Highlight: Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie from "The Dick Van Dyke Show" play a couple always joshing around.
Caren Kaye is a former prostitute trying to hide her former (oldest) profession from possible new love (Christopher George) in the light of threats from an old client (Jack Carter).
In an uber-serious turn, Annette Funicello doffs her beach bikini (metaphorically speaking) to play (what else?) an economist taking a cruise to cope with a grief, who meets a man (Michael Callan) trying to overcome a grief himself. Misery loves company.
Over and above it all, the Captain is desperate to lose weight to attract a girl from his high school days (Jessica Walter) by a crash diet that has him barking at his crew. To placate him the crew comes up with a brilliant idea that might just get them all fired.
All? The crew always seems to consist of four people for such a big ship. This includes a bartender. Gopher is the assistant purser but has anyone ever seen the Purser? The captain always comes directly to Gopher; shouldn't he go through channels (i.e., the real Purser?)
Who cares? The idea that any life-changing decisions (especially love but others included) can be dealt with in rhe time it takes to cruise down the Mexican Riviera is silly, anyway.
I can see why, the further we get from the show's point of origin, younger people are disenchanted with it. Nothing is served up colder than yesterday's TV stars. Young people build up cults to new, even more vapid celebrities than we had when the "Love Boat" started (I was 16). They don't know Annette Funicello or Christopher George. When I was a boy I watched beach movies and my brother watched "The Rat Patrol." Kids these days were deprived of these pleasures. Or are they?