Back in the 1970s and 1980s I knew people who never missed an episode of "The Love Boat". I always thought that the show was extraordinarily dumb, and that every episode was pretty much the same. You know the drill: well-known Hollywood guest stars (many rather long of tooth); vanilla plots; bland acting; and shows that were designed to not let you think about what you were watching. As producer Aaron Spelling called it, "mind candy".
Well, PLEASURE COVE was so much like "The Love Boat" that I was surprised that Spelling wasn't involved in some way. Kim Parker (the lovely Constance Forslund) travels to the Pleasure Cove resort on assignment by the owner. The usual stuff ensues: flirting at the disco, undercover investigations, embezzlement, gambling, kidnapping, jealousy, and just about everything else. Heck, the music even sounded like something from "The Love Boat"!
PLEASURE COVE is fairly entertaining in an empty-headed way, and the cast is pretty good: Forslund, Tom Jones, Harry Guardino, Shelley Fabares, Joan Hackett, and a lot of other familiar TV faces, including a nearly-fossilized Robert Emhardt. Tom Jones bares his hairy chest and dances at the disco, if that's your idea of entertainment. An hour and a half of this kind of stuff is pretty easy to take, but when it's over you'll wonder why you watched it.
