Start with two teams, one island and lots of coconuts. Add a million-dollar prize, two or three good catfights, an eerie campfire ceremony and what do you get? "Survivor," you say? If only life were still that simple.
Nay, this horrendous premise is none other than the pathetically unoriginal pitch for the new TBS reality flop, "The Real Gilligan's Island." This latest addition to the longstanding TBS tradition of reality TV blunders (think "Outback Jack" and "He's a Lady") adds a disturbing new twist to the network's marketing strategy: Instead of just feeding the American public's ever-increasing capacity for knock-off crap, why not butcher a '60s television cult classic while you're at it?
Which is, of course, precisely what "The Real Gilligan's Island" managed to do in its premiere last Tuesday night, showcasing two hours of the campiest, most mind-numbingly moronic drivel ever to grace the small screen. "Stranded" on the most luxurious desert island on the planet, two teams of seven castaways - each with the role of an original "Gilligan's Island" (1964) cast member - are competing for ...
Well, here's where we run into the first major flaw of this series: No one ever explains the rules! Sure, it's boring for fans of "The Apprentice" to have to sit through Donald's same, tired intro at the beginning of every episode, but at least it keeps the show's premise fresh in the mind of its viewers. And let's face it: Reality TV fans need all the help they can get. Not generally renowned for their intellectual prowess, RTV junkies will be hopelessly confused by "The Real Gilligan's Island" let's-make-it-up-as-we-go-along mantra, and the stupefied masses will soon be fumbling for the remote.
With no real plot to speak of, viewers' attentions have to be focused on something and the melodramatic interactions of the stereotyped cast provide the easiest - and not to mention the most conventional - target. Armed with lots of silicone, rapier wit (read: mindless babble) and outrageous costumes, "The Real Gilligan's Island" cast is so over-the-top ridiculous that one can't help but laugh (and cry a little bit).
Reading the cast list sounds like the beginning of a very, very bad joke and to a "Gilligan's Island" purist, it's nothing less than sacrilege. The loveable, bumbling title character made famous by Bob Denver is replaced by two even dorkier twits whose sole purposes so far seem to be ogling their curvaceous female costars.
Speaking of which, the coyly attractive bumpkin beauty that we all knew and loved as Mary Ann has been turned into the steamy, slutty reality TV equivalent of Daisy Duke, except with even shorter shorts. And, as for the movie "stars," TBS should be sued for false advertising if it expects us to believe that Rachel Hunter (Playboy model) and Nicole Eggert ("Charles in Charge" and "Baywatch") are anything more than C-list Hollywood bimbos.
Then, of course, there are the Howells, who are more obnoxious as real people than Thurston and Lovey ever were. Particularly abrasive is Donna Beavens, one of the two Mrs. Howells, whose blatantly homophobic, racist and generally elitist diatribes are quite possibly the most offensive things on primetime television since "The O.C." Her constant berating of Eric, one of the two ego-maniac Professor wannabes and an openly gay man, sets the hard-fought struggle for gay rights back about twenty years in the eyes of viewers.
And, last but not least, we have the irrepressible Skipper, played by two "authentic" seadogs whose tubby physiques make them absolutely useless to their teams in any sort of physical challenges. In fact, Skipper Bob was so ill-suited to this type of competition that he suffered a mild heart attack and collapsed during the first challenge, necessitating his emergency airlift off the island and his automatic elimination from the show.
Don't you wish now that all of this really was just a bad joke? In fact, I can picture the set-up to the joke right now. It goes something like: sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a dorky twit ...
"The Real Gilligan's Island" currently airs Tuesday and Wednesday nights, but it is seriously doubtful that the show will survive until February sweeps. In the meantime, TBS is appeasing outraged fans of the original sitcom by airing it at four o'clock in the morning on weekdays. It might seem a little ridiculous, but if you're truly in need of an authentic Gilligan fix, you'll just have to "make the best of things; it's an uphill climb!"
