The Love Boat

"The Love Boat" is the first of three made for TV movies and eventually it became a TV series. Why three? Because they really had trouble getting the formula right...and that's REALLY obvious in this first pilot movie. The chemistry simply isn't right...for a variety of reasons. First, the crew is pretty much faceless or annoying. The Doctor, who is perpetually chasing skirts, is oddly played by Dick Van Patten...the LAST person you'd expect in such a role. As for most of the rest of the cast....they simply aren't interesting and offered little to like or dislike...they were just there. Second, the writing and acting is very broad....even compared to the TV series. Many times, the characters seem like caricatures and subtle they are NOT. Among these annoying passengers are Stan (Gabe Kaplan) who 'falls in love' with a woman he just met, Arnold (Jimmy Baio) who is a super ill-behaved and annoying brat*, Monica (Florence Henderson) who is completely obsessed with her MANY pets so that's ALL she talks about, George (Tom Bosley) who is a rich slob who later goes fishing off the side of the ship, as well as Ellen (Karen Valentine) whose only real attributes are that she's lost her luggage and is a klutz...and a secret. If it sounds like their parts were way underwritten and broad, well, you'd be right. Poor writing really made it obvious why the networks said 'thanks, but no thanks' to the first pilot. In fact, had I been in their shoes I never would have considered seeing the second pilot!

By the way, when this show was made, Princess Cruises had three ships--each with a capacity of about 700. Today, they are 15 ships and have capacities of 2500 or more for most ships. Also, unlike the TV series which took place on the Pacific Princess, this one is on the Sun Princess.

*Any child THIS annoying would have been put off the ship at the first available port along with the rest of the family. He wasn't funny...just annoying and hateful.

TV Movie featuring several stories about passengers on a Mexican cruise.

This is the first of the three "Love Boat" pilots and is pretty much a disaster on every level.

The biggest problem here is the casting. Quite frankly the regular cast is just terrible. They have no chemistry as a group and of the bunch, only Dick Van Patten (the doctor) and Theodore Wilson (Isaac the bartender) turn in what I would consider decent performances. Ted Hamilton is a total stiff as the captain. And Terri O'Mara, playing the cruise director, has a perfectly pleasant screen presence, but her acting leaves a bit to be desired (although, my understanding is that ABC saw "The Love Boat" as a star-making vehicle for her and specifically requested her casting).

The production seems to have had some significant problems: Director Alan Myerson appears to have been fired mid-production, since he is credited as co-director along with Richard Kinon in a couple of the stories while Kinon receives sole credit on the rest. And there's a fairly prominent end credit for separately written and directed (by Kinon) "Special Material."

The one thing I did kind of like, though, is the overall tone of the movie. Unlike the other pilots and the series, this movie is (by 1976 TV movie standards) fairly risqué. O'Mara's cruise director tells Doc that she's bored with being all goody-goody and may just "do it in the purser's lounge" to shake things up a little. You'd never hear Julie McCoy say that.

Still, despite everything, ABC liked the format enough to green light another TV movie/pilot the following year.

Like everyone alive in the 70's, I was forced to watch 'Love Boat' from time to time by inconsiderate family members with a penchant for this kind of sap. To this day, 'Love Boat' stands out in my mind as justification for never watching dramatic TV unless 'Twin Peaks' or 'Miami Vice' reruns are showing. I know some folks enjoy this show today for its "camp value". I've never understood that rationale; why would you want to watch garbage just so that you could laugh at it. Do yourself a favour and read a book instead, and no, Cloris Leachman's biography doesn't count.

I not only saw this film, I was a still photographer on the three day cruise to Ensenada, Mexico when they shot most of the film. One little known incident happened when Hal Linden joined the company in Ensenada. To everyones surprise and chagrin he came limping down the dock with a broken leg he had suffered in a skiing accident. However Jeraldine Saunders the author was aboard and they were able to rewrite the script and carry on so that's "showbiz". After that I went on most of the following trips except the one to Panama and consider Gavin and crew good friends. On one trip,Aaron Spelling, his wife Candy, and Tori (then just a baby) joined us in Hermisillo and I was able to meet them. I want to extend my sincere sympathy to the family with Aaron's passing...

This the TV movie that launched a highly popular TV series of the same time, that ran from 1977 through 1987. And, that was credited with reviving overall public interest in cruising for vacation and leisure. What was a very small industry of cruise lines at the time soon mushroomed into a huge industry that still thrives well into the 21st century.

The movie itself was quite good and well received in its day - much better than IMDb's showing in April 2023 of an overall rating of just 5.6 form 261 viewers who rated it. But, just as it shows the higher rating for the TV series on IMDb, the audience response for the TV series was much better and higher than for this movie. This is a good example of how the general mood or character of humor and how funny some things are changes over time. Some of this humor will seem lame to younger audiences of modern times.

But, the characters here are played by a superb cast of actors of the day - especially in comedy. While the plot for this "pilot" film was almost solely comedy and romance, the TV series in time working in some nice, short segments of drama to make its shows more substantive and original.

Don Adams, Tom Bosley, Gabe Kaplan, Harvey Korman, Hal Linden, Cloris Leachman and others are fun to watch in this film. It's a nice look at the origin of the TV series, although the cast was a complete turnover from the film to the series.