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!

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Episode 3.14 “The Stimulation of Stephanie/Life Begins at 40/The Next Step”

(Dir by Allen Baron, originally aired on December 1st, 1979)

After being unexplainably absent last week, Vicki returns this week and is once again somehow a member of the Love Boat crew, despite only being 12.  Nobody asks where she was last week and certainly, no one asks her how she’s doing in school.  In fact, not only the crew but also the passengers seem to be totally accepting of the idea of a 12 year-old working as the assistant to the cruise director.  I guess the 70s were a different time.

If I seem to be harping on the strangeness of Vicki living on the boat, that’s because this week’s episode really isn’t that interesting.  This week’s episode is a fairly bland one.  It’s so bland that it really leaves you with no choice but wonder about the logistics of how the boat works.  And really, that’s something that should never happen when you’re watching a show like The Love Boat.  If you’re worrying about real-life questions while watching a show like this, it means that you’re watching an episode that just isn’t working.  The Love Boat, like Fantasy Island, should be an escape from reality and not an excuse to wonder about how it all works.

As usual, we’ve got three storylines to deal with.  Jo Anne Worley plays Dottie Anderson, who is 39 years old and still unmarried.  She’s booked herself in the honeymoon suite because she is determined that she is going to meet a man and get married over the course of the cruise.  Julie assures Dottie that there’s nothing wrong with being single when you’re 4o, which is easy for Julie to say because someone asks her to get married during almost every cruise.  Anyway, Dottie flirts with a lot of men and ultimately, she comes to realize that Julie was right.  She embraces being single and leaves the boat happy.  Yay!  This storyline didn’t add up too much but at least Jo Anne Worley knew how to deliver a joke.

Meanwhile, pro football player Virgil Plummer (Roosevelt Grier) is upset because he’s about to retire from the game that he loves and he doesn’t know what the future holds for him.  With the help of his wife (Melba Moore) and Isaac, Virgil realizing that he can pursue a career as a cook.  Personally, I’m not sure why he wouldn’t just retire and live off the millions he made as a football player.  Or maybe he could become a coach or one of those “fight for every inch” motivational speakers.  Grier and Moore had a likable chemistry (even if it did feel more like a close friend chemistry as opposed to a married chemistry) but again, this storyline just didn’t add up too much.

Finally, sex research Norman Bridges (Dick Martin) and his assistant, Stephanie Champman (Char Fontane) board the boat.  Bridges wants to research the roots of sexual simulation.  Stephanie is in love with Bridges, though you have to wonder why because he’s kind of a boring jerk.  Still, when Norman thinks that Doc Bricker is trying to seduce Stephanie, Norman goes down to Bricker’s cabin and punches him.  Unfortunately, Norman wasn’t wearing his glasses and didn’t initially realize that the woman in Doc’s cabin was not Stephanie but was instead a passenger named Lena (Judy Landers).  Eventually, Norman does figure out that Stephanie loves him and they leave the boat together.  Somehow, Norman got away with assaulting the ship’s doctor.  This storyline was just dumb.  No one in their right mind would fall in love with someone as clueless and self-absorbed as Norman.

This was a less-than-satisfactory cruise.  But that’s what happens when you break child labor laws.