A Booming Romance”

Posted on September 10, 2025 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!

Love won’t hurt anymore….

Episode 6.16 “Doc’s Big Case/Senior Sinners/A Booming Romnace”

(Dir by Bob Sweeney, originally aired on January 22nd, 1983)

As usual, this episode has three stories. However, this week, only one of the stories really works.

Dr. Elliott Norton (James Noble) attended medical school with Doc. He is a world-renowned surgeon who has written a best-selling book and, as soon as he boards the boat, ol’ Doc Bricker starts to feel insecure. It’s easy to see why. Dr. Norton performs life-saving surgery on a daily basis. Doc Bricker helps people recover from severe sun tan. The fact that everyone on board wants Norton’s autograph doesn’t help. Vicki is supposed to be writing a report on Doc but even Doc is like, “You should probably do it on Elliott.”

However, when a little girl (played by Tori Spelling, in what must have been one of the first roles that Aaron Spelling demanded she be cast in) asks Doc to diagnose what’s wrong with her doll, Bricker quickly figures out that both the doll and the girl are depressed because they’re not spending enough time with their father. Norton may be getting the groupies but Doc Bricker gets invited to a tea party with the girl, her father, and the doll.

I’m sorry, are you smirking?

Okay, it is pretty silly. Normally, I would smirk too but you know what? Bernie Kopell really makes this story work. In many ways, Doctor Adam Bricker was a bit of silly character, a supposed swinger who always came across as being rather mild-mannered and kind of conservative. But Bernie Kopell was so likable in the role that it didn’t matter that the character often didn’t make much sense. In this episode, Kopell does such a good job of playing up the character’s insecurities and regrets that my heart actually broke for the poor guy. Was the tea party silly? Yes. But I still cheered when he was invited.

As for the other two stories, one featured Raymond St. Jacques and Theresa Merritt playing an elderly couple who were living together without being married. Their children (played Brian Stokes Mitchell and Thelma Hopkins) were scandalized! It was pretty boring. The children weren’t particularly likable so I was kind of hoping the parents would just toss them overboard.

The final story …. I don’t even know how to describe it other than to say it was dumb. Ross (Alan Young) wants to impress Kathy (Holland Taylor) and keep her from running off with Bob (Adam West, who was severely underused). So, Ross builds a fake bomb, hides it in the engine room, pretends to discover it, and then defuses it while Kathy watches. I mean, how am I supposed to care about someone who would do something that stupid? And then, when Ross confesses the truth to her, Kathy laughs it off and forgives him. I mean, it seems like he’s an obvious sociopath to me. Run, Kathy, run!

This was an uneven episode but seriously, the story with Doc Bricker got to me. This show was very lucky to have Bernie Kopell.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 3.12 “The Brotherhood of the Sea/Letter to Babycakes/Daddy’s Pride”

Posted on October 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This cruise is all about deception! Welcome aboard, it’s love!

Episode 3.12 “The Brotherhood of the Sea/Letter to Babycakes/Daddy’s Pride”

(Dir by George Tyne, originally aired on November 17th, 1979)

Julie’s birthday is coming up and the crew is planning to throw her a surprise party. However, to keep Julie from catching on to what they’re planning, Doc, Gopher, and Isaac decide that they need to keep her occupied. They tell her that they are all member of the “The Brotherhood of the Sea” and that they’re now prepared to make Julie a member as well.

Somehow, Julie falls for this very obvious lie and she spends almost the entire cruise doing all of the silly activities that Doc, Gopher, and Isaac have set up for her. As I watched this, I found myself wondering if maybe Julie had somehow forgotten when her birthday was because, seriously, it couldn’t have been any more obvious what Doc, Gopher, and Isaac were doing. Even worse, Julie gets so busy trying to join the Brotherhood of the Sea that she neglects her latest romantic partner, Rory Daniels (Christopher Connelly).

It’s time that we just face facts. Until Julie gets off that boat, she’s never going to find the husband that she always says that she’s looking for. The Boat pretty much dominates Julie’s life and there’s no way that her male co-workers are ever going to stop out of the way and allow Julie to find any sort of happiness. It’s an interesting dynamic and I think it’s one that’s familiar to any woman who has worked with mostly male co-workers. On the one hand, the ground you walk on is worshipped. On the other hand, they don’t ever want to let you go.

While Julie is trying to join the Brotherhood of the Sea, Olympic gymnast Penny Barrett (Nancy McKeon) just wants to hang out with Kevin (Stephen Manley), a passenger who is her own age. Unfortunately, Penny’s father (Alex Cord) is also her coach and he wants her to devote all of her time, even her time on the Boat, to training. Poor Penny! Seriously, back when my whole life was about going to dance class, I met so many people like Penny, whose parents basically lived their entire lives through them and never allowed them to have a childhood. I was glad my parents supported me but didn’t pressure me.

Finally, wealthy Bart (Demon Wilson) boards the ship with his girlfriend, Tracy (Telma Hopkins), and his assistant, Wally (Jimmie Walker). After Bart meets Ginger (Sydney Goldsmith), he decides that he wants to cheat on Tracy and he expects Wally to help him pull it off by keeping Tracy busy while Bart goes off with Ginger. Needless to say this leads to Tracy and Wally falling in love. Ha! Take that, Bart! This storyline would have been a bit more interesting if the two leads actors weren’t so boring in their roles.

This was a so-so cruise but at least Julie knows where she stands now.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.21 “A Good and Faithful Servant/The Secret Life of Burl Smith/Tug of War/Designated Lover”

Posted on June 28, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we have a special 90-minute episode of The Love Boat!

Episode 2.21 “A Good and Faithful Servant/The Secret Life of Burl Smith/Tug of War/Designated Lover”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on February 17th, 1979)

It’s a Mills family reunion as John, Juliet, and Haley all board The Love Boat. Despite being related, the three of them appears in three separate and unconnected stories. (There is one moment where Juliet walks past John and he gives her a slightly quizzical “Do I know you?” look.)

John Mills plays Bertram MacDonald, the long-time butler and chauffeur to Estelle Castlewood (Celeste Holm). Estelle has booked herself a vacation cruise on the Pacific Princess and she’s surprised to discover that Bertram has also booked a cruise. As Bertram explains it, the only time that he can take a vacation is when Celeste takes a vacation. At first, Bertram promises to stay away from Celeste during the cruise so that they can both enjoy their vacations without feeling like employer and employee. However, fate keeps bringing them together and soon, Bertram tells Celeste that he has to resign from his position because he’s now in love with her. Fortunately, Celeste is also in love with him so it all works out. Upon returning to America, Bertram again drives Celeste home but, this time, Celeste sits up front with him instead of in the back of her limo. This was a rather sweet story, largely because John Mills and Celeste Holm had a lot of chemistry and, being two veteran actors, they both knew exactly how to deliver their sentimental dialogue without making it sound overly calculated.

Juliet Mills plays Millicent, who is separated from Sherman (David Hedison). Millicent boards the cruise with her 8 year-old son, Lucas (Keith Coogan) and she is shocked to discover that Sherman has decided to take the cruise as well. Lucas blames himself for the separation but, fortunately, he gets a pep talk from a real-life baseball star, Reggie Jackson. (Yes, I did ask my sister who he was.) Even better, Sherman and Millicent realize that they still love each other and agree to call off the divorce. Yay! Again, this was another story that worked because of the chemistry between the two leads. Juliet Mills and David Hedison were convincing as a couple who, for all of their ups and downs, were still willing to give their marriage another chance.

Now, you may be wondering what Reggie Jackson was doing on the cruise. It turns out that Reggie is an old friend of Isaac Washington’s. Apparently, Isaac was known as “Freight Train Washington” in high school. Reggie went on to become a multi-millionaire athlete while Isaac went on to become a bartender on a cruise line. When Reggie boards the boat, he tells Isaac that he doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s famous. However, in an amusing twist, Reggie soon becomes frustrated when he gets what he asked for. He’s soon reduced to telling people that he’s Reggie Jackson, just to have them reply that he looks nothing like Reggie Jackson. Not even Captain Stubing believes that he’s Reggie Jackson! Fortunately, Reggie is finally able to convince Cleo (Telma Houston) that he is who he says he is and the two of them leave the boat together. As an actor, Reggie Jackson was a bit stiff but he still had decent comedic timing and it was hard not to be amused at his growing frustration over being anonymous.

Finally, Haley Mills plays model Cheryl Tyson. Gopher is excited that Cheryl is going to be on the cruise. She’s his favorite model! He even has a big poster on the wall next to his bed in his cabin. Unfortunately, every time that Gopher is near Cheryl, he loses the ability to speak in complete sentences. As such, Gopher spends the majority of the episode fantasizing outlandish, film-inspired scenarios that all lead to him sweeping Cheryl off her feet. Gopher imagines himself as an explorer, an admiral, a knight, a spy, and as Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. He imagines himself as Elton John, performing Pinball Wizard as the Love Boat crew dances around. He even imagines being in a love triangle with Julie and Cheryl. Eventually, Cheryl gives him a pity date and it’s …. well, this whole storyline was pretty stupid. Fred Grandy was likable in the role and Gopher could be an amusingly goofy character but his fantasies were just so silly and poorly written that I couldn’t wait for them to be over. It’s nice that the show finally gave Grandy a showcase but neither he nor Haley Mills were particularly well-served by this episode.

This was an uneven episode. Even though the stories featuring John and Juliet Mills and Reggie Jackson were nicely done, the Hayley Mills/Fred Grandy stuff took up the majority of the episode and it dragged the whole thing down.

Next week …. Freight Train Washington falls in love!

Film Review: Trancers III (1993, dir. C. Courtney Joyner)

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

This was a little sad to watch. At least it didn’t make me feel even more depressed than I did after the scene in the transploitation “documentary” Let Me Die A Woman (1977) where a trans woman cuts off her own penis. Thanks, Ms. 45 (1981)! It probably didn’t help that I also watched Crackdown Mission (1988) where Godfrey Ho spliced a Pierre Kirby buddy cop movie into a Taiwanese remake of Ms. 45 either.

The last time we left Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson), he and Lena (Helen Hunt) had dealt with Trancers in early 1990’s Los Angeles. This movie picks up in 1992. And yes, Helen Hunt is in this. If memory serves, she did this as a favor to the filmmakers considering she was on Mad About You at this point. It opens with the usual voiceover from Jack and then we see a really sad commercial for the Jack Deth detective agency.

Yep, just like the first film, this one also has a part of it that takes place during the Christmas season. Then we see what happens when a guy who seems to barely speak English tries to rob a convenience store run by another guy who also seems to barely speak English.

It causes this guy to show up in a time machine. He’s there for Jack. Cut to Jack talking on the phone to Lena. Turns out they’re getting a divorce! Can’t really blame her. It’s either a guy who has futuristic zombies coming after him like this.

Or a guy who wants to hang a giant poster of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman in their apartment.

As Helen puts it.

I think she made the right choice.

After finding Jack, him and the reject from the third season of Star Trek: Enterprise travel into the future of 2352. There he finds that they were also able to get back Telma Hopkins as Cmdr. Rains…

and Megan Ward as Alice Stillwell.

This was three years before she would get her own show on NBC as well called Dark Skies. Unfortunately, that show didn’t succeed like the two other shows I remember them packaging with it: The Pretender and Profiler.

The gist here is that something happened in the past that led to a huge Trancer army overrunning the humans. You know what that means? Jack has to go back to the future to stop it. That means he has to go back to 2005. And by 2005, I mean we cut to a strip club.

Hey, I know that name! Thanks, Mötley Crüe!

I’ve got the screenshots, but there’s no menage a trois here, nor breaking any of Frenchies laws. However, this guy seems to like what he sees.

This scene introduces us to R.J. played by Melanie Smith.

She’s joined a special corps of people who are being enhanced to be able to Trance at will through the use of drugs. The guy I posted before decides to beat some people up before being shot to death. This scene only exists to introduce us to her and the whole drug thing. Well, that and since it has…

Travis McKenna as the bartender, it gives me an excuse to post one of my favorite scenes from Road House (1989).

I guess you could say that other guy was “too stupid to have a good time.” Now we are introduced to the villain of this movie and…

I guess this movie was an audition for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Melanie Smith would have a recurring role on the show, and that’s Andrew Robinson who would play Garak, the Cardassian tailor who was also a semi-retired dangerous spy and assassin. He really is the only good thing about this movie. Even through this stupid half assed sequel, he manages to show us exactly why he got hired to play that role. Funny that the previous Trancers movie had Jeffrey Combs in it who would also go on to play one of the most memorable characters from that show: Weyoun.

Anyways, after Jack goes back in time and shows us what being asked to make Trancers III was like…

by falling into a pile of trash, we get some pointless scenes till Jack shows up at Lena’s 2005 apartment.

And by 2005, I mean as seen from 1993. Making that girl wear that hat is cruel and unusual punishment. Turns out R.J. went to Lena because Lena has been writing about this Trancer core. It’s actually just an excuse to get her with Jack and let Tim and Helen say their goodbyes.

From this point till the final scenes of the movie can be summed as stalling for time by having pointless scenes with the villain, pointless fighting between his soldiers, and pointless conversations between Jack and R.J. The only thing worth mentioning here is that it’s not a good idea to pit a piete girl and against decent sized guy in a fight when they certainly don’t come across as martial artists. I say that because one of the scenes is like watching an ant try to beat up a beetle.

Well, eventually Jack and R.J. are captured. R.J. breaks Jack out, but starts to Trance because of the drugs, so she asks Jack to kill her, which he does. Then what must have been a joke happens. The fish head guy from earlier shows up out of nowhere to help Jack, but the second they turn to go through the door to fight the bad guys, this happens.

The guy freezes up leaving Jack to deal with them. And deal with them he does by gun, fist, and sword. I bet that was supposed to be a hint or inspiration for the next Trancers movie. Afterwards, it turns out fish head’s circuit board had malfunctioned, but came back to life as soon as the battle was done. Jack returns to the future future and goes before the council.

They give Jack a fancy new title, which Jack correctly knows is just an excuse so they can send him anywhere in time they please along with his new buddy. And that’s it! There’s no reason to see this. I remember stumbling across this at a video store when I was young. No wonder I basically forgot about it’s existence. Since it worked so well at the end of the Trancers II review. Here’s another shot of Thomerson giving a help me I’m stuck making Trancers movies face.

Film Review: Trancers II (1991, dir. Charles Band)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Well, it sure took them a long time to get back to this series. Actually, they did shoot a sequel before this, but I’ll get to that one after I finish the main releases. This one picks up six years after the events of the first one. In that one we left Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) and Lena Deth (Helen Hunt) in the past of Los Angeles. We also got a short sequel bait at the end in the form of McNulty in his female ancestor’s little girl body. For this installment they appear to have gotten back just about every single person of consequence.

Jack and Lena Deth

Art LaFleur as McNulty in future

Biff Manard as Hap Ashby

Even Telma Hopkins returns as Raines and she was barely in the movie.

The setup here is that Hap Ashby got clean and made a bunch of money in commodity speculation. He needs it since he has taken up the hobby of collecting firetrucks. Jack and Lena live with Ashby on his estate. Whistler’s brother is in the past so that means more Trancers are on their way. McNulty is going to go back in time again into his ancestor along with a time machine. The idea is to bring Jack back to the future with Whistler’s brother in tow. Jack’s body in the future is unsuitable to come back to so he needs to return in his new body. There you go, sequel!

Before I continue, take a look at those screenshots. They do those close portrait shots of the actors a lot in this movie. My guess is not that they couldn’t get the actors in the same place all the time, but that they thought that might happen. As a result, they used that consistently throughout just in case the situation arose. Enter the Trancers!

That’s when one more actor makes a return. Not sure how, but seven years or so after the production of the original Trancers, they got Alyson Croft to reprise her role as McNulty’s ancestor. I think I enjoyed her performance in this movie the most. I love her entrance into the film. She shows up having some trouble riding a bike before falling over.

However, while McNulty may have trouble riding a bike, he apparently has no issues putting on makeup.

This is when one more little important piece of information is dropped on us. In the first film we found out that Jack’s wife was killed by a Trancer. However, in this one we find out that someone was sent back to shortly before she died. They sent her consciousness back in time so that this movie can have some funny scenes between Jack and his two wives.

This is Alice Stillwell played by Megan Ward. You see, while Jack got sent back into the body of Philip Deth shortly after having sex and McNulty ended up in a pretty and funny young girl, Jack’s wife ended up in the body of a mental patient. And not just a mental patient anywhere either.

That’s Whistler’s brother who goes by the name Dr. Wardo played by the late Richard Lynch. And he has a sidekick.

Honestly, if the credits hadn’t told me that was Jeffrey Combs, then I could have easily missed that fact. I really have no idea what Lynch and Combs are up to in this movie. It doesn’t matter. Jack needs to rescue his wife and kill Lynch. It’s that simple.

The long second makes a return! Jack makes good use of it to singe some Trancers. He then comforts three ladies who saw the Trancers disappear by telling them it’s okay because they’re biodegradable. The lines in this just aren’t as good as the first one. Alice also uses the long second to hide the time machine after she finds it. It’s not important why it’s near her. It’s for the same reasons why she is even in this movie. It’s convenient for the plot.

Meanwhile, Alyson Croft continues to be the funniest person in this movie, which is humorous considering Helen Hunt would go on to do Mad About You and Tim Thomerson was once a standup comedian.

Jack shows up and rescues Alice while they are moving her. There’s a short exchange where she says he’s the only man she’s slept with, she passes out, and he’s says it wasn’t that bad. Kinda funny, but nothing in this movie is as memorable as lines like “Beef? You mean like from a cow?” or “I’m from another time, another world. I don’t even know what you people eat for lunch.”, which were in the first film.

There’s some screwball stuff here between Jack, Lena, and Alice, but who really cares. Trancers show up, Ashby starts drinking again, and Alyson Croft continues to be funny.

Now our four Musketeers set out to take down Lynch and Combs. But first we get a cameo appearance by one of director Charles Band’s other movies.

I’ll probably review that eventually. The only really important plot point left here is that Jack is going to have to send Alice back in the time machine since otherwise she’ll die shortly after returning to her body. I say it’s time for highlights.

The good guys win in a final showdown with Lynch, Combs, and their henchmen. Jack sends Alice back to the future in the time machine after a parting kiss. McNulty returns to his body to inform Raines that Jack has a new home in the past. Then Jack and Lena kiss just like at the end of the first movie.

But unlike the end of the first movie, there’s no hint at a sequel here. However, they must have changed their minds because there are five more films in this franchise. This one was definitely a step down from the first. Honestly, I really only recommend it if you are a big fan of the first like I am. We’ll see what’s next for Jack Deth in Trancers III (1992).