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’s cruise is all about adultery and aliens!

Episode 4.10 “Boomerang/Captain’s Triangle/Out Of This World”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on December 13th, 1980)

When Donna Dayton (Pamela Sue Martin) boards the boat, Julie immediately notices her wedding ring and asks if Mr. Dayton will be following her.  Donna explains that she’s not married.  She just wears the ring to keep sleazy men from hitting on her.

Julie is shocked.  What if Donna meets someone on the boat!?

Donna says that she has no intention of meeting anyone.

Can you guess what happens next?

Donna meets Scott Hanson (Barry Van Dyke) and it’s love at …. well, not quite first sight.  In fact, Donna is weary of Scott because Scott is on the cruise with his oafish best friend, Lance (Guich Koock, who has a great name if nothing else).  When Lance tries to hit on Donna, Donna shoots him down.  When Scott apologizes to Donna, it leads to them dancing together and then later spending a day in Mexico.  Scott repeatedly says that their relationship cannot continue once the cruise is over.  Even after Scott spends the night in Donna’s cabin (which was kind of a rare occurrence on this show because The Love Boat was usually a surprisingly chaste show), Scott says that he can’t be with Donna.

Finally realizing that she’s still wearing her fake wedding ring, Donna tells Scott, “I’m not married!”

“But I am,” Scott replies.

DAMN!  When did The Love Boat get so dramatic?  When the ship returns to Los Angeles, Donna gives her wedding ring to Julie and announces that the next time she wears a ring, it’ll be because she’s married.

Wow, that was depressing.  Fortunately, the other two stories are a bit less serious.

For instance, Captain Stubing’s friend, Brad (Monte Markham), boards the boat with his wife, Monica (Sue Ane Langdon).  Monica soon starts to hit on Stubing, which leads to Stubing spending all of his time hiding on the bridge.  Doc Bricker, naturally, offers to sleep with Monica.  Fortunately, Stubing figures out that it’s all Brad’s fault and he tells Brad that he needs to spend more time with his wife.  Brad agrees and later learns that Monica just wanted to have an affair because she was insecure about turning 40.  But once Brad starts to pay attention to her again, Monica decides not to cheat on him.  Sorry, Doc!

Finally, in perhaps the silliest Love Boat storyline ever, Martin Fallow (Tom Smothers) is a science fiction fan who is convinced that his local librarian, Elinor Green (Helen Reddy), is an alien from the planet Romulac.  Martin explains to Gopher that Elinor turns into a plant at night and only eats other plants.  Elinor proceeds to eat a flower while Isaac, Gopher, and Martin watch.

Elinor later confesses to Isaac that she is not an alien but she’s been pretending to be one because she knows that Martin is obsessed with science fiction.  Okay, that makes …. well, that actually makes no sense whatsoever.  Elinor thought she could get Martin to love her by pretending to be a plant and …. actually, Martin does fall in love with her so I guess her plan worked.  This was such a weird story.  Fortunately, it was also a lot of fun.  With all the talk of adultery, it was good to have something that was just incredibly silly to serve as a counterbalance.

This was an enjoyable cruise.  Pamela Sue Martin and Barry Van Dyke had so much chemistry as the forbidden lovers that I really did feel bad that they couldn’t be together.  And the alien stuff was dumb but fun.  This was a cruise that truly had something for everyone.