Biggest time suck to date? The Love Boat. It's streaming on CBS.com. I haven't seen this show in so long, and even as a kid I remember thinking that maybe, just maybe they had some trick to super-impose those waves behind the couples on the late-night deck scenes--but that took me a while. I do fondly remember fighting with my brother as to who would have the best seat in the house: sitting with my mom on the rust-colored couch (which I had through grad school).
Yet in 2008 what really gets me is just how much action the crew seems to get--this was the '70s after all. Well, Julie, I suppose, with her dreadfully ashy/reddish hair was a catch (although I do have to admit to admiring her style). But the doctor? Really? Ack! (On a side note: his almost one-per-episode Laurel and Hardy impressions drive me nuts!) As for Isaac, he usually ends up falling face-first into a cake or having a gallon of paint dumped over his head in just about every episode--or at the very least something equally stupid/humiliating happens, like here, where he had to wear his bow tie around his neck collar. And, of course, no love plots so far for him...
But the guest stars are fun to see...so impossibly young. Take a look.
OK, Ruth Gordon wasn't young, but so amazing, right?Yes, the plot lines are stupid, the stories are formula 409, but I'm going to keep watching a few more episodes this summer, because it's like visiting a strange and yet familiar floating past full of guest stars and a sense that no matter how rough the sea, the journey always wraps up with a laugh track.
