The Love Boat (TV Series) Ex Plus Y/Golden Agers/Graham and Kelly (1977) User Reviews

Swit and Reed and Baio and Kristy

[WalterKafka · 6 February 2024]

We're rolling now. Some of the actors and actresses here I'm less familar with. Pamela Bellwood was in Airport '77. Still, you have Scott Baio and Kristy McNichol, as well as Soap's Richard Mulligan. Loretta Swit is his wife. Oh yeah and Robert Reed is here too. Nice blue jacket, Rob. The show really did hit all age groups, and occasionally they brought on some kids. James Karen plays McNichol's dad. The interest in appealing to old people seems unthinkable in today's environment, so it's nice. Of course, it allowed the show to bring in older veterans who didn't otherwise have a place. Hermione Baddeley was in Mary Poppins. I like the onboard skeet shooting. 'I'm not hostile!' Swit cries, as if she were in a Woody Allen movie. Check out Swit's purple swim suit. Hubba hubba. For the third time, we get some location footage of a real cruise ship. I'm telling you: don't get used to it. Julie goes for a dip in the pool, and I don't think that ever happened again. Bratty Baio corrects Doc on his bridge facts. The kid is trying to impress Kristy McNichol. I don't think it'll work. Sometimes one guest came on the cruise to encounter someone on purpose. Other times, they meet accidentally. Check out at the scene at the elevator where Reed tells off Swit. You tell me you don't see it. Oh you see it. Swit is reading 'The Executive.' Sounds like Harold Robbins. Does anyone remember Harold Robbins? The Love Boat is a great image of a vanished upper middle class. This America no longer exists (if it ever did.) Director Alan Rafkin was a veteran of TV shows. As I write this on a Monday night, my son, Little K, is running up and down the hall. He doesn't know anything 'bout Love Boat yet. Someday. On Kafka's Love Boat Scale, this episode gets 3 * out of a possible 4 *.

Romance blossoms on the high seas...so who brought the laugh-track?

[moonspinner55 · 4/10 · 14 September 2014]

"The Love Boat" was one of those less-said-the-better TV shows from the 1970s; a breeding ground for both over-the-hill celebrities and TV newcomers, it represents the nadir of the Aaron Spelling era, full of pixie-cute retorts both on the Pacific Princess and off (courtesy the 20th Century-Fox studios on Pico Blvd., not quite the ritzy port a vacation-starved viewer might hope for). After two made-for-TV movies that served as pilots, "The Love Boat" was quickly turned into an hour-long weekly series that gave work to many currently-unemployed actors and new faces (and Spelling staples such as Kristy McNichol, who had just appeared in pilot #2, as well as nearly every other Aaron Spelling show then in production). The guest cast for this episode is mostly underwhelming: McNichol is so natural in front of the camera (naturally 'ordinary') that she runs the risk of fading into the background; she hadn't yet developed a personality to play off of, and it's easy to forget she's even around (plus, she's saddled with Scott Baio as her pubescent amour). Robert Reed and Loretta Swit don't embarrass themselves as bickering ex-marrieds who end up on the same cruise with their new sweethearts, and Swit gets to do a few seconds of real acting near the finish, but the sniggering laugh track throws all credibility right out the porthole--this and the fact the main players (Gavin MacLeod as the captain, Lauren Tewes as the twinkling cruise director, et al.) never get a chance to create honest characterizations (they pop up like human punchlines). TV-junkies, interested in seeing stars from different shows interacting for the first time (the "Brady Bunch" dad having a quickie with 'Hot Lips' from "MASH"), may find this appealing--the show can provide a quick, nostalgic pick-me-up on a dull afternoon--but the forced gaiety is often gruesome.