Steve Carlson | 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, The Love Boat heads to the Virgin Islands in a special two-hour episode!

(For syndication purposes, this episode is technically listed as being two episodes.)

Episode 4.2 and 4.3 “The Family Plan/The Promoter/May The Best Man Win/Forever Engaged/The Jurors”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on November 1st, 1980)

One of the cool things about The Love Boat is that, at least once per season, the cast and crew would actually film on location on an actual cruise. You can always spot these episodes by the fact that they’re usually two-hours long, there’s more passengers than usual, and the guest stars tend to spend more time on the upper deck than in their cabins. It may not sound like much but there’s just something undeniably fun about seeing the actual ocean while the ship’s crew and the show’s guest stars go through the motions. It’s a reminder that we live on a beautiful planet and we should all make the effort to go out and see some of it.

The fourth season’s location shoot followed the boat as it sailed from the Virgin Islands to Los Angeles, with stops in Curacao, Venezuela, and Panama. Along with all of the usual romance and laughs, this episode is a bit of a travelogue as Gopher, Julie, and the Captain all take their turn telling the passengers about the history of where they are sailing. Isaac even gets into the act, pointing out the Virgin Islands to Doc Bricker. (Being the walking HR nightmare that he is, Bricker can’t hear that name without making a comment about it.) For a history and travel nerd like me, that was enough to make this episode fun.

As for the storylines, it was typical Love Boat silliness. Promoter Larry Evans (Darren McGavin) is promoting a contest in which 50 engages couples will be married by Captain Stubing in a mass wedding aboard the ship. (It’s kind of like what happens in cults, now that I think about it.) One lucky couple will win money, a house, and a car. Larry boards the ship with his wife, Sheila (Debbie Reynolds) and it quickly becomes apparent that their marriage is struggling, despite the happy facade that Larry attempts to put up. When Larry’s plan for a network television special falls through, he’s offered a bribe by one of the engaged couples. When Sheila learns that Larry is considering taking the bribe, she announces that she wants a divorce and then starts spending a lot of time with Captain Stubing. Again, Vicki gets her hopes up that she’ll soon have a stepmother.

Meanwhile, Carl Lawrence (Peter Graves) boards the ship to try to keep his son, Ted (Brian Kerwin), from rushing into a marriage with Carrie (Erin Moran). Meanwhile, Carrie’s mother, Mary Ann (Kathie Browne), boards to keep Carrie from rushing into a marriage with Ted. Carl and Mary Ann are eager to work together to keep this wedding from happening. But then Carl and Mary Ann fall in love and start planning a rushed wedding of their own. “Are we hypocrites?” Carl wonders. Yes, you are. But you’re also Peter Graves so you can pretty much do whatever you want.

Tom McMann (Ted Knight) and Mary Hubble (Rue McClanahan) have been engaged for ten years. Mary fears that Tom won’t go actually go through with the wedding and Tom suddenly finds himself unable to say the words, “I do.” Can Isaac help them out?

Marv Prine (Don Most), who previously sailed on last season’s Alaskan cruise, boards as the best man for the wedding of his friend Brian (Lloyd Alan) and Emily (Charlene Tilton). However, Brian decides he’d rather run off with an old girlfriend and he leaves it to Marv to break the news to Emily. Marv can’t bring himself to do it so he keeps making excuses and promising Emily that Brian will meet them at the next port. Marv falls in love with Emily but suddenly, Brian shows up. When he finds out that Marv didn’t tell Emily the truth about him standing her up, Brian decides to go ahead with the wedding. Emily becomes convinced that Marv was trying to steal her away from Brian but then she finds a receipt from a cheap hotel and she realizes the truth. “You’re not a man,” Julie tells Brian. WAY TO GO, JULIE!

Finally, the Captain assigns Doc Bricker the task of judging the couples contest. Doc thinks that it sounds tedious so he passes the job onto Gopher. However, when Doc sees that the other two judges are Valerie (Dawn Wells) and Rena (Ann Jillian), he conspires to take Gopher’s place. While docked at Curacao, Doc sends Gopher assure to pick up some medical supplies. Gopher, of course, walks up to a cop and asks for help finding “the drugs.” When the cop doesn’t understand, Gopher says, “I want to buy drugs.” Long story short, Gopher ends up in jail and the ship sails off without him.

Wow, that’s a lot to deal with! But don’t worry it all works out.

Gopher meets a Spanish diplomat’s daughter and is not only freed from jail but he also gets a girlfriend and a limo for his trouble. When the ship docks in Los Angeles, Valerie and Rena abandon Doc so that they can take a ride in Gopher’s new limo.

Larry does not take the bribe and saves his marriage.

Everyone else gets married.

Yay! A happy ending! Except, of course, for Vicki, who thought she was going to get a stepmother. But don’t worry, Vicki. There’s still 6 more seasons to go.

This was a fun episode. It made me want to take a cruise. Interestingly enough, this is also a prophetic episode. A cruise for engaged couples in which one couple wins a big prize? Today, there’s not a network around that would pass on that.

See? The Love Boat knew exactly where America sailing.

(Lisa is currently in the process of cleaning out her DVR! She has got over 170 movies on the DVR to watch and she’s trying to get it done before the start of the new year! Can she get it done? Probably not, but she’s going to try! 1972’s The Carey Treatment was recorded off of TCM on July 23rd.)

Dr. Peter Carey (James Coburn) is the epitome of 1970s cool. He’s got hair long enough to cover the top half of ears. He’s got a fast car. He’s got a rebellious attitude and a girlfriend (Jennifer O’Neill) who rarely questions his decisions. Though you don’t see it in the movie, Dr. Carey probably smokes weed when he’s back at his fashionably decorated apartment. How do I know this? Well, he’s played by James Coburn. Even if some of them are nearly 50 years old, you can still get a contact high from watching any movie featuring James Coburn.

Anyway, what the Hell is The Carey Treatment about? Dr. Carey has just recently moved to Boston, where he’s taken a job at a stodgy old hospital. The hospital’s chief doctor, J.D. Randall (Dan O’Herlihy, of Halloween III: Season of The Witch fame), might want Dr. Carey to tone down his free-livin’, free-lovin’ California ways but no one tells Peter Carey what to do. In fact, the entire city of Boston might be too stodgy and conventional for Dr. Carey. You see, Dr. Carey not only heals people. He also beats up people who try to stand in his way. Peter Carey is a doctor who cares but he’s also a doctor who can kick ass.

And he’s going to have to kick a lot of ass because Dr. Randall’s daughter has just turned up dead. The police say that she died as the result of a botched abortion and they’ve arrested Carey’s best friend, Dr. David Tao (James Hong). (The Carey Treatment, it should be noted, was filmed before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion.) The Boston establishment is determined to use Dr. Tao as a scapegoat but Dr. Carey is convinced that his friend is innocent. In fact, he doesn’t think that the death was the result of an abortion at all. Carey sets out to solve the case … HIS WAY!

If it seems like I’m going a little bit overboard with my emphasis on the Dr. Peter Carey character, that’s because this entire movie feels more like a pilot for a weekly Dr. Carey television series as opposed to an actual feature film. It’s easy to image that each week, James Coburn would drive from hospital to hospital, solving medical mysteries and debating social issues with stuffy members of the Boston establishment. Henry Mancini would provide the theme music and Don Murray would guest star as Dr. Carey’s brother, a priest who encourages the young men in his parish to burn their draft cards.

It might have eventually become an interesting TV show but it falls pretty flat as a movie. James Coburn is in nearly every scene, which would usually be a good thing. But in The Carey Treatment, he gives an incredibly indifferent performance. He seems to be bored by the whole thing and, as a result, Dr. Peter Carey is less a cool rebel and more of a narcissistic jerk. The mystery itself is handled rather haphazardly. On the positive side, Michael Blodgett gives a wonderfully creepy performance as a duplicitous masseur but otherwise, The Carey Treatment is nothing special.

If you want to see a great James Coburn film, track down The President’s Analyst.