I fondly remember watching this show as a child on Saturday nights after Love Boat, and being intrigued by the parables that offered.
Fortunately, I think the show evolved as it went into production, but its first foray as a TV movie was downright awful in my opinion. I think the hardest thing to fathom about this TV movie is the attitudes expressed by, too and about women here (and I say this a man).
The Bill Bixby storyline.is downright offensive. Four decades after a brief wartime romance, Bixby's character longs to reconnect with his lost lover, only we discover that she lied about being unmarried and he flies into a rage and murders her. Given the second chance to relive the brief affair, he murders her again, because, well that is what one does when you discover a woman you just met has lied to you, you murder them. But don't worry, this time, you only think you murdered her, but you actually didn't, so no harm no foul. To make matters worse Roarke expresses sympathy for this guy because he seems torn up about it now. Never mind the fact that you seem to be a serial murder who cannot stop himself from repeating the same act of murdering a woman who have known for a matter of hours because she lied to you.
The Henley Hunter story is not much better. Victoria Principal is inserted into this "most dangerous game" scenario as a "paid" companion (sex worker) who is then handcuffed to Henley for the first hunt. When she protests to Roarke, he dismisses her objection by saying that because she was compensated to be his companion so she also consented to put her life at risk and participate in the hunt. She screams for 20 minutes, passes out when she comes face to face with a chained tiger, Henley ofcourse saves her from death and what does she do? She becomes a rabid cheerleader for Henley and encourages him to voluntarily continue for the second and third hunts which culminates in Henley acknowledging his contrition for nearly killing a child while drunk driving, and ruining the marriage of another man. "Dont worry" Roarke says, the child's dad was drunk too and that married woman was a :used up" anyway and so you are off the hook. What a relief!
The final storyline is a hard edged business woman who fakes her own death to learn what people really think about her. No surprise here, everyone hates her because successful women by definition belong in a category that rhymes with "riches". Her sister and husband plot to kill her as they learn of her scheme, sister dies, and she takes back the husband that had participated in conspiracy. Why? Because being married to someone who wanted and agreed to kill you is better than being a divorce unmarried woman. The one and only redeeming character in all of this is her brother who acknowledges that she ran the family business well and much better than he could have done, and that he did in fact love his sister.
In all, the values, the judgment, the ideas expressed here in this episode are painful to watch, horribly dated, and incredibly anti-woman. These truly abhorrent people come to this island, we see how awful they are and they fly home without consequence as the plane drops off new passengers for the island. Thank goodness someone sat down and gave the format of this show a hard rewrite. This is a dark, angry and sad episode of television.
Fortunately, I think the show evolved as it went into production, but its first foray as a TV movie was downright awful in my opinion. I think the hardest thing to fathom about this TV movie is the attitudes expressed by, too and about women here (and I say this a man).
The Bill Bixby storyline.is downright offensive. Four decades after a brief wartime romance, Bixby's character longs to reconnect with his lost lover, only we discover that she lied about being unmarried and he flies into a rage and murders her. Given the second chance to relive the brief affair, he murders her again, because, well that is what one does when you discover a woman you just met has lied to you, you murder them. But don't worry, this time, you only think you murdered her, but you actually didn't, so no harm no foul. To make matters worse Roarke expresses sympathy for this guy because he seems torn up about it now. Never mind the fact that you seem to be a serial murder who cannot stop himself from repeating the same act of murdering a woman who have known for a matter of hours because she lied to you.
The Henley Hunter story is not much better. Victoria Principal is inserted into this "most dangerous game" scenario as a "paid" companion (sex worker) who is then handcuffed to Henley for the first hunt. When she protests to Roarke, he dismisses her objection by saying that because she was compensated to be his companion so she also consented to put her life at risk and participate in the hunt. She screams for 20 minutes, passes out when she comes face to face with a chained tiger, Henley ofcourse saves her from death and what does she do? She becomes a rabid cheerleader for Henley and encourages him to voluntarily continue for the second and third hunts which culminates in Henley acknowledging his contrition for nearly killing a child while drunk driving, and ruining the marriage of another man. "Dont worry" Roarke says, the child's dad was drunk too and that married woman was a :used up" anyway and so you are off the hook. What a relief!
The final storyline is a hard edged business woman who fakes her own death to learn what people really think about her. No surprise here, everyone hates her because successful women by definition belong in a category that rhymes with "riches". Her sister and husband plot to kill her as they learn of her scheme, sister dies, and she takes back the husband that had participated in conspiracy. Why? Because being married to someone who wanted and agreed to kill you is better than being a divorce unmarried woman. The one and only redeeming character in all of this is her brother who acknowledges that she ran the family business well and much better than he could have done, and that he did in fact love his sister.
In all, the values, the judgment, the ideas expressed here in this episode are painful to watch, horribly dated, and incredibly anti-woman. These truly abhorrent people come to this island, we see how awful they are and they fly home without consequence as the plane drops off new passengers for the island. Thank goodness someone sat down and gave the format of this show a hard rewrite. This is a dark, angry and sad episode of television.