- Film star Kim Holland wants a weekend of anonymity; stuffy lawyer Gordon Hughes traces his roots and is disillusioned; and Lorna Hendricks needs help in finding out why her daughter Stephanie is acting so oddly.
- NOTE: At original airing on Nov. 22, 1980, "Possessed" aired as a separate stand-alone episode, followed by a 90-minute "Love Boat" featuring Loni Anderson as Kim Holland, who then continued on to a second, 60-minute episode of "Fantasy Island". The first rerun in May 1981 compressed these two programs into one 90-minute episode. In syndication "Possessed" was entirely cut out.
"The Love Doctor": Kim Holland is the hottest actress of the moment and can't find any escape from her overwhelming fame. She's made three movies within the space of a year and is already nearing burnout. Having come fresh off a cruise ship without success at achieving this goal, she turns to Roarke in the hope that he can do what the "Love Boat" failed to do. So he sends her off to an extremely remote, primitive island, where she comes across Dr. Greg Miller -- who, to her relief, doesn't seem to recognize her. He promptly throws her into work as his assistant in his battle against the diseases ravaging the native people of his island. Eventually they develop a rapport and even start to fall in love...till the tribal leaders begin to present a threat. There's only one way Dr. Miller knows how to stop them: with an imported movie reel that, to Kim's shock, turns out to be one of her own movies (presumably the cheesiest one, judging from her aghast reaction). It turns out that Miller knew all along who she was and that he's one of her legions of fans, but he also knows how to love her for herself, which is what she wanted in the first place. "Pleasure Palace": Gordon Hughes, a newly minted lawyer, wants to find out more about his great-grandmother, who made the family fortune that allowed him to attend a prestigious, costly university and gave him status in his hometown. Roarke sends him back in time to turn-of-the-(20th)-century San Francisco. At first deeply impressed with the lovely, elegant old house he finds himself in, Gordon has all his illusions shattered when he discovers that it's actually a brothel and his great-grandmother was the madam. He is at first mistaken for a customer, then taken to be Great-Grandmother's little brother and given a place to sleep. Next morning he's rudely awakened by Irish maid Molly, who instantly enchants him. But their romance seems to be thwarted by Molly's mistrust of him and a crooked customer who keeps threatening to shut the place down, especially after Gordon rescues one of the girls from the man's unwelcome attentions. Gordon defends the girls in court after charges are brought on them; during the celebration of their victory, the police raid the place, led on by the same unwelcome customer. In the middle of the raid, the San Francisco earthquake hits and Gordon can think only of Gran's fortune; he stumbles to a wall safe and blindly scoops out sheafs of papers. In trying to get out, he is catapulted forward in time and finds himself in Roarke's study, where he is told that the papers he saved are stock certificates, now worth millions. Yet it means nothing to Gordon, as he's afraid Molly was killed in the quake. But when he leaves, Molly's great-granddaughter is on the plane too, having had a fantasy to find out about her own ancestor. "Possessed": Lorna Hendricks is very worried about her daughter, Stephanie. Since the death in New Zealand of Lorna's husband and Stephanie's father, Eric, Stephanie has been very withdrawn, with a strange illness that makes her sensitive to direct sunlight. Her devoted nanny, Megwa, a native Maori who accompanied them home to the US, hovers endlessly over Stephanie with an umbrella to keep the sun off her and seems to sense that Roarke is someone formidable: from the start she regards him with malice. Roarke knows that this time there's going to be a real fight, but he needs time to find out exactly what's going on; so he sends Lorna, Stephanie and Megwa to a remote cottage to spend time together. It doesn't seem to have much effect at first; Lorna can't interest Stephanie in doing the things she used to love, and Stephanie barely even eats. So Lorna takes a walk alone, and is almost driven over a cliff by a model airplane that seems to have gone out of control. Later, that night, Lorna thinks she hears her daughter calling for her, only to be confronted by a huge black panther that chases her into the bathroom for the rest of the night. When Roarke visits, Lorna is in hysterics. After some questioning, Lorna mentions that they are going to take a walk to Mount Tutumoa, to a place called Te Reinga. Roarke investigates further and learns that Te Reinga is a cave, where he takes Tattoo to decode cave paintings on its walls. They tell him that an evil Maori god named Karakia is slated to return to earth "when many moons move over the island" -- i.e., satellites. Roarke confronts the god in the cave: Megwa has been Karakia's right hand all this time, and they have been using Stephanie as the instrument to accomplish Karakia's goal. All that stands in their way is the death of Lorna. Roarke defeats Karakia by magically widening a crack in the cave wall so that sunlight shines directly on Karakia, destroying both him and Megwa and returning Stephanie to her normal self.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content