New Fantasy Island reboot offers deep desires, planes, and plenty of smiles
Roselyn Sánchez nails the key combination of control and compassion as the enigmatic Elena Roarke
TV Reviews Fantasy Island
Like many Aaron Spelling-produced series from previous decades, Fantasy Island has shown to have surprising staying power. When it premiered in 1977, the series was led by the enigmatic Mr. Roarke (Ricardo Montalbán) with his loyal assistant Tattoo (Hervé Villechaize), who oversaw a tropical paradise where people could temporarily live out their loftiest desires—for a price! The series was cancelled in 1984 after several Saturday night seasons, but returned to ABC for a one-season reboot in 1998 with Malcolm McDowell as Roarke, and again just last year as a poorly received Blumhouse horror movie. Now, Fox has picked up the Fantasy Island mantle.
It’s clear that showrunners Liz Craft and Sarah Fain have a firm handle on the Fantasy Island concept and all it has to offer. After all, it’s right there in the title that the show doesn’t have to be tied to reality, opening up all sorts of creative possibilities for island clients to achieve their ultimate goals. The island’s mastermind is now a woman of color: Elena (Roselyn Sánchez), a descendant of the original Mr. Roarke, as is made clear in the very first episode. Like her predecessor, Elena Roarke’s job is to steer her guests toward fantasies that may not be what they initially envisioned, but will lead them toward the answers they’re seeking.
Sometimes, those fantasies have roots in previous cinematic efforts: A struggling married couple swap bodies (“She Freaky Friday-ed us!” exclaims the wife-now-husband), and their adventure is all the more entertaining due to the fact that real-life marrieds Dave and Odette Annable play the couple. A young Indian woman is torn between the arranged marriage that her parents want and staying with her live-in boyfriend: The island offers her a chance to see both scenarios play out, Sliding Doors-style. The fantasies are occasionally tied to more ancient concepts, as an aging couple (Stephanie Berry and David Moses) finds a fountain of youth, and a grieving man (François Chau) lives a Rip Van Winkle lifestyle. But as in the original series, Roarke guides these people through these unconventional scenarios to look past their surface fantasy and discover what it really is that they’re longing for. When a TV anchor (Bellamy Young) comes to the island with the fantasy of just being able to eat everything she wants after so many years of dieting for the camera, Elena specifically selects foods from her childhood to help her discover what she’s really hungry for.
The mysteriousness of Mr. Roarke was always a hallmark of the original series; only rarely did we ever see him in a romance of his own or even lose his temper (his concerned look at one of the guests after the planes arrived, right before that first cut to commercial was canon, though). This Fantasy Island makes the wise choice to open up Elena as a character: She was chosen as a caretaker of a magical island, but where are her own personal fantasies? Elena alludes to a past broken engagement and has a cute flirtation with Javier (John Gabriel Rodriquez), the pilot who delivers the guests, so it’s clear that she is the Roarke we’ll learn the most about. Sánchez most recently starred in soapy series like Devious Maids and Grand Hotel, but she nails the key Roarke combination of control and compassion. And the way the island finds her a new Tattoo offers a welcome callback to the original, as does the abbreviated theme song, the all-white wardrobe of the hosts, and pretty much every time Elena says, “Welcome to Fantasy Island.” Like the earlier series, the appealing roster of guest stars is another Fantasy Island draw, with legendary All My Children star Debbie Morgan appearing as a diva-like mom attempting to reconnect with her daughter, and former stars of Spelling’s Melrose Place—Josie Bissett, Laura Leighton, and Daphne Zuniga—apparently on the docket.
Tropical paradise appears to be an unofficial theme of the current TV season, what with the struggling guests at The White Lotus and the spa residents in the upcoming Nine Perfect Strangers. For those of us still unable to travel to an idyllic resort, Fantasy Island also offers a vacation-by-proxy, a frothy but pleasant weekly escape with an inspired dose of whimsy. As each episode of Fantasy Island unfurls, it’s clear that the possibilities at this particular retreat are truly limitless, which makes the series a tantalizing watch just to see what the island will come up with next.
59 Comments
I’m curious how they’ll handle Tattoo and will watch at least until I get that answer. Herve will always be the first and the best though.
They could get somebody from TLC. The channel, I mean.
Alternately, they could go in a different direction completely and get someone from TLC. The band, I mean.
Chili gave me the runs.
Don’t those folks tend to turn out to be creepy evangelical extremists when you scratch the surface a bit?
When he’s not killing British spies.
Those spies had it coming.
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Herve had a less than salutory opinion of Ricardo. There’s almost always something behind the scenes.
Will there be Fboys (boyz?) on this island? Or am I getting confused and conflated again?
You mean the “F” doesn’t stand for “Fantasy” already?
I liked the 1998 version. McDowell added a little menace to his version of Roarke, as is his wont.
“Malcolm, everybody’s talking about your new menacing take on Winnie the Pooh!”“But I wasn’t trying to be menacing this time! I just wanted to something cute and fun for the grandkids!”“What can I say, your Pooh is menacing as fuck.”“Oh, bother.”
“Time is a fire in which we burn, Piglet.”“Oh, d-d-d-d-dear…”
The original Piglet was an interstellar Jack the Ripper, though, so he’d clearly seen some shit.
Deep cut!
I don’t know whether to be interested or unnerved.
Montalban could be pretty menacing when he wanted to. And he was in the original ABC pilot, which was darker overall, hinting at some sort of Mephistopheles/Leland Gaunt angle for Roarke.
Kahn
Ricardo Montalban had a vampire mermaid imprisoned in a pond in 1 episode. I think that they were scrambling for ideas.
Plus it had Madchen Amick, which is never a bad thing.
Malcolm McDowell is good at playing “ good guys “, morally ambiguous, or outright villains. His take on Dr. Loomis in the Halloween remakes was quite good.
Interesting that we’re getting another reboot so quickly after the failed movie reboot. Charlie’s Angels did the kind of the opposite of that where they made a movie after a failed tv reboot. But that was eight years between and this is only a year. Since they’re airing it in August, this seems like a burn off.
This show was set-up last December and only began shooting in late April. It was rushed to air.
I ended up seeing that stupid horror movie version a few months back for some reason. It kind of provides a secret origin for Rourke and the island (spoilers for a movie not worth protecting spoilers for), ending with him finally finding the correct balance to the bargain he has to strike with the island’s mysterious forces, so it will act more like the TV island and not torture-porn the guests to death. And one of the guests who was killed gets to live, but only if he stays on the island forever as this version of Tattoo.
The show was set-up in December and started filming in late April for an August premiere (which is something of a rush as goes television).
The show was only set-up last December, began shooting in late April and begins airing on August 10th. That’s very quick for network television.
The show was set-up last December, began shooting at the end of April and premieres on August 10th. That’s very fast for network television.
It would have been nice to cast a little person as Roark.
Oh God. Imagine the publicity shots of a tall person and a little person, vaguely labeled Roark and Tattoo, and then the show premieres and…well, not this time around, I guess.
Mister Roarke, you’re hot…
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Wasn’t the 1998 version made during the writer’s strike, and just remade scripts from the original? Or am I remembering that wrong?
If so, they were seriously reworked. The 1998 show had a lot more supernatural shenanigans going on.
The entertainment industry already recycles ideas. It can make for sloppy or dodgy, bad scripts. Not even the best actors can improve dreck.
Sounds like this is a sequel, not a reboot.
In that case, fuck it. I won’t watch it!
They should probably entitle this “Non-Sexual Fantasy Island” since we know that, if it really existed, a significant portion of their visitors would arrive with the fantasy of getting it on with one or more celebrities.
If I went, I’d make up a plausible fantasy that I have no real interest in, just to see if I can throw Roarke off her game.
Yeah, why doesn’t that Freaky Friday-ed couple bone immediately?
It would be like the Westworld movies. Or an anthology of holodeck scenarios from Star Trek : TNG / DS9 / Voyager.
Sounds like they got a really interesting rotation of guest stars, which alone makes me want to check it out.
I just happened to be at a friend’s house, looking for something to watch, and saw that it was coming on. I’d read this article and said “Hey, I heard this was good!” And it was! And honestly it was fun watching “Fantasy Island” on a Saturday night again, forty some years later.
Have you ever seen any of the the TV movie pilots for the original Fantasy Island? Mr. Roarke was scary, in a “be careful for what you wish for” kind of way.
The Twilight Zone Cautionary Tale approach. Instead of Rod Serling from OS, you had Roarke right in there.
Yeah but never really went as dark as you wished it would.
I hope they do a take on season 2’s “The Nightmare” with the clown and the fire. That episode gave me nightmares for years.
There was an episode with Tina Louise that had to do with possession, and the Spanish Inquisition, I think. It was scary, as I recall! Also another story with a woman who wanted to be more outgoing, and ended up drinking too much of the potion given to her and turned into a primitive monster, who whipped around to confront her pursuer/assailant and hissed/croaked “You want your LILA!!!!”. Pretty awesome. At one time I was actually able to find a clip of that haha.
I wonder if Fox would air an episode starring Hilary Clinton, who fantasizes that Fox News is a quaint little news organization that just wants to inform the public without any commentary.
Some of the original episodes scared the crap out of me as an 8 year old back in the late 70’s. My parents let me also stay up to watch SNL the from the first season. Guess bedtimes were not that important back then.
Does it take place in a spaceship carrying the last humans of planet Earth to another galaxy?
No idea, but I can envision one of the guests living out a “ Major Tom “ fantasy where they live. “ check ignition and may God’s love be with you “ in the background…..
So… no word on Tattoo whatsoever? And whether or not he/she/xe/pronoun will say “Zeh plane, zeh plane” every episode?
I don’t know it’s possible to do a movie with the simple charms a show like Fantasy Island, or it’s television universe companion The Love Boat, today.I’ll give it a shot, but have my expectation-o-meter set very low.
I have hope. Fantasy Island was always Love Boat meets The Twilight Zone…but, what do I know? My BF always side eyes me, when I say that we just need the right showrunner to bring Mayberry back to life…number four is the charm!
Loved it. Both stories went in SERIOUSLY unexpected ways, and in ways which the original could only dream of. Both were what the original show could only hint at.
I’m glad that Roselyn Sánchez is working!