“Set a course for adventure, your mind on a new romance,” sang Jack Jones in the unforgettable theme song to The Love Boat. “You cannot underestimate the power of nostalgia,” explained Jay Bienstock, executive producer of CBS’ reality romance adventure The Real Love Boat, premiering tonight at 9/8c. “When you hear the theme song and when you see Ted Lange show up dressed up in that famous red bartender's outfit that he wore when he played Isaac, when we see Jill Whelan, who played Captain Stubing's daughter, Vicki, arrive on the ship, you feel like you are in the middle of a mist of friends. It feels like you are coming home. So The Real Love Boat has this great sense of adventure.”
(Sara Mally/CBS)
Jay Bienstock was joined at a TCA press conference by the real-life couple who hosts the new series, Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O’Connell. “This show is very near and dear to our hearts,” Rebecca Romijn shared. “Jerry and I are children of the '80s. We watched the original Love Boat. We wanted to bring back the same warm feelings that the original show brought with this new Real Love Boat.” While the hosts have nostalgia for the original series, the contestants on The Real Love Boat are too young to have seen it. “The connection between the original Love Boat and our new Real Love Boat is people looking for a second chance at love, people whose hearts have been broken,” Rebecca added.
Filmed aboard the Regal Princess, Jerry O’Connell revealed that hosting the show was also his first time being on a cruise. “There's something so romantic about cruising because there's nothing to do but be conscious of yourself and those who are around you,” Jerry O’Connell explained. “When you have days at sea, it's really like time stands still. I mean, I get it. I get Jack and Rose now. I get it all.” As a fan of unscripted television, Jerry also needed to remind himself that he was a host and couldn’t get involved. “I was shocked at how emotionally attached I became to our couples and how much I was rooting for them. It actually became an emotional journey for me.”
“We had to go find the right crewmembers to do this,” Jay Bienstalk shared about casting the characters that would help aid love connections along. “When we were scouting the ship the very first time and we met the captain of the ship, that was Captain Paolo. And he sits down, he is explaining to us how it works to film on his ship. And as we are talking to him, there's a bunch of us there on this scout, and we were thinking ‘You are for the show, you need to be on the show, and we'll get someone else to drive the ship for the time being. You are very charming. You are very good-looking. You have a well-mannered way of speaking. We want you.’ So it turns out that the captain, who was supposed to drive us around, ended up being on the show. So they are the matchmakers. They bring the warmth and the fuzzies, along with Jerry and Rebecca. They bring people together.”
Captain Paolo Arrigo, a real captain aboard the Regal Princess, left his post behind the wheel to appear on screen. “I have met Jill in the past on another ship, and I have a bit of a legacy with the show,” Captain Paolo revealed about his connection to actress Jill Whelan. “It's actually a fact, on the ship, back in the days when they were filming the original show, [my grandfather] was an executive chef. Before we actually shoot the scene, we were talking about all of these nostalgic things, and she was blown away. And to me, it was incredible that I was right there where we shot the scene, this amazing person that I was watching through a screen since I was a kid. So I was just blown away, and I was just so honored to be part of it all.”
The legacy of The Love Boat lives on for both fans of the original series and a new generation to discover in the new reality romance adventure The Real Love Boat, premiering tonight at 9/8c on CBS.