The Love Boat: Season 2 - Vol. 1

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Product Description ------------------- Take a voyage to romance aboard this ocean liner that whisks it's passengers, and surprising guest stars, on panoramic journeys that lead to love. Playing tour guide and matchmaker are the Pacific Princess' trusty crew, including cruise director Julie (Lauren Tewes), yeoman Gopher (Fred Grandy), ship's doctor Adam Bricker (Bernie Kopell), drink slinger Isaac (Ted Lange), and, of course, Captain Merrill Stubing (Gavin MacLeod). Amid luxurious surroundings, and the tempestuous heat of the tropics, anything can happen in this show that is by turns heartwarming, sentimental, and slapstick funny. With several storylines per episode, this escapist gem offers a garden of delights for the romantic at heart. This collection presents the first batch of episodes from the series' second season. Starring Gavin MacLeod, Ted Lange, Lauren Tewes, Bernie Kopell, Fred Grandy Special Features: Sensormatic Package Note: Multi-Disc Set Full Frame - 1.33 Audio: (unspecified) English. .com ---- Sealed with a kitsch, The Love Boat cruised into its second season as one of television's top 20 shows and guiltiest of pleasures. Leaving uncharted waters to edgier shows of the day, The Love Boat was pure escapist entertainment. Each of these 13 episodes steers a tried and true course through three stories; one involving the crew members, another played for laughs, and the other more dramatic, but with a reassuring finish that allowed everyone to disembark with hope of a happy-ever-after. Each episode, too, is a minor miracle of casting with a star-studded roster ranging from seasoned Hollywood veterans to fresh faces just finding their sea legs. Vincent Price is featured in a Halloween episode as the Amazing Alonzo, who almost makes his fiancée (Joan Blondell) disappear for real when he keeps their engagement a secret from admiring female passengers. June Allyson stars as a woman losing her eye, with Van Johnson as her over-protective husband. Robert Reed is a man who witnessed a shooting but is afraid to testify, with Toni Tennille as a woman with a personal stake in the case. And Jill Whelan is introduced as Vicki, the young daughter of Capt. Stubing's lost love. On the lighter side, we have Billy Crystal as a shy young man by day, ed kissing bandit by night, Soupy Sales and Jo Anne Worley, as a buttoned-up boss and his adoring secretary who awaken after a drunken party in the honeymoon suite, and John Astin as a hermit who maroons Captain Stubing (Gavin McLeod) and company on his deserted island. The Love Boat isn't Shakespeare, but the writers must have brushed up on classic films to pay homage to the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera stateroom scene (ship's engineer Larry Storch's large Italian family is smuggled aboard so he can celebrate Thanksgiving with him) and Ninotchka (Loretta Switt stars as a humorless Russian who gets an extreme makeover). In these tumultuous times, The Love Boat remains the quintessential "Stop the World" series that allows viewers too forget their troubles. So when goofball Gopher (Fred Grandy) dons women's clothing to protect cruise director Julie (Lauren Tewes) from an overeager passenger (Red Buttons), your blissful smile is The Love Boat's "sweetest reward." --Donald Liebenson