Rachel Jacobs | 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.

Oh, hey, Charo’s back.

Episode 4.15 “First Voyage, Last Voyage/April, the Ninny/The Loan Arranger”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on January 17th, 1981)

April’s back!

Played by Charo, April Lopez was one of the few recurring characters on The Love Boat. Whereas other actors appeared frequently but always as different characters, Charo was always April whenever she boarded The Love Boat. The first time she boarded the ship, she did so as a stowaway. The next two times, she boarded as the cruise’s entertainment. This season, however, April boards as someone who has grown tired of show business. When last we saw her, April was in love with a guy named Tex and planning on playing Las Vegas. However, when April boards this time, she quickly informs both Julie and Isaac that she and Tex are no longer a couple and Vegas didn’t work out because she was expected to play her guitar while naked.

(“They could have at least gotten you a cello,” Isaac replies.)

April wants a new career, which she gets when she meets Ty Younger (Larry Linville), who is wealthy but who also has two bratty kids who are always chasing off their nannies. They can’t chase off April, who understands that the best way to calm a bratty child is to grab your guitar and sing to them at night. April gives up show business to become a nanny but I don’t think it’ll last. April is too impulsive to settle down, and Ty’s kids really are the worst. (As well, Charo and Larry Linville didn’t exactly generate a lot of heat in their scenes together.) April may leave the boat with a new family but hopefully, she’ll return alone in the fifth season.

Speaking of the worst, Cindy Simmons (Maureen McCormick) is dying but her parents (Ty Hardin and Kathleen Nolan) haven’t gotten around to telling her yet. Cindy thinks that she’s made a full recovery from her recent illness. Her parents don’t want to upset Cindy but when Cindy meets and falls in love with Paul Harris (Jay Thomas), they realize that they’re going to have to tell Cindy the truth. Poor Cindy! Fortunately, this is The Love Boat and Paul isn’t going to let a little thing like impending death get in the way of romance. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen Maureen McCormick on both The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. For this episode, McCormick does a pretty good job with her role and she and Jay Thomas make for an attractive couple.

“I guess I’m still getting my sea legs,” Cindy says to Paul.

“Your legs look mighty fine to me,” Paul replies.

That’s about as witty as things get on this cruise.

Finally, Joey (Richard Kline) is a mob enforcer who has been sent to collect a debt owed by Tony Patacchio, a gambling addict. However, Joey gets distracted when he meets a woman named Antoinette (Lisa Hartman) who enjoys gambling. Joey falls for Antoinette and, unable to find Tony, he even spends the night in her cabin. Hmmm …. Tony …. Antoinette …. Toni….

Yes, Joey has fallen in love with the person he was supposed to rough up. Fortunately, Joey is willing to fix a poker game so that Toni can win enough of his money to pay off her debt. When Toni realizes that Joey lost his money to her on purpose, she declares that she can’t take his money. “If we were married,” Joey says, “It would be our money.”

Richard Kline is not a particularly believable debt collector. (Tony Soprano would have tossed him in a dumpster.) It’s also strange that his boss would send him to collect a debt without bothering to give him a physical description of the person he was supposed to intimidate. The whole storyline was full of holes but I’m surprised to say that I did end up rooting Kline and Hartman to get together. The two of them had enough chemistry to overcome the fact that their story made very little sense.

Previously, whenever Charo was a guest star, she dominated the entire episode, for better or worse. With this episode, she seems kind of bored with the whole thing, as if Charo was just as fed up with show business as April. Instead, it was Maureen McCormick and Jay Thomas who dominated the episode with Richard Kline and Lisa Hartman also getting their share of good scenes. It makes for a bit of an uneven episode but I defy anyone not to feel something when Paul declares that he wants to spend the rest of Cindy’s life with her. Mixing romantic melodrama and goofy comedy is what made The Love Boat a treasure of American pop culture.