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, season 6 begins!

Episode 6.1 and 6.2 “The Italian Cruise: Venetian Love Song/Down for the Count/Arrividerci, Gopher/The Arrangement”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on October 2nd, 1982)

The Love Boat crew goes to Italy!

The sixth season of The Love Boat did indeed start with a cruise to Italy.  It was a special two-hour episode, shot on location at sea and in Italy!  Our crew visits Monaco, Rome, Capri, and Venice and really, that’s the main appeal of this episode.  It’s certainly not the stories, which are pretty superficial even by the standards of the Love Boat.

Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters play an old Italian couple who bicker through the whole cruise but who also truly love each other.  Awwww!  Ernest and Shelley were veteran actors and they both appear to be having fun devouring the scenery in their scenes.  Their cruise goes better here than it did in The Poseidon Adventure.

Meredith Baxter falls for a man (David Birney, the annoying Dr. Samuels from the first season of St. Elsewhere) who turns out to be a gigolo.  However, he abandons being a manwhore so that he can pursue a relationship with Meredith.  I understand that Baxter and Birney were married at the time.  They have absolutely zero chemistry when they’re acting opposite each other.

Marie Osmond is angry over being expected to take part in an arranged marriage.  Yeah, that is kind of messed up.  She’d rather marry the totally handsome John James.

Finally, an Italian handyman who looks just like Gopher (and who is also played by Fred Grandy) abducts the real Gopher and takes his place on the ship so that he can try to win the love of a wealthy passenger named Angelica Francini (Christopher Norris) and…. well, actually, this storyline is kind of interesting.

Actually, maybe “interesting” the wrong word.

Goofy!  That’s the word I’m looking for.

This storyline is so goofy — so damn goofy — that it’s actually kind of fun.  I mean, it’s The Love Boat.  The Love Boat should be silly.  Fred Grandy playing two characters is silly and fun.  To give credit where credit is due, Grandy did a pretty good job playing the imposter imitating Gopher.  His attempts to speak in a stereotypical American accent made me laugh.  In the end, the real Gopher makes it back to the boat.  Confronted with two Gophers, the Captain realizes that the fake Gopher is the one who has actually been doing a good job and kicks him off the boat.  He’d rather have the real, incompetent Gopher and I don’t blame him.  What’s odd is that no one’s really upset or even that surprised by the kidnapping.  I don’t think anyone even bothers to callsthe police.

Anyway, Italy is the main attraction here.  I love Italy (which I visited the summer after I graduated high school) and I loved this episode!  At one point, Marie Osmond wore a red dress that looked a lot like the one that I wore to Pompeii on that windy day when I accidentally flashed a thousand tourists.  Marie was struggling with the wind too and I was like, “I share your struggle, Marie!”

I enjoyed this cruise.  I want to go back to Italy.