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Did you know that The Love Boat and the A-Team had a lot in common?
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Did you know that The Love Boat and the A-Team had a lot in common?

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Retroist
Sep 01, 2014
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Did you know that The Love Boat and the A-Team had a lot in common?
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Hey, did you know that in The Love Boat II, the made-for-TV movie, they dropped a bombshell about Captain Stubing, Gopher, Isaac, and Doc? Brace yourself for this mind-blowing revelation: they all served together in Vietnam! Can you believe it? It's like they were an unconventional squad of heroes, fighting not with guns and grenades, but with love!

Now that I've learned about their secret past, I can't watch The Love Boat in the same way again. It's like Captain Stubing has become the Hannibal Smith of the group, the mastermind behind their romantic adventures. But here's the thing—it's a huge retcon. In the pilot episode, it's clear that the crew is meeting Captain Stubing for the first time. If this Vietnam connection had been part of the show from the beginning, they would have surely talked about it or made it a plotline. But nope, not a single mention of their military training in any Love Boat episode.

Or, here's a wild thought—maybe their military involvement wasn't all about combat. What if they were part of a super-secret hospitality squad? Picture this: their mission was to entertain troops and make people fall in love. And now, out of the service, they're secretly recruited by the CIA to explore the different forms of love, studying its power and potential for use in our ultimate world-ending conflict against the Soviet Union. Talk about a twist!

But alas, we'll never know for sure. If only The Love Boat had been given one more season, we might have seen these covert love warriors in action, uncovering the secrets of the heart while cruising the high seas. It's a missed opportunity that leaves us wondering what could have been.


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Did you know that The Love Boat and the A-Team had a lot in common?
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