The Dean and the Flunkee”

Posted on September 24, 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!

This week, we have a special two-hour episode!

Episodes 6.18 and 6.19 “Isaac’s Aegean Affair/The Captain and The Kid/Poor Rich Man/ The Dean and the Flunkee”

(Dir by Alan Rafkin, originally aired on February 5th, 1983)

The Love Boat is going to Greece!

This is another one of those two-hour Love Boat episodes. The crew is assigned to work a Greek cruise. Love and sight-seeing follow. Isaac, for instance, falls in love with a passenger named Reesa (Debbie Allen) and even resigns from the crew so that he can spend the rest of his life in Greece with her. Unfortunately, Isaac forgets to ask Reesa ahead of time and, when Isaac returns to Reesa’s Greek flat, he discovers that she had reconciled with her husband (James A. Watson, Jr.). It’s back to the Love Boat for Isaac!

Meanwhile, the graduating class of Captain Stubing’s old college is holding their graduation ceremony at the ruins of a Greek temple. The class valedictorian (Jameson Parker) give a speech in which he shows appreciation to his Greek aunt (Eva Marie Saint), even though he’s discovered that she’s not as a wealthy as he originally assumed she was. The Dean (Eddie Albert) is finally convinced to give a makeup exam to a student (Leigh McCloskey) who missed his history final. A teacher (Shirley Jones) finally agrees to marry the dean. And Vicki briefly falls in love with a 16 year-old prodigy (Jimmy McNichol) and she gets engaged to him for about an hour or two. Captain Stubing wonders how Vicki would be able to continue her education if she got married. I’m wondering how she’s continuing her education while living and working on a cruise ship.

There was a lot going on in this episode but the true star of the show was the Greek scenery. This episode was filmed on location and, as such, it’s basically a travelogue. Fortunately, Greece looks beautiful! Seriously, the 2-hour, on-location episodes of The Love Boat must have been a blast to shoot.

This week? This week was probably a 10 out of 10 on the How Coked Up Was Julie Scale but hey, she was in Greece. She had every right to live a little.

Now, I want to take a cruise!

Retro Television Review: Fantasy Island 6.2 “Dancing Lady/The Final Round”

Posted on January 21, 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 Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984. Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites. Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

This week, Fantasy Island feels familiar.

Episode 6.2 “Dancing Lady/The Final Round”

(Dir by Cliff Bole, originally aired on October 23rd, 1982)

It’s another dancing and boxing episode!

I have lost track of how many Fantasy Island stories have centered around either dancing or boxing but I know that they’ve been the subject of multiple episodes every season. The fantasies always seem to play out the same as well. A young boxer has a shot at the championship but taking one wrong blow could end their career or even their life. And a woman with a boring job — usually, she’s a receptionist — wants to be the world’s greatest dancer but, in the end, discovers that love is the most important thing. Usually, the familiarity of the stories is a part of Fantasy Island‘s charm but I have to admit that I spent this entire episode wondering if I had seen it before. The fantasies felt so familiar that, ultimately, everyone just seemed to be going through the motions.

The dancer was Kristy Lee (Lynda Goodfriend), who was given a special powder that would give her the ability to be the world’s greatest dancer. I know what you’re thinking and no, it was not cocaine. Instead, it was dust that had been gathered from the world’s greatest theaters and which had magical powers only when used on Fantasy Island. Using the dust, Kristy auditioned for a spot in a musical showcase starring Ray Tucker (Ken Berry), a down-on-his-luck dancer looking to make a comeback. Unfortunately, Kristy was so good that Ray feared she would overshadow him. Ray had to find his confidence and Kristy had to learn that she could dance beautifully even without the magic dust because, according to Roarke, the power of love is all one needs. (That laughter you hear is coming from every dance teacher I’ve ever had.) The highlight of this fantasy was Ray Bolger, playing a Broadway producer who happened to be an old friend of Roarke’s. Bolger and Ricardo Montalban, two old show business pros, seemed to really enjoy working together. As well, Bolger’s producer had a nice scene where he and Tattoo spoke in French to each other. It was a fun little moment and, if nothing else, it indicated that both Roarke and Tattoo have lives outside of greeting people on Fantasy Island.

The boxing story featured Al Molinaro as Max, a trainer who wanted to train someone for an exhibition match against the world champion. Max got his chance to train the enthusiastic Tommy Rudolph (William R. Moses) but, when Max’s ex-girlfriend (Rue McClanahan) warned him that one more concussion could possibly kill Tommy, Max had to make a decision. Would he push Tommy to keep fighting or would he thrown in the towel after Tommy took a few shots to the head? Max, of course, did the right thing.

As I said, it was all pretty predictable and familiar. At least Tattoo got to have some fun. Along with speaking French, he also got to put on a bookie outfit and then take bets on the outcome of the fight. When Roarke told Tattoo to cancel all the bets, Tattoo replied that being a bookie was his fantasy!

Hey, it made me laugh,

A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case Of The Wicked Wives (1993, directed by Christian Nyby II)

Posted on August 6, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Famed fashion photographer David Morrison (Eric Braeden) has fallen on hard times but things are looking up. The American Museum of Art wants to do a retrospective of his work. He just has to get the permission of his current wife, Dee (Kathy Ireland), and his four ex-wives (Shelley Hack, Kim Alexis, Maud Adams, and Beverly Johnson). All of them are super models who owe their careers to David but four of them hate his guts and Dee isn’t happy when she sees evidence that he has been cheating on her. When David turns up dead, Dee is arrested. She claims that she’s innocent but the prosecution is sure that they have an airtight case.

This sounds like a case for Perry Mason!

However, Perry’s out of town so it falls to Perry’s never previously mentioned best friend, Tony Caruso (Paul Sorvino), to solve The Case of the Wicked Wives! With the help of Perry’s tireless associates, Della Street (Barbara Hale) and Ken Malansky (William R. Moses), Caruso works to solve the case and prove the Dee is innocent. He also prepares many pasta dinners and frequently sings.

So, where was Perry? As everyone knows, Raymond Burr played Perry Mason for 9 seasons in the 50s and the 60s. 20 years after the show aired its final episode, Burr returned to the role in a series of highly rated, made for television movies. Unfortunately, Burr died in 1993 with several movies left to be filmed. In his will, Burr specifically requested that production on the remaining films continue so that the cast and crew wouldn’t lose their jobs. Since the role of Mason obviously could not be recast that soon after Burrs’s death, it was decided that the remaining movies would feature guest lawyers. Enter Paul Sorvino.

The Case of the Wicked Wives was the first Perry Mason film to be made after Burr’s death. As his replacement, Tony Caruso has much in common with Mason, including the ability to make the guilty confess in open court. Unlike Mason, Caruso is also obsessed with cooking elaborate spaghetti dinners and singing operatic arias. This movie came out just a year after Sorvino left Law & Order to specifically pursue his opera career. Sorvino sings a lot in The Case of the Wicked Wives, sometimes in court. Unfortunately, a love of singing and pasta are the only two personality traits that are really given to Caruso. Through no fault of Paul Sorvino’s, Caruso is never as compelling a character as the coolly calculating Mason. Mason could trick anyone into confessing through perfectly asked questions. Caruso is more into courtroom stunts that would get most lawyer disbarred.

Because the mystery itself is a dud, the main reason to watch The Case of the Wicked Wives is for the wives. Who wouldn’t want to keep Kathy Ireland from being wrongly convicted? All of the wives get at least one big moment to shine and tear up the scenery. You’ll guess who the murderer is long before anyone else in court.