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, Roarke is in the director’s chair!

Episode 6.13 “Midnight Waltz/Let Them Eat Cake”

(Dir by Ricardo Montalban, originally aired on February 12th, 1983)

Adele Anthony (Adrienne Barbeau) is a hard-working waitress whose fantasy is to be a queen for the weekend.  Mr. Roarke asks her if there’s a country that she would like to rule over.  Adele shrugs and says that she’s always liked France.  Mr. Roarke has her shoot an arrow and suddenly, Adele Anthony is …. MARIE ANTOINETTE!

Yes, the same Marie Antoinette who was beheaded during the French Revolution.

Like, seriously, Mr. Roarke ….. she couldn’t have been any other queen?  I’m not really sure why Mr. Roarke decided to do this to Adele, who is probably about a saintly a guest as has ever visited Fantasy Island.  Occasionally, Roarke will use the fantasies to teach someone a lesson but Adele really hasn’t done anything to justify being beheaded.

Fortunately, Adele isn’t beheaded.  It turns out that Marie Antoinette was saved from the guillotine by Francois (Patrick Wayne), a leader of the revolution who was shocked to discover that the Queen was not as heartless as he had been led to believe and that she had actually been framed by her husband, Louis (James Coco) and Louis’s mistress, Baroness La Rue (Cathryn Damon).  Indeed, all Marie Antoinette did was suggest that the cake that the royals were going to have for desert should be given to the citizens, along with a lot of other food.  Louis spread the story that Marie Antoinette had said, “Let them eat cake.”

So, Marie Antoinette (and Adele) survives!  Meanwhile, Louis is dragged off to be beheaded.  Except, it turns out that Louis was just having a fantasy as well.  Louis is actually Mr. Willaker, who runs the Fantasy Island car towing service.  In lieu of paying him for his services, Roarke gave him a fantasy in which he was beheaded.  The episode ends with Willaker towing away Tattoo’s car.

Meanwhile, John Cook (Lew Ayres) is a widower who wants to have one last dance with his wife, Carol (played, in ghost form, by Rosemary DeCamp).  However, John meets and falls in love with Martha Wilson (Jane Wyatt) and instead dances with her.  Carol approves, saying that she doesn’t want John to spend the rest of his days in mourning.  It’s a pretty simple fantasy but you know what?  It still brought tears to my eyes and I still smiled at the end of it.  A lot of that is due to the Lew Ayres, one of the great actors of Golden Age Hollywood.  Ayres gives such a sincere and downright sweet performance that it’s impossible not to get swept up in his fantasy.

This was a good episode.  I’m still not sure that Adele needed to become Marie Antoinette but the last dance fantasy made up for a lot.  It was just so sweet!  This was the second (and last) episode of the series to be directed by Ricardo Montalban and he did a great job.