TV Flash
All episodes Season 1 S01E01 1977-09-24 60 min 1970s ABC

The Love Boat

The Captain and the Lady / One if By Land / Centerfold

TV Flash files “The Captain and the Lady / One if By Land / Centerfold” as a desk essential hour — The Love Boat (1977–1986) on ABC, season 1, episode 1, aired 1977-09-24, 60 min.

From the desk

How this hour is filed

This leaf is S01E01: listed hour 1 of 245 in the The Love Boat guide, first listed hour of season 1. It aired 1977-09-24 (60 min). No earlier hour is listed in this guide. Next is “Oh, Dale! / The Main Event / A Tasteful Affair” (S01E02).

Essential hour

Essential hour: “The Captain and the Lady / One if By Land / Centerfold”. The Captain and the Lady / One if By Land / Centerfold is the Spelling formula as a triple bill. MacLeod's Stubing already hosts; Julie, Doc, Gopher, Isaac meddle on schedule.

The Love Boat — The Captain and the Lady / One if By Land / Centerfold (S01E01)

Catalog log

Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.

In "The Captain and the Lady," Bonnie Franklin appears as Capt. Stubing's infuriatingly sarcastic ex-wife who creates havoc aboard the Pacific Princess when she arrives for a cruise with her present spouse (Robert Symonds), the captain's boss. "One If By Land" stars Jimmie Walker and Brenda Sykes as a couple who have been living together in unwedded bliss, until the young lady decides that matrimony is a "must". To forget her unhitchable man, she escapes aboard the luxury ship where she befriends fun-loving Suzanne Somers, who helps her acquire a new outlook on life. "Centerfold" finds Ms. Meredith Baxter-Birney as a girl who once posed in the nude for a photographer. Now engaged to a political candidate (Shelly Novack), she is horrified to learn that the picture is the centerfold of a current magazine. She sets out to recover all copies aboard ship before her future husband sees the centerfold picture.

Viewer FAQ

Where does The Captain and the Lady / One if By Land / Centerfold sit in the The Love Boat guide?

S01E01 is listed hour 1 of 245 — first listed hour of season 1, season 1 episode 1.

When did The Love Boat S01E01 air?

The Captain and the Lady / One if By Land / Centerfold aired 1977-09-24 and is listed at 60 minutes.

Do I watch in order?

No. It is a multi-story guest-star anthology with a regular crew. Sample any cruise; Stubing's ship is the constant.

In the series

Why this series still plays

Filed by Lana Reyes · Red Carpet Reality · Show package

Gavin MacLeod's Captain Stubing hosts three guest-star storylines a week while Julie, Doc, Gopher, and Isaac keep the Pacific Princess meddling. Aaron Spelling cruise-ship anthology as comfort franchise: formula as feature, theme as furniture. Bon voyage, subtlety — the cameo sport still photographs.

The first image is white: uniforms, rails, Pacific soft-focus, and Gavin MacLeod's Captain Merrill Stubing hosting three guest-star storylines before the dessert cart. ABC's The Love Boat (1977–1986) turned cruise vacation into Aaron Spelling's floating hit factory — nine seasons, 245 episodes, formula as feature. Lauren Tewes's Julie McCoy, Ted Lange's Isaac, Bernie Kopell's Doc, and Fred Grandy's Gopher never age out of meddling. Jeraldine Saunders' nonfiction about cruise life inspired the premise; Wilford…

Open the The Love Boat package · Season 1 hub

Filed against

Also in season 1

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