife, Patti MacLeod)? She acts like she’s spacey and not always sure where she is but maybe that’s just a cover! She does make a lot of calls back to the mainland! Nope, it’s not Mrs. Corwin. It turns out that she’s just an eccentric widow who likes to call her daughter and let her know what’s going on in her life. Fortunately, Mrs. Corwin meets and inspires Marvin and they fall in love. Unfortunately, that doesn’t bring the crew any closer to finding the inspector.

Surprise! The inspector wasn’t actually on the ship. He arrived late and wasn’t able to board. However, his father (Jack Bernardi) did get on board and he spend the entire cruise wandering about and asking people questions in Russian. As far as I could tell, none of the crew made much of an effort to help the confused old man out so I’m guessing they’re all out of a job now. I wonder what next week’s episode will be like….

While the crew was looking for the inspector, Mike Andrews (Bob Seagren) was looking for Melanie Taylor (Laurette Sprang). Mike arranged for his goofy sidekick, Doug (Sal Viscuso), to spend all of his time with Melanie’s best friend, Jane (Debralee Scott). Fortunately, Doug and Jane fell in love. Meanwhile, Mike abandoned Melanie as soon as the cruise ended. Booooooo!

Finally, the crew was fascinated by an older man (Paul Burke) who was traveling with a younger woman (Susan Blanchard). For the majority of the episode, everyone assumed the man and the woman were lovers. But then the man collapsed and it turned out that he was the woman’s father and he also terminally ill. This cruise was their long goodbye. This was a sweet story, even if it was kind of icky that everyone assumed that the father was carrying on an affair with his daughter. But, really, that mistaken assumption is the fault of the crew. I’m surprised they didn’t mistake the older man for being the Inspector.

Anyway, this was a fairly typical episode of The Love Boat. It got the job done with a minimum of complications and, if nothing else, it looked like a fun vacation. The Love Boat always works best as wish-fulfillment. It’s the type of show you watch and think, “What would I do if I was on that cruise?” I enjoyed this episode. The whole thing with the inspector was silly but the other two stories were well-handled. I hope things worked out for Doug and Jane!