Thoughts From the Gilligan's Island Episode Gilligan Goes Gung Ho (1966)

Synopsis: After a misunderstanding leads Gilligan (Bob Denver) to believe the Professor (Russell Johnson) has been murdered, the castaways decide to make the Skipper (Alan Hale, Jr.) sheriff and Gilligan his deputy. However, Gilligan takes his job a little too seriously and ultimately puts everyone in jail.

My Thoughts:

I remember the castaways having a gun but where did they get the blanks? And, if they had blanks, why didn't they use them to scare off the variety of unsavory characters that have landed on the island? I am assuming the Professor made them somehow, but it would have been nice to get some sort of official explanation.

Even if Gilligan hadn't been one of the people in charge, having a sheriff still seemed like a bad idea. Maybe the Skipper would have had a cooler head, but the castaways were still effectively letting one person make all the decisions regarding the law and issuing a sentence. There's a reason why civilized countries have a court system.

And why would they use a municipal code when they are on an island? Technically, Gilligan wasn't wrong when it came to his charges but a lot of things that were in that law book, including fire codes, really didn't seem to work in their present setting. If you are going to have a sheriff enforcing laws, it would make a lot more sense to come up with island-specific ones (or just stick to the Ten Commandments).

OK, so the castaways weren't able to signal that plane, but I once again am going to question why the pilots didn't spot the other obvious signs of life, like the huts or even the Minnow wreckage. It looked to me like they were flying over in the daytime so those would more visible than the Skipper's phosphorous rock plan.

That being said, it was still a sound plan so why did the castaways not follow through with it after they got out of "jail." It's not like they were expecting that particular rescue plan to fly over when it did, and they certainly can't dismiss the possibility of other planes later. Of course, I've also made that same argument when discussing a signal fire.

Final Opinion: I honestly am not crazy about this particular episode. A lot of it just seems a bit forced, as though the writers couldn't come up with anything else and just borrowed the idea from The Andy Griffith Show and threw in the part about the phosphorous rocks to make it a little less obvious. I don't know if it is my least favorite episode but it's near the bottom.

My Grade: D