The Love Boat, an anthology series about the adventures of the passengers and crew aboard a luxury liner on a cruise from California to Mexico was based on a 1976 and 1977 television movies of the same name, which in turn was based on a novel by Jeraldine Saunders titled The Love Boats. Her book was taken from her experiences serving as a hostess aboard a cruise ship.
When The Love Boat appeared as a series in the fall of 1977, the cast was very different from what had been seen in the two pilot films. Gavin MacLeod, fresh of seven seasons as Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show plays the ships Captain, Merrill Stubing, Fred Grandy plays the ships goofball Yeoman-Purser, Burl ‘Gopher’ Smith, Ted Lange plays the suave bartender Isaac Washington, Bernie Kopel is the skirt chasing Dr. Adam Bricker and perky Lauren Tewes is the cruise director. While all of the crew had a job that was secondary to helping the passengers find love.
The Love Boat: Season One, Volume One consists of the first 12 episodes of the series 30 episode first season. The Love Boat is an anthology series which means that each episode is divided into three stories all going on aboard ship simultaneously. Each storyline was written by a different set of writers; one storyline focused on a member of the crew, another focused on how a crew member interacted with a passenger–maybe the struck up a friendship or a romance with someone–and the third storyline usually focused on a specific passenger or group of passengers. The series premiere, “The Captain and the Lady/One If By Land/Centerfold” best illustrates the style of a typical episode of The Love Boat. Captain Stubing and his ex-wife (Bonnie Franklin) have to face the realities of a badly resolved divorce when they find themselves trapped on the same cruise. The future wife of a powerful political congressman (Meredith Baxter Birney) worries that the photo she took for an adult magazine as a young law student will jeopardize her fiancé’s political career. With Julie’s help she hides all the copies of the magazine that are available on the ship, until she finds the courage to tell her fiancé about the photos. Ginny O’Brien (Brenda Sykes) is followed by her commitment phobic boyfriend (Jimmie Walker) through all the ports where the cruise stops. Ginny thinks marriage is the only answer until she gets some advice from her cabin mate, Lorraine Hoffman (Suzanne Somers).
Earlier shows such as Love, American Style used famous guest stars to attract an audience, but Aaron Spelling turned it into an art form. Setting a show on a cruise line meant that the series producers could have a whole new set of stars take a cruise every week. It has often been said that The Love Boat was where out of work has-beens went to get work. While some of that might be true, Spelling and company actually did a great job of mixing current stars of the time, with those of older generations. One weeks guest stars on The Love Boat: Season One, Volume One set include Maureen McCormick (The Brady Bunch), Patty Duke (Astin), Ruth Gordon, Phil Foster, Robert Hegyes (Welcome Back, Kotter) and Tab Hunter. Another week, the guest list includes Florence Henderson, Donna Mills, Shecky Green and Dick Sargent (Bewitched) That is a pretty eclectic guest list. It is no mistake that the inside cover of the DVD set lists each episode title and a list of the guest stars instead of a summary of the plot.
The fact is the plot of The Love Boat never really changes in the entire 12 episodes presented here. The fun is watching each show to see who will show up. It was neat to see a young Scott Baio, cute and adorable. That’s how I want to remember him, not the whiny overgrown child currently gracing television screens in Scott Baio is 46 and Pregnant.
The Love Boat: Season One, Volume One is a four DVD set containing the first 12 episodes (The two pilot movies are not included). The video is shown in full screen format. The picture is a bit grainy at times but acceptable for a show of this age. The audio is in Dolby Digital 2.0 and pretty standard stuff. Subtitles are available in English and Spanish. Special features are non existent, though promos for each episode are included.
