Jencyclopedia

A prince wants to be a normal guy for a weekend.
A police detective wants to be a marshall in the old west and hang the guys he thinks killed his partner.

From the episode titles, I’m already thinking ugh, two boy fantasies — unless the prince ends up looking for a princess, which, since this is Fantasy Island, I’m betting that’s what happens.

Aww, I forgot about Roarke and Tattoo’s banter in front of the house. I missed that.

Guy Stockwell?

When discussing the prince’s fantasy, Tattoo remarks that he’s “one of the richest men in the world”, implying that he must be paying a lot for his fantasy. Early Tattoo is like Danny Partridge mixed with Al Calavicci.

Another “Hemingway?” from Tattoo. This joke is dumb, but I like anything that brings a little continuity to a series that isn’t very continuous, so I guess I’m okay with it. I always complain about DIS being too continuous, so I know I sound like a hypocrite, but I think I’ve figured out why — I like continuous jokes, but not continuous stories. When shows are standalone, you don’t need to watch every episode to understand what’s going on, but if you do watch every episode, the continuous jokes are like a bonus reward. With a continuous story, watching every episode is a requirement, and there’s no bonus. I want to be rewarded for my loyalty, man.

Roarke: He is a detective on the New York City police department.
Tattoo: He looks like he’s here to arrest someone.
Roarke: Only himself, Tattoo. Only himself.

What does that even mean?

Oh, so the detective’s fantasy is for him to be able to beat people without any repercussions. That’s… nice…

[Looking at the Old West town.]
John Burke: It’s amazing. How did you manage it?
Roarke: There are many secrets on Fantasy Island, Mr. Burke, and as with most secrets, the answers are sometimes best left… unanswered.

Roarke says something about the Old West being their best-selling fantasy, but I can only think of like one other Old West episode (although I’m sure there were more than that, probably like one per season). Of course, maybe Roarke’s just constantly sending people off to this little town every week, and for the most part, we don’t hear from them because these fantasies are boring.

The prince wants to be a “plain, ordinary hard-working man” — uh oh, I don’t think he’s gonna like this.

Yeah, I don’t see any princesses showing up on this fishing boat. Mermaids, maybe. But yeah, this doesn’t seem like an episode I’m gonna care very much about.

They show the outside of Roarke’s cottage as an establishing shot, and then they cut to a disco. Are we to believe there’s a disco inside that house? Have we ever seen inside that house other than Roarke’s office?

Tattoo: He’s a new one on me, boss.

We have a “boss”! I’m sure it’s not the first time, but it’s the first time I’ve noticed.

Roarke calling the prince by his first name is very weird, but then again, you can’t very well call a prince “Mr.”

Prince Peter: I am used to getting what I want.
Roarke: In your country, I’m sure that is the case. But this is my country, my realm, and here I am to be obeyed.

Okay, so… Fantasy Island is a country now?

Roarke: Remember that you paid for three days of complete anonymity.

Three? I guess that includes half of Friday and half of Monday, assuming the guests arrive on Friday and depart on Monday? Or maybe the fantasies all take place over three day weekends? It’s always a bit hard to say how long the fantasies take to play out.

The prince knocks on Lisa Hartman’s door at 6am to ask her out, after she told him the night before that she wasn’t interested. Dude, you’re a stalker.

Tattoo: All’s well that ends well.

Dammit, I really wanted Roarke to say “Hemingway?”

I feel like Roarke picking up Tattoo is weird, but then, The Monkees did do that with Davy sometimes. Although, usually, there was a purpose, like they were carrying him away from a girl he was about to fall in love with, or using his head to smash a bad guy. Roarke just picked Tattoo up from the platform and placed him on the ground, and it wasn’t a high platform or anything.

Wow, is this a first? Someone brought suitcases in the car at the end?

I didn’t see it coming that the cop was wrong about who killed his partner. I feel like Fantasy Island would be pro vigilante justice, but that wasn’t the moral of this story.

I always like when guests are about to leave, and they’re sad that their fantasy didn’t work out, but then Roarke reveals that the person they thought was a fictional part of their fantasy was actually another guest, or their love interest has had a change of heart and wants to see them again, and then they live happily ever after.

I thought they were gonna end the episode without saying that Peter bought Jamie a fishing boat, but then Roarke announced it. I was gonna be pissed if they left that unresolved. Anyway, I thought “The Prince” was gonna be the prince and the pauper, and Peter and Jamie were gonna swap, but it didn’t turn out that way, so that’s nice.

Tattoo: Do you think they’ll be happy?
Roarke: Princess Grace is.
Tattoo: Who is Princess Grace?
Roarke: Grace Kelly, the princess of Mawn-aw-koh.
Tattoo: What’s Mawn-aw-koh?

This is weird; the show didn’t end on a freeze frame.