soneill Review of The Love Boat

The Love Boat (1977–1987)

i want to watch "the love boat" in heaven

[10/10 · 9 September 2008]

"the love boat" was so predictable as to be a spoiler unto itself, but i checked that spoiler box just in case. how can one spoil that which is already rotted? but that's just what i love about "the love boat": the toupeed and face-lifted guest stars; the oddly effeminate captain stubing (ever notice that "Merrill Stubing"/"Murray Slaughter" parallel? one of my fantasies was to feature the wjm newsroom crew as passengers on the ship, years after Murray Slaughter got conked on the head on a second honeymoon on the pacific princess, got (what else?) amnesia, minced off in a daze and resurfaced as suddenly naval Merrill Stubing); Gopher, whom i am afraid i had a crush on—gleeps! then there was that walking pillar of saccharin, cruise director Julie McCoy, who luckily turned out to be a huge coke-head, which at least explained her unflagging perkiness. leave us not forget the luckless Isaac Washington, black bartender and romantic interest or platonic friend of each nonwhite guest star, be it Diahann Carroll or Scatman Crothers, Florida Friebus or Roosevelt Grier. and who could forget Doc (no matter how they tried), that Hippocratic lecher in aviator glasses? i used to love when he and Captain Stubing had one of their Adam-Merrill heart-to-hearts (as in "Adam, she fills my life with wonder"). and of course no-neck-monster Vicki, an apparent escapee from a community theater production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." then there was harbinger of doom Ted McGinley, a fellow whose addition to the cast of any show meant it was about to be canceled. i could talk about "the love boat" for hours, a sad commentary on the state of my mind.