Despite this show being one of my favorites as a kid, I actually didn't watch every single episode because as with most shows, once they get to the later seasons, they tend to lose steam. The first five seasons were very entertaining, but by the second half of the show, I was probably a bit bored with the format. Also, I recall that by the latter half of the series, I was mostly hooked only on their special 2-hour episodes, of which they actually did many in the last five seasons. Scanning through the season and episode titles on this site, I realize that I probably watched virtually every episode through the first five seasons and for the last five, only sporadically would watch when they'd have a 2-hour episode, again, there were quite a few of them by that point. I became mostly intrigued with whatever exotic locale they would travel to like Greece, Japan, the Carribean, Australia, Hong Kong, etc. However, I actually DO recall randomly seeing the very ending of this episode with Julie saying goodbye to her friends and going back to her husband as she was only a guest star in this episode. Lauren Tewes had left the show by the end of Season 7 and to my knowledge, this Season 9 episode was her first re-appearance back on the show after the the Season 7 finale. In Seasons 8 and 9, her sister Judy took her place as the ship's cruise director while Julie had got married to some Hollywood filmmaker that appeared in the 2-part Season 7 finale, a musical heavy episode, which is probably why I skipped it.
Re-visiting the series and watching this episode in full for the first time reminded me that one of my personal very early romantic "ships" was actually Gopher and Julie from The Love Boat. The show had actually teased a romance for the duo in the Season 4 premiere episode (one that I actually did watch back in the day), which featured the then newcomer and future megastar Tom Hanks (when he was doing mostly TV stuff) as Gopher's obnoxious college frat "buddy" who was ironically the instigator for Gopher and Julie's mutual romantic feelings surfacing. While they were faking being in a relationship to make Hanks' character jealous and envious of Gopher's "success" with women, Gopher and Julie got caught up in the moment of a fake kiss which turned into a real one. The rest of the episode spent time with the duo wondering what it all meant. They decided to just remain friends and, again to my knowledge, the show never addressed their feelings again...until this episode!
A huge advantage that Gopher (played by the scene-stealing Fred Grandy) had over Julie's many guest starring suitors throughout the series was that he was a regular character, so we got to see their friendship and chemistry blossom over the seasons. To my re-collection, Julie and Gopher were the closest duo among the main characters who were paired off the most, or at least Julie had more scenes with Gopher than any other character. Plus, Julie's dynamic with the other male characters felt platonic. With Captain Stubing, he was like a father to her. With Isaac, he was like a younger brother. With Doc, he was like an older brother or uncle. And yeah, I am fully aware of that nonsense Doc-Julie pairing on the New Love Boat series from the 90s but choose to completely ignore it! But with Gopher, along with the friendship, there was always an underlying chemistry that I'm glad that the writers decided to explore. It didn't feel out of left field or ridiculous and this episode just confirms my belief that Gopher and Julie should have ended up together.
In this episode, Julie is actually on the cruise as a passenger while her husband is off shooting a film overseas. After having her requisite reunions with the crew Gopher, Stubing, Doc, Vicki, Isaac, and her sister Judy, it soon becomes apparent to Gopher that something is off about Julie as she acts overly happy and oblivious to her surroundings. Turns out Julie's marriage is in trouble as her hubby spends most of his time away making movies and she's bored and lonely at home, so she takes the cruise to try to escape her marital troubles. During her time on the ship, Julie starts to confide to Gopher and they spend a lot of time together, get closer, and reveal that they love each other, so she decides to end her marriage to be with Gopher. Having seen this episode for the first time in full, I was pleasantly reminded how much natural chemistry that Grandy and Tewes had with each other. It's effortlessness that barely exists on TV shows anymore and almost everything about modern TV feels so forced, phony, and fast-paced. This episode is the culmination of 2 established characters and a well-written long-running relationship that was built on screen over seasons. When they professed their feelings, it was one of those rare moments of clarity for me where it just felt like the right thing and that Gopher-Julie should have been endgame. Of course things didn't work out as this was just a 1-episode appearance for Tewes, but she did return in the shortened final Season 10, but alas, Grandy himself left the show at the end of Season 9 to pursue a political career, so there was never a proper conclusion to this very promising romance. My personal fanfiction is that Gopher and Julie not only stayed together in this episode, but Julie returned to the ship immediately instead of waiting until Season 10 and we get episodes seeing Gopher and Julie as a couple, then they marry in the Season 9 finale and walk off into the sunset together. One of the biggest "what could have beens?" in TV history, in my opinion. Also as an aside, the costume designer should be commended for all the fabulous outfits that Tewes sported this episode. She looked fantastic.
Of course this episode also featured several familiar faces and celebrities. Teri Hatcher (eventually of Lois&Clark and Desperate Housewives fame) in one her earliest TV appearances plays one of the Love Boat dancers, a gimmick that was introduced in the later seasons, and her character is actually a fugitive on the lam from a robbery that she was inadvertently part of in Las Vegas. Richard Hatch (who starred as Apollo from the 70s series Battlestar Galactica) plays an off duty Vegas cop who is a passenger on the cruise who falls for Hatcher and tries to help her out of trouble. David Wayne (veteran actor and the original Willard Barnes from Dallas) plays the ship's maintenance man and Pamela Brull (who was a guest on a Three's Company episode) plays the ship's beautician, both of whom the ship's photographer Ace has to fire if he wants a promotion in the form of the job of being Gopher's assistant. There's actually a cool connecting thread for Gopher and Ace's respective subplots that they ponder if they are doing the right thing breaking up a marriage (Gopher's dilemma) and firing their co-workers just to get ahead (Ace's dilemma). Overall, this was a very entertaining episode with the main hook for me being the all-too-brief Gopher-Julie romance.
Re-visiting the series and watching this episode in full for the first time reminded me that one of my personal very early romantic "ships" was actually Gopher and Julie from The Love Boat. The show had actually teased a romance for the duo in the Season 4 premiere episode (one that I actually did watch back in the day), which featured the then newcomer and future megastar Tom Hanks (when he was doing mostly TV stuff) as Gopher's obnoxious college frat "buddy" who was ironically the instigator for Gopher and Julie's mutual romantic feelings surfacing. While they were faking being in a relationship to make Hanks' character jealous and envious of Gopher's "success" with women, Gopher and Julie got caught up in the moment of a fake kiss which turned into a real one. The rest of the episode spent time with the duo wondering what it all meant. They decided to just remain friends and, again to my knowledge, the show never addressed their feelings again...until this episode!
A huge advantage that Gopher (played by the scene-stealing Fred Grandy) had over Julie's many guest starring suitors throughout the series was that he was a regular character, so we got to see their friendship and chemistry blossom over the seasons. To my re-collection, Julie and Gopher were the closest duo among the main characters who were paired off the most, or at least Julie had more scenes with Gopher than any other character. Plus, Julie's dynamic with the other male characters felt platonic. With Captain Stubing, he was like a father to her. With Isaac, he was like a younger brother. With Doc, he was like an older brother or uncle. And yeah, I am fully aware of that nonsense Doc-Julie pairing on the New Love Boat series from the 90s but choose to completely ignore it! But with Gopher, along with the friendship, there was always an underlying chemistry that I'm glad that the writers decided to explore. It didn't feel out of left field or ridiculous and this episode just confirms my belief that Gopher and Julie should have ended up together.
In this episode, Julie is actually on the cruise as a passenger while her husband is off shooting a film overseas. After having her requisite reunions with the crew Gopher, Stubing, Doc, Vicki, Isaac, and her sister Judy, it soon becomes apparent to Gopher that something is off about Julie as she acts overly happy and oblivious to her surroundings. Turns out Julie's marriage is in trouble as her hubby spends most of his time away making movies and she's bored and lonely at home, so she takes the cruise to try to escape her marital troubles. During her time on the ship, Julie starts to confide to Gopher and they spend a lot of time together, get closer, and reveal that they love each other, so she decides to end her marriage to be with Gopher. Having seen this episode for the first time in full, I was pleasantly reminded how much natural chemistry that Grandy and Tewes had with each other. It's effortlessness that barely exists on TV shows anymore and almost everything about modern TV feels so forced, phony, and fast-paced. This episode is the culmination of 2 established characters and a well-written long-running relationship that was built on screen over seasons. When they professed their feelings, it was one of those rare moments of clarity for me where it just felt like the right thing and that Gopher-Julie should have been endgame. Of course things didn't work out as this was just a 1-episode appearance for Tewes, but she did return in the shortened final Season 10, but alas, Grandy himself left the show at the end of Season 9 to pursue a political career, so there was never a proper conclusion to this very promising romance. My personal fanfiction is that Gopher and Julie not only stayed together in this episode, but Julie returned to the ship immediately instead of waiting until Season 10 and we get episodes seeing Gopher and Julie as a couple, then they marry in the Season 9 finale and walk off into the sunset together. One of the biggest "what could have beens?" in TV history, in my opinion. Also as an aside, the costume designer should be commended for all the fabulous outfits that Tewes sported this episode. She looked fantastic.
Of course this episode also featured several familiar faces and celebrities. Teri Hatcher (eventually of Lois&Clark and Desperate Housewives fame) in one her earliest TV appearances plays one of the Love Boat dancers, a gimmick that was introduced in the later seasons, and her character is actually a fugitive on the lam from a robbery that she was inadvertently part of in Las Vegas. Richard Hatch (who starred as Apollo from the 70s series Battlestar Galactica) plays an off duty Vegas cop who is a passenger on the cruise who falls for Hatcher and tries to help her out of trouble. David Wayne (veteran actor and the original Willard Barnes from Dallas) plays the ship's maintenance man and Pamela Brull (who was a guest on a Three's Company episode) plays the ship's beautician, both of whom the ship's photographer Ace has to fire if he wants a promotion in the form of the job of being Gopher's assistant. There's actually a cool connecting thread for Gopher and Ace's respective subplots that they ponder if they are doing the right thing breaking up a marriage (Gopher's dilemma) and firing their co-workers just to get ahead (Ace's dilemma). Overall, this was a very entertaining episode with the main hook for me being the all-too-brief Gopher-Julie romance.
