I don't know what to tell you about this episode, except that I'm all Fantasy Islanded out, and the 3 previous assessments here are pretty lame ones. (I doubt I'll fare much better!) Marcia Brady (or whatever) I can't stand! (Sorry folks: never saw her Bunch show: that was before my time!) And this is the 3rd time I'm seeing her on F. I. and I've had it up to here with her and Carol Lynley, the same! (They missed the opportunity to cast them together in Charlie's Cherubs, rounding them out with Lynda Day George for a specially annoying episode!)
It was nice to see the new invisible man, Ben Murphy, except his story was wasted. (Pretty sure like the other TV A-listers with a lame storyline, namely Bill Bixby and David Birney, he never returned to the island, whereas the annoying actors, sadly, can't seem to keep away from its fantastic shores!) Who as a little kid has had a dream to get his face smashed in, in a boxing match?! I don't get it. I have 0 interest in anything to do with boxing and this revolved around that. Brat Brady was annoying as can be. At some point she reveals to Ben that she's earned a living as a hooker (I truly did think she was gonna be the stripper before the show started!) and Murphy walks out on her. I thought that was it, never to return. Why did he? He walks out on her, proving he's the kind of man not to be into her kind of woman, but then he goes back for more? Why? There was nothing written to reconcile them, at that point; so, that he ends up with the floozy is just too sad a fantasy, and another who needs to get a refund from Roarke, STAT!
The other story didn't fare much better. Rich heiress ends up in a burlesque show after taking the wrong bus
to escape her father's detective. There was a lot of butt close ups to titillate the male audiences, and it was
boring as can be. There really was no better story, both equally dull, but at least they kept the pace, so props to the editors for that!
Highlights of the show? Yawn. Maybe the first time we see the local newspaper is called Fantasy Island Daily Chronicle, and that's it. Oh, and the Anne Francis clone (Laraine Stephens) really did keep her "striptease" classy, so there's that.
Roarke seemed extra exasperated with Tattoo in the intro banter, and I suspect this might have been the beginning of the downfall between the 2 amigos, on and off-screen. What else? There was a poster on the wall announcing Angela Lansbury for the play Mame. 6 years after F. I.'s "The Last Whodunnit" (1978), she would go on to imitate the lead character (Celeste Holm) in Murder She Wrote. Weird, no?
This episode was nothing to sneeze at. But we get to hear to the cool intro theme music, and hang out with Roarke and Tattoo, even when they, themselves, are unremarkable, it's still better than the garbage that's been on TV since the early 2000s. And for that, I give this a 6/10, even though it probably deserves much lower a rating. Better luck with next episode!