I'm up early on a Monday morning with more The Love Boat. We're almost done with the first season. This is a very consistent show. For me, it often comes down to the pop culture novelty of the cast. We had Frankie a couple episodes ago. Well, here's Annette Funicello! Her hair is still huge even after so many years. Gopher immediately hits on her. She's not having it. Actually, she's mourning her husband. Can she find a new romance? She meets a man who enjoys Agatha Christie. I call that a catch. Meanwhile, Doc and Captain Stubing hit up with Jessica Walter. She's an old friend of the Captain. 'Whatever happened to String Bean Stubing?' she asks. The Captain wants her back, but he's worried about the effects of time. Caren Kaye would go on to star in My Tutor. She plays a prostitute looking to go straight. She runs immediately into Chris George. (You missed Lynda, Chris, by a few episodes.) We have a Dick Van Dyke reunion, with Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie. Meanwhile, Jack Carter and Jayne Meadows are your quarreling couple. He's giving his wife grief about her age. Then he recognizes the ex-prostitute. Captain Stubing gets some nice moments. The frustration of his love life boils over onto his crew. He berates Isaac for using too much cherries. He berates Julie for too many sleeping passengers. But Gopher has an idea. What could go wrong? The band plays a nice version of 'The Way We Were.' This feels like a more or less standard episode. On Kafka's Love Boat Scale, this gets 2 1/2 * out of a possible 4 *.
The Love Boat (TV Series)
The Business of Love/Crash Diet Crisis/I'll Never Fall in Love Again (1978)
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A grief cruise chock full of dead celebs
aramis-112-80488029 March 2023
Highlight: Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie from "The Dick Van Dyke Show" play a couple always joshing around.
Caren Kaye is a former prostitute trying to hide her former (oldest) profession from possible new love (Christopher George) in the light of threats from an old client (Jack Carter).
In an uber-serious turn, Annette Funicello doffs her beach bikini (metaphorically speaking) to play (what else?) an economist taking a cruise to cope with a grief, who meets a man (Michael Callan) trying to overcome a grief himself. Misery loves company.
Over and above it all, the Captain is desperate to lose weight to attract a girl from his high school days (Jessica Walter) by a crash diet that has him barking at his crew. To placate him the crew comes up with a brilliant idea that might just get them all fired.
All? The crew always seems to consist of four people for such a big ship. This includes a bartender. Gopher is the assistant purser but has anyone ever seen the Purser? The captain always comes directly to Gopher; shouldn't he go through channels (i.e., the real Purser?)
Who cares? The idea that any life-changing decisions (especially love but others included) can be dealt with in rhe time it takes to cruise down the Mexican Riviera is silly, anyway.
I can see why, the further we get from the show's point of origin, younger people are disenchanted with it. Nothing is served up colder than yesterday's TV stars. Young people build up cults to new, even more vapid celebrities than we had when the "Love Boat" started (I was 16). They don't know Annette Funicello or Christopher George. When I was a boy I watched beach movies and my brother watched "The Rat Patrol." Kids these days were deprived of these pleasures. Or are they?
Caren Kaye is a former prostitute trying to hide her former (oldest) profession from possible new love (Christopher George) in the light of threats from an old client (Jack Carter).
In an uber-serious turn, Annette Funicello doffs her beach bikini (metaphorically speaking) to play (what else?) an economist taking a cruise to cope with a grief, who meets a man (Michael Callan) trying to overcome a grief himself. Misery loves company.
Over and above it all, the Captain is desperate to lose weight to attract a girl from his high school days (Jessica Walter) by a crash diet that has him barking at his crew. To placate him the crew comes up with a brilliant idea that might just get them all fired.
All? The crew always seems to consist of four people for such a big ship. This includes a bartender. Gopher is the assistant purser but has anyone ever seen the Purser? The captain always comes directly to Gopher; shouldn't he go through channels (i.e., the real Purser?)
Who cares? The idea that any life-changing decisions (especially love but others included) can be dealt with in rhe time it takes to cruise down the Mexican Riviera is silly, anyway.
I can see why, the further we get from the show's point of origin, younger people are disenchanted with it. Nothing is served up colder than yesterday's TV stars. Young people build up cults to new, even more vapid celebrities than we had when the "Love Boat" started (I was 16). They don't know Annette Funicello or Christopher George. When I was a boy I watched beach movies and my brother watched "The Rat Patrol." Kids these days were deprived of these pleasures. Or are they?
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