The Love Boat is corn on the high seas, but the dynamic of Captain Stubing, Dr Bricker, Julie, Isaac and Gopher represents the marvellous heart of the show which is buttressed by a cavalcade of guest stars, from the icons of old Hollywood, to future stars (Tom Hanks!), so who cares! The Love Boat is a show in which Charo can suddenly appear and run riot on the Pacific Princess, and where icons of dance such as Ginger Rogers can perform ultra-camp 'modern' routines to the delight of the various crew and cruise guests. The Love Boat, then, is a delightful return to a marvellous TV age, a series in which a dance teaching couple announce their intention at the end of one episode to open a Disco School and so secure a bright financial future at the end of the 1970s (D'oh!), where the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders routinely take the cruise and do their cheerleading thing (sans footballers), and where most of the female passengers must don a regulation bikini and parade them on every deck. Indeed, where else could one see Leslie Nielsen playing it suave, or Sonny Bono portray a 'Satanic' Alice Cooper-style rock star? The Love Boat, that's where! So, watch and see a young Mark Harmon, Billy Crystal, Teri Hatcher, Shelley Long, Janet Jackson and Jackie Earle Haley mixing with veteran luminaries such as Ray Milland, Vincent Price, Phyllis Diller, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, John Mills, Anne Baxter, Don Ameche, Cesar Romero, José Ferrer, Gene Kelly, Stewart Granger, and Debbie Reynolds (to name but a few!) to engage in all kinds of romantic hijinks. Sure, Dr Adam Bricker would be in for it these days due to his lascivious ways with female passengers, but The Love Boat still stands as a marvellous portal back to a better vanished TV time. As such, I say long may Yeoman Purser Burl 'Gopher' Smith get into zany misadventures! Long may Isaac Washington point in a cool two-handed style at the screen! Long may passengers meet, fall in, fall out, then fall back in love and get married - all in the space of two days! And long may The Love Boat sail, if only in the reruns!
Review of The Love Boat
