I love a good quest episode. This one almost is.
The worst thing about it is that it's one of those real, live cruise episodes. After seeing the Love Boat so often in its studio-set incarnation, where conditions can be perfect, where rooms are . . . Well, roomy, and the extras are all beautifully body-sculpted twenty-somethings (though, times being what they were, the guys were always a bit too hairy by today's standards) . . .
Well, the real cruise ship looks more cramped and the real-people extras are mostly middle-aged and few of them look like they'd make the cover of Cosmo. At the time I was the same age as those set-bound women who fleshed out their bikinis so superbly and I wondered where such perfection existed. Only in Hollywood, and our Love Boat should have confined itself to those waters.
And, of course, in the genuine cruises our heroes trot out facts about where they are with all the subtlety of the film strips we watched in grade school.
The guest stars carry the episode. Leader of the quest is uber-mysterious Pernell Roberts, "Bonanza" escapee who never found his niche after leaving the Ponderosa.
Roberts may hold the record for assembling the most ragtag gang ever. All stars at the time, though some have dimmed with time. First, there's eternal sexpot Connie Stevens, who for a long time seemed to be guzzling Dick Clark's anti-aging formula. "Mission: Impossible" strong man Peter Lupus, he of the name that sounds like an embarrassing disease, is along for the ride as her main squeeze. Jimmy Walker, "Good Times" breakout star whose body appears to be made of pipe cleaners, is used to good effect; while comic Skip Stephenson, co-host of that once popular, now nearly forgotten program "Real People," acts like he's doing his role for extra credit.
Along the line they run into the likes of Sorrel Brooke and Walter Slezak. Roberts' wife is played by Gayle Hunnicutt, whose acting roles stretch from Irene Adler in Jeremy Brett's marvelous Sherlock Holmes series, to "The Beverly Hillbillies."
What they're searching for . . . But I won't spoil it.
In other story-lines, "Battlestar Galactica" lovely Maren Jensen uber-mysteriously stalks another passenger, though for a good reason.
Finally, Julie (Lauren Tewes) finds herself in an unwanted romantic triangle. This story-line has a tacked on feeling without the mysteriousness of the other episodes. But all the regulars must be included to justify their passage.
The quest yarn is the best, though as a 19-year-old in 1980 I wish Maren Jensen had been stalking me!
The worst thing about it is that it's one of those real, live cruise episodes. After seeing the Love Boat so often in its studio-set incarnation, where conditions can be perfect, where rooms are . . . Well, roomy, and the extras are all beautifully body-sculpted twenty-somethings (though, times being what they were, the guys were always a bit too hairy by today's standards) . . .
Well, the real cruise ship looks more cramped and the real-people extras are mostly middle-aged and few of them look like they'd make the cover of Cosmo. At the time I was the same age as those set-bound women who fleshed out their bikinis so superbly and I wondered where such perfection existed. Only in Hollywood, and our Love Boat should have confined itself to those waters.
And, of course, in the genuine cruises our heroes trot out facts about where they are with all the subtlety of the film strips we watched in grade school.
The guest stars carry the episode. Leader of the quest is uber-mysterious Pernell Roberts, "Bonanza" escapee who never found his niche after leaving the Ponderosa.
Roberts may hold the record for assembling the most ragtag gang ever. All stars at the time, though some have dimmed with time. First, there's eternal sexpot Connie Stevens, who for a long time seemed to be guzzling Dick Clark's anti-aging formula. "Mission: Impossible" strong man Peter Lupus, he of the name that sounds like an embarrassing disease, is along for the ride as her main squeeze. Jimmy Walker, "Good Times" breakout star whose body appears to be made of pipe cleaners, is used to good effect; while comic Skip Stephenson, co-host of that once popular, now nearly forgotten program "Real People," acts like he's doing his role for extra credit.
Along the line they run into the likes of Sorrel Brooke and Walter Slezak. Roberts' wife is played by Gayle Hunnicutt, whose acting roles stretch from Irene Adler in Jeremy Brett's marvelous Sherlock Holmes series, to "The Beverly Hillbillies."
What they're searching for . . . But I won't spoil it.
In other story-lines, "Battlestar Galactica" lovely Maren Jensen uber-mysteriously stalks another passenger, though for a good reason.
Finally, Julie (Lauren Tewes) finds herself in an unwanted romantic triangle. This story-line has a tacked on feeling without the mysteriousness of the other episodes. But all the regulars must be included to justify their passage.
The quest yarn is the best, though as a 19-year-old in 1980 I wish Maren Jensen had been stalking me!
