"Fantasy Island" The Kleptomaniac/Thank God, I'm a Country Girl (TV Episode 1982) Poster

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7/10
Entertaining enough, in both stories, but nothing outstanding.
imdb-2528815 May 2023
I wasn't watching the time waiting for it to end, it was fast paced enough in that sense, but it also wasn't anything remarkable; however, this was a lot better than most F. I. episodes yet to come. The Black guy's story was entertaining enough (recognized him from a previous episode) and the lady picked for his love interest was better than the previous one. This one was the more amusing story, although I can' t pick a better one. The other had the familiar faces of Heather Locklear and the annoying husband from Married With Children (whom I've always confused with Face in the A Team!)

Loretta Lynn's bad acting was as distracting as her terrible makeup, and that's why this story fell a bit flat for me. She wasn't very convincing. And who was the makeup girl this time? Not listed, but I was really bothered by the bad makeup here: it started when I noticed that Mr. Roarke seemed to be painted a bit too dark for his guest greeting intro. Loretta's makeup was a ghastly clash of colors: in some closeups, she reminded me of a geisha: her face was painted overly white; the purple of her eyelids clashed horribly with the red of her cheeks which itself clashed with her lipstick. Her dark hair color didn't suit her face and when the show was over, I realized she reminded me of a brunette impersonator of Dolly Parton! I'm not sure which of the 2 women came to the Nashville scene first, but her voice, her accent, her singing was pure Dolly Parton!

Now, I have to add that I found her to be a terrible country singer. I can hardly believe this woman was famous for that, let alone that she was the sister of gorgeous AND talented country singer Crystal Gayle. Thankfully, Lynn only sang twice, but she was breaking my ears. That's the "downlight" (low light?) of this show! Because of this, I didn't feel pulled from one story and annoyed when the other resumed. It flowed pretty well.

Mr. Roarke didn't do too much here, but I did notice his limp quite a bit, as he approached the camera, I think when he was dressed as the butler. (Why did they give him gray gloves? Was Grady Hunt not doing costumers here? I noticed the dresses were completely unremarkable. The only "noteworthy" costume was white fringes added to Tattoo's usual white jacket.

The mother/daughter story didn't pack too much of a punch: at the end, we don't have the satisfaction of seeing the parents be put in place, neither by the adoptive daughter (Locklear) for the mail thing, nor eat crow for what they intended to do to Loretta. We also don't see "Face" take a hike. I could have done minus the singing and with the denouement more fleshed out here.

The kleptomaniac didn't get cured, so he wasted his money, but the running around was pretty fun, so that was probably the better story for me, if I had to pick one. But poor Roxie!!! Whoever did her makeup also messed up big time. (Few Whites know how to do make up for Blacks and, even today, they don't have the right colors available for their complexion. (I mean dark red on her cheeks?! Nuff said!)

Nita Talbot was totally wasted, and I was surprised she would take such a meager part. I thought the writers also missed a good thing: less singing and writing a bit of comedy for the 3 amigos (I'm talking of the fake staff for Loretta), to put the parents in place and perhaps to drop food on their lap, would have been fun. Instead, they were like extras: introduced and then relinquished to background players. Oh well!

Mr. Roarke did have a bit to do here, and did a bit of speeches on love, just enough to keep the balance where it should be, but not enough to make it one outstanding episode. All in all, it's entertaining enough and the flaws will be easily overlooked by the hard core fans of both the singer and the show. Not bad. A generous 7/10 for what it is: a rather fun way to spend almost an hour.
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5/10
Typical late season episode
VetteRanger28 May 2023
By the last half of the Fantasy Island series, the directors and film editors got purely lazy about ANY attempt to create a consistent interface between the two episodes.

In the third act of this episode, Roarke attends a cocktail party for an employee (Loretta Lynn) whose fantasy is to make the daughter she gave up for adoption think she's a wealthy lady. She's actually a waitress in an island restaurant. The party is spoken of several times as occurring "tomorrow evening" and the next day "this evening".

While Roarke is at the party, the episode switches to a circa noon-time scene outdoors, then back to the party being held in the evening.

A female courier falls in love with Sherman Helmsley, who stole her purse with a $50K necklace inside, because he can recognize the next thieves by their shoes? Let's not even get into why the necklace would be in her purse as she sat poolside in a swimsuit. LOL

Loretta Lynn ... a major star and it was great to see her. But in the penultimate scene of her episode, they have her covering "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" (girl for her) in such an up-tempo arrangement she could hardly keep up with the music. I'm guessing they had to fit the song into a certain number of minutes for the editing room. Then at the end she appears on a BUS, saying "Nashville or Bust", leaving Fantasy Island.

Yeah, I think she mentioned a steamer, but if you're going to prepare a tour bus, are you really going to start it out on an island, or just MAYBE ... wait till you get to the mainland, THEN get the bus. LOL

Lots of dumb, lazy writing here.
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