Janice Rule played a fiery Cajun shrimp boat owner in the second ever episode, ""A Lance of Straw" Much of the action takes place out on the water. The ultimate theme of the episode is an anti-feminist one: that she needs to become less "mannish" and more of a woman to be a complete woman. Here, a year later, she's playing the jet set playgirl of a rich Boston family. It's a totally different role but there are some similarities.
The family owns a ship-building firm where the boys are working to build a yacht for her. Her father, (Murray Matheson, who will be back a few episodes later in a different role), is having the yacht built for her to coax her back from Europe. And it does, but only because he's killed in an accident at its launch, (instead of being crushed by the boat, a bunch of boards falls on him and falls into the water to drown). Our heroes, who are part of the building crew, pull him out of the water but it's too late.
So Janice comes back for the funeral. She contacts Tod and Buz to thank them for trying to save her father, even inviting them to a fancy dinner. She's more impressed with Tod, who knows all about wines while Buz is more of a beer guy. In fact she's so impressed she decides to marry Tod, who now has a chance to become rich again and resume his former, carefree life of leisure. There are some scenes with them in the yacht out on the placid water, (the water in "A Lance of Straw" was not so placid.)
Obviously, that's not in the cards, (the series has three years to go). The problem is that Tod has grown close to the workers in the shipyard and has big plans for it- he figures he'll be running it from now on, with Buz has a top employee. Buz wants no part of that and says he'd be glad to be the best man at the wedding but then he'll hit the road, (he calls a taxi for that purpose as the corvette belongs to Tod). He warns Tod about that ring Janice wants to put in his nose. Janice intends to make the decisions and she wants to sell the ship yard and take her new husband on a tour of Europe. She's not interested in making boats - or money. She just wants to spend it. That provides the break-up and the boys are soon back in the corvette, driving down the road to their next adventure ,(the best one they ever had).
On irony is that there were plans for a fifth season when the show got canceled. And that fifth season would have taken place in Europe.
This episode has some good lines, as when Janice's grandmother says ""I'm not unhappy- just sad.", Buz telling Tod, "You can't play a duet with a virtuoso", and Tod telling Buz at the end: When I burn a bridge, even the river disappears" and that he'll discuss it "maybe some other time in some other town." There would be many other towns before this show was done.
The family owns a ship-building firm where the boys are working to build a yacht for her. Her father, (Murray Matheson, who will be back a few episodes later in a different role), is having the yacht built for her to coax her back from Europe. And it does, but only because he's killed in an accident at its launch, (instead of being crushed by the boat, a bunch of boards falls on him and falls into the water to drown). Our heroes, who are part of the building crew, pull him out of the water but it's too late.
So Janice comes back for the funeral. She contacts Tod and Buz to thank them for trying to save her father, even inviting them to a fancy dinner. She's more impressed with Tod, who knows all about wines while Buz is more of a beer guy. In fact she's so impressed she decides to marry Tod, who now has a chance to become rich again and resume his former, carefree life of leisure. There are some scenes with them in the yacht out on the placid water, (the water in "A Lance of Straw" was not so placid.)
Obviously, that's not in the cards, (the series has three years to go). The problem is that Tod has grown close to the workers in the shipyard and has big plans for it- he figures he'll be running it from now on, with Buz has a top employee. Buz wants no part of that and says he'd be glad to be the best man at the wedding but then he'll hit the road, (he calls a taxi for that purpose as the corvette belongs to Tod). He warns Tod about that ring Janice wants to put in his nose. Janice intends to make the decisions and she wants to sell the ship yard and take her new husband on a tour of Europe. She's not interested in making boats - or money. She just wants to spend it. That provides the break-up and the boys are soon back in the corvette, driving down the road to their next adventure ,(the best one they ever had).
On irony is that there were plans for a fifth season when the show got canceled. And that fifth season would have taken place in Europe.
This episode has some good lines, as when Janice's grandmother says ""I'm not unhappy- just sad.", Buz telling Tod, "You can't play a duet with a virtuoso", and Tod telling Buz at the end: When I burn a bridge, even the river disappears" and that he'll discuss it "maybe some other time in some other town." There would be many other towns before this show was done.