I’ll Never Forget What’s Her Name”

Posted on August 19, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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!

It’s love! Welcome aboard, it’s love!

Episode 8.7 “And One to Grow On/Seems Like Old Times/I’ll Never Forget What’s Her Name”

(Dir by Jack Arnold, originally aired on October 27th, 1984)

Ruth Justin (Morgan Brittany) boards the ship with her ex-fiancée, Arthur (Richard Kline). Arthur has been suffering from amnesia ever since Ruth ended their engagement and Ruth hopes that she can help cure his condition by taking a cruise with him. But what if Arthur is just faking his condition because he wants to get back together with Ruth?

Private detective Johnny Bonilla (Alex Rocco) boards the ship with his client, Deborah Marshall (Joan Van Ark). Deborah hired Johnny to help her tack down Larry Peters (Robert Reed), a man who she once had a crush on. But what if Larry is just an overage playboy and Johnny is the one who truly loves Deborah?

Those two stories, while handled competently, were pretty much just standard Love Boat plotlines. The story that one truly remembers from this episode belongs to Vicki and Captain Stubing. Vicki is finally turning 18 and the Captain throws her a big surprise party on the boat. Vicki is happy and the Captain is proud …. or, at least, he is until he catches Vicki with a bottle of champagne. The Captain ends up yelling at Vicki. Vicki runs off, with tears in her eyes. Doc Bricker suggests that it’s time that the Captain tell Vicki the truth about his alcoholism.

Captain Stubing is scared to do so. He fears that, if he tells Vicki that he was an angry drunk who once nearly hit a kid while driving while intoxicated, she’ll lose all respect for him. But, in a wonderfully-acted scene, Stubing does tell her. And, once the shock wears off, Vicki comes to see her father as being more of a hero than ever. She now understands why the Captain doesn’t drink and, importantly, the Captain himself understands why he overreacted to seeing Vicki tipsy.

In the past, I’ve always wondered about whether or not Vicki had a life outside of the ship and, to be honest, I still wonder that. Even when she celebrates her 18th birthday, there’s no one her own age around. Instead, she celebrates with the much older crew and a bunch of elderly passengers. That doesn’t seem quite fair to Vicki. Because The Love Boat is …. well, the Love Boat, it’s easy to ignore the fact that Vicki pretty much gave up her childhood to work on a cruise ship.

That said, Captain Stubing and Vicki’s father-daughter relationship has always, somewhat surprisingly, been one of the strongest elements of The Love Boat and that’s almost entirely due to the performances of Gavin MacLeod and Jill Whelan. One sees that in this episode. Gavin MacLeod was a recovering alcoholic in real life and his performance the scene in which he talks to Vicki about his struggles has an authenticity to it that keeps it from getting mawkish or preachy.

(I cried as I watched. I’m missing my dad today.)

This was a good cruise, even if Ace was strangely not on the boat this week. Where were you Ace?

Late Night Retro Television Review: 1st & Ten 3.7 “Mutiny on the Bull Team”

Posted on March 25, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night 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 1st and Ten, which aired in syndication from 1984 to 1991. The entire series is streaming on Tubi.

Things aren’t looking too good for the Bulls!

Episode 3.7 “A Mutiny on the Bull Team”

(Dir by Stan Lathan, originally aired on October 7th, 1987)

After a terrible start to the season (back-to-back losses!), TD tells Coach Grier that he needs to do something to get the team back into championship shape. Coach Grier launches an intensive training regimen and he posts a list of rules in the locker room — no beer in the locker room, players must shave for game day, and a bunch of other things. The players rebel and, during the next game, they stop running the plays that Grier wants. TD confronts Grier and demands to know what’s going on. Grier says that he just did what TD told him to do. TD says that he didn’t tell Grier to become a dictator even though that is kind of what TD told him to do.

Really, “reign of terror?” Coach Grier is like in his 60s and he’s fat and out of shape. The football players are …. well, football players. What exactly is TD Parker saying? It’s hard to say. OJ Simpson delivers all of his lines in the same amiable and bland manner that he used when he said he would devote his life to searching for the real killers. It’s hard to know what TD is thinking.

Anyway, Grier realizes the errors of his ways and the Bulls win the game! So, TD doesn’t have to cut anyone from the team. He can put away his knife for now. Everyone in the locker room should be breathing a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, Yinessa and new owner Jill Schrader struggle with their feelings for each other. In the end, Yinessa kisses Jill in the stadium parking lot so I guess they decided to forget about the whole “We have to maintain a professional separation” thing.

One final note: Last week’s episode featured Delta Burke swearing that she was going to reclaim ownership of the Bulls. But, with this episode, Burke is no longer listed in the opening credits so I guess that storyline is over with. Jill is now the owner. Good! Maybe the Bulls will finally win a championship.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 4.21 “Clothes Make The Girl/Black Sheep/Hometown Girl”

Posted on September 4, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s time for another cruise on …. THE LOVE BOAT!

Episode 4.21 “Clothes Make The Girl/Black Sheep/Hometown Girl”

(Dir by Earl Bellamy, originally aired on February 28th, 1981)

This week’s cruise is all about money!

For instance, in this episode, we learn that Doc Bricker is from a small town called Cedar Flats. Doc was the head of a committee that raised the money necessary to send Mike Lucas (Randy Powell) to medical school so that Mike could return home and serve as the town doctor. However, when Mike boards the cruise with his fiancée, Tracy (Cindy Morgan), it turns out that he has some bad news. Tracy’s wealthy father has offered Mike a job working at a Park Avenue clinic in Manhattan. Mike is planning on taking the job because of the money and the fact that Tracy doesn’t want to live in a small town. Unfortunately, that will leave Cedar Flats without a doctor.

Doc Bricker, showing that he actually is a man of integrity despite also being a walking HR nightmare, decides that he has no choice but to return to Cedar Flats and serve as their doctor until someone can be found to replace him. He asks Captain Stubing for a six-month leave of absence. Stubing agrees but warns that the cruise line might hire someone to take Doc’s place.

Meanwhile, Suzy Marshall (Kyle Aletter) is excited because it appears that her daughter, Anne (Lee Meriwether), has attracted the attention of a wealthy man named Jonathan (Larry Breeding). Little do they know that Jonathan is actually just Johnny, the ship’s valet. Johnny is wearing another passenger’s clothes and pretending to be rich.

At one point, Johnny takes Anne back to his cabin, making this the first episode to show us what a low-level employee’s cabin looks like. It’s small and cramped and located at the bottom the boat, which means it’ll be the first to flood if The Love Boat ever hits an iceberg. It’s also mentioned that Johnny is not allowed to eat in the main dining room with the passengers. I have to admit that it’s all a bit disillusioning. Apparently, the Love Boat is a terrible place to work!

Finally, a passenger named Donald Gray (Robert Ginty) tells the Captain that he works for the Secret Service. He is on the Love Boat because he hopes to capture a notorious counterfeiter. But what will happen when that counterfeiter turns out to be Jesse (Demond Wilson), Issac’s ne’er-do-well uncle who claims to have turned a new leaf? Poor Isaac!

Well, don’t worry. Everything works out:

1) Mike realizes that he has to honor his commitment to Cedar Flats and, after talking to her father, Cindy realizes that she loves Mike enough that she can be happy in a small town. (Cindy’s father says some very dismissive things about Cedar Flats but it turns out that he was only doing that to get Mike so outraged that he would have no choice but to return home. He was doing it as a favor to Doc Bricker. Can you imagine if that plan didn’t work? What if Mike just said, “You’re right! New York, here we come!”)

2) Anne learns the truth when she sees Johnny in his valet uniform. Luckily, she doesn’t care.

3) It turns out that Donald is actually a criminal who is masquerading as a treasury agent and Uncle Jesse is an undercover government agent! Isaac is happy to learn this but also agrees to keep Jesse’s secret. “You’re my favorite nephew,” Uncle Jesse replies. Awwwww!

This was an okay cruise. The guest stars weren’t particularly interesting but Bernie Kopell and Ted Lange both got an opportunity to show what they could do when given a real storyline to deal with. Kopell especially deserves a lot of credit for showing that humanity that lurked underneath Doc’s carefree surface. This episode kept me entertained and I enjoyed the scenery. Really, what else can you ask for from The Love Boat?