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, season 4 comes to an end!

Episode 4.28 “Tony and Julie/Separate Beds/America’s Sweetheart”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on May 16th, 1981)

Wedding bells are in the air!

Carl Mitchell (William Christopher) boards the boat without his wife.  As he explains to Gopher and Isaac, he was married when he booked the cruise but now he’s not married because his wife was too much of a slob.  However, Carl is still determined to take his cruise and enjoy himself.  As soon as Carl goes off to find his cabin, his wife, Lynn (Toni Tennille), boards the ship and tells Gopher and Isaac that she just broke up with her neat freak husband but she’s determined to go ahead and take the cruise that they booked before their break-up.

Carl and Lynn are not happy to discover that they’re both on the cruise and that they’re sharing a cabin.  Carl wants to date a younger woman.  Lynn flirts with Doc Bricker.  Of course, Carl and Lynne are still in love with each other.  Lynn decides to win Carl back by cleaning up the cabin.  Carl decides to win back Lynn by messing the cabin up.  It’s like the most pointless story that O. Henry never wrote.  The important thing is that Carl and Lynn decide to give their marriage another chance.

(Personally, I couldn’t live with someone messy.  And Lynn really does just toss stuff all over the place.  I think they should get a divorce.)

While this is going on, Vicki is super-excited when her favorite actress, Becky Daniels (Alison Angrim), boards the boat.  But Becky is actually a spoiled brat and, when she hires Vicki to serve as her stand-in for a movie that’s being shot on the boat, she goes out of her way to make sure that Vicki is humiliated.  Vicki is briefly disillusioned with Hollywood, until Becky apologizes and she and Vicki become friends.  Okay, then.  Glad that worked out!

Meanwhile, Julie is late arriving at the boat because she’s been busy visiting her aunt (a glowering Nancy Kulp).  She even gets into an argument over a cab with Tony Selkirk (Anthony Andrews), a veterinarian.  Julie wins the argument and the cab but imagine her shock when Tony turns out to be a passenger on the boat!  She’s even more shocked when she sees Tony walking around with two chimpanzees.  Of course, as you’ve probably already guessed, Tony and Julie fall in love.  And Tony asks Julie to marry him.  And Julie says yes!

And that’s where season 4 ends.

Is this the end of Julie’s tenure as cruise director?  I guess we’ll find out next week.  As for this episode, it was pleasant-enough way to end the fourth season.  The stories did not particularly interest me but the Love Boat crew has become a strong enough ensemble that the show is no longer as dependent on its guest stars as it used to be.  This episode, I enjoyed watching the crew more than the passengers.  Seriously, I want to take a cruise now.

Next week, we start season 5!