I guess we’re watching The Love Boat again. Ugh.

Second Time Around

One of the doctor’s ex-wives boards with an actor she hired to play her fiancé. But really she’s trying to win back the doctor, because apparently before you book tickets on The Love Boat, you revert to the emotional maturity of an 8-year-old.

Naturally, she winds up falling in love with the actor, and he with her, and doc gets left behind with no love interest, but still with a steady gig as a cast member on a wildly popular TV show.

The ‘Now’ Marriage

A guy boards who wrote a book on “open marriages”. But since it’s 1979, we’re going to handle this with all the subtlety of a meat tenderizer. He ignores his wife, goes on a couple dates with some younger thing, and it all ends horribly with the young thing getting jealous of the wife, and the wife getting jealous of the young thing.

He disembarks staring down the barrel of a divorce, which I suppose counts as an edgy ending for The Love Boat. The ship’s captain gets to play a love interest for the first time that I can recall, possibly another first.

My Sister, Irene

These two old people who dated in college agree to go on a cruise together, having only corresponded by mail for the last 30-ish years. But then the woman panics because she’s old! Hilarious hijinx ensue when she pretends to be her own fictitious older sister, which is a totally reasonable thing for a 58-year-old woman to do.