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, both Doc and Captain Stubing try to get out of doing their jobs.

Episode 4.15 “The Trigamist/Jealousy/From Here To Maternity”

(Dir by Howard Morris, originally aired on January 17th, 1981)

Finally, Captain Stubing has found love!

He is totally smitten with passenger Linda Bradley (Pat Crowley) and Linda seems to like him as well.  (Why wouldn’t she?  He’s the Captain.  No one wants to date the people who are in the bottom of the boat and shoveling coal in the furnace.  The Captain is the one who has his own special table.)  Stubing is soon spending all of his time with Linda.  Vicki gets jealous.  Myself, I’m wondering who is steering the boat.

Vicki gets so jealous that Linda eventually picks up on it and breaks things off with the Captain.  The Captain is heart-broken but, when a contrite Vicki explains that Linda was just trying to protect her feelings, the Captain cheers up, Vicki agrees to accept Linda as a possible stepmother, and Linda promises to return for another cruise as soon as possible.  Will we ever see Linda again?  I doubt it.  Charo seems to be the only performer who regularly returns to the Love Boat as the same character.  We might see Pat Crowley again but she probably won’t be playing Linda.

This storyline, I could relate to.  I’m a child of divorce and I’ll just say that I was Hell on anyone who I thought was trying to be either a new father or a new mother to me.  So far, at least, the stories about the Captain and Vicki have always been handled well.  Gavin MacLeod is always at his best when he’s playing the fatherly side of Stubing.

Captain Stubing is not the only person trying to get laid on this cruise.  Doc Bricker — of course! — is eager to spend time with his latest girlfriend, Mona (Rebecca Holden), but he keeps getting summoned by the Talmadges.  Betty Talmadge (Murphy Cross) is pregnant and her husband, Arthur (Michael Young), is worried that she’s going to give birth on the cruise event though she’s not due for another 9 weeks.  “I was born on airplane!” Arthur yells at one point.  Eventually, Doc tells Arthur that he should take up jogging to deal with his nervousness.  Arthur ends up breaking his leg as a result.  That, at the very least, confines him to his cabin but Doc is now so worried about him that he still can’t find time for Mona.  Finally, as the ship docks in Los Angeles, Betty goes into labor.

Finally, Judge Joanne Atkinson (Nancy Walker) boards the ship and is surprised to see that Harrison Harper (George Gobel, who is an even less convincing womanizer than Doc Bricker) is also taking a cruise.  The judge previously sentenced Harrison to probation for being a bigamist.  The Judge and Harrison fall in love and get engaged.  Of course, Harrison is also engaged to five other women.  I’m sure it’ll all work out.

This was a weird cruise.  The main theme seemed to be that both Doc and the Captain will do anything to avoid actually doing their jobs.  Meanwhile, the Judge and Harrison’s relationship appears to be doomed from the start.  Getting arrested and being sentenced to probation has done nothing to dissuade Harrison from getting engaged to everyone he meets.  Julie looks worried as Harrison and the Judge leave the ship together and I don’t blame her!

As always, the ocean scenery was pleasant and I appreciated the sincerity of the scenes that Gavin MacLeod and Jill Whelan performed together.  Still, I was kind of happy when the boat docked this week.