Another weekend thing

 I suspect like some of you, I'm kind of reeling from what I am (politely) calling the Firehose of Excrement - all of the wild EOs coming out, the churn, the wildly unqualified people being floated for high ranking positions and I felt like I needed something to watch that was kind of the equivalent of bubble gum for the brain.

Flipping around, I found that Sundance* was rerunning all the episodes of "Gilligan's Island."

Yeah, that would be silly enough.

(*yes I know they used to show the more arthouse kind of movies, so I guess they're now in the same decline that TLC, Discovery, A&E, and other "once-time intellectual" channels have gone through for like 20 years, but whatever)

I watched a bunch of episodes. It served as pleasant-enough background noise. 

The other thing is, I have vague memories of the show. Yes, it went off the air like a year or two before I was born, I remember watching it in re-runs as a small child (probably on channel 43, the old indie channel out of Cleveland. (The internet tells me the call letters were WUAB. That seems right, even though I don't really remember them).

When I was like 4 or 5, it was my *favorite* show in the whole wide world. I loved Gilligan, I guess I kind of wanted to be Mary Ann,, I just enjoyed the whole thing. I just BARELY remember how much I loved it; I don't even remember any of the plots. 

I think I tried to watch an episode or two some years back; it's possible one of the Detroit area indie channels played it when I was in college. I couldn't watch it; it had what was then one of my most-hated tropes - adults acting like children (ALL of the characters, though Gilligan, who I guess was supposed to be in his 20s, and Mr. Howell, who was probably supposed to be in his 50s or 60s** seemed the worst offenders)

(**I assume that. People in those days aged faster. I read somewhere that "Lovie" was in her early 60s when she was on the show but didn't want people to know she was that old. )

But that didn't bother me this go-round. (And yes, it's not entirely held up; a lot of the "exotic South Sea Natives" stuff is extremely cringy and racist). But fundamentally, that stuff aside? It's actually a pretty good-hearted sitcom and I found myself watching more episodes than I intended. The characters worked oddly well together. Nothing too terrible happens, or if it seems to have happened (Gilligan fearing he's turned into a vampire), they're resolved in 22 minutes or so. 

Honestly though I think that's one of the things about sitcoms and some cartoons - no matter what happens, you know things will be restored in the end, and everyone will be back again, healthy and happy, for next week. And yes, that's very unrealistic for real life, but honestly one of the things that stinks about real life is that there are bad changes: people you love die. Or move away. Or you get injured and wind up disabled. Or couples break up. And so it's kind of restful to see a situation where as the next show begins, there's everyone, just fine and back at baseline. 

And there aren't even really any true antagonists! If anything, it's more a "man against nature" story, though even then, nature is not so very mean, at least once they're on the island. The main "friendship problems" our characters face are just that - "you threw a party and I thought you didn't invite me!" (when in fact, that person was a Special Guest, who gets a special invitation). Or "it's not fair that I always get stuck with that chore on the chore wheel" or there's a misunderstanding and someone has hurt feelings until it's worked out. But none of the problems are terrible! No one is diagnosed with a terminal illness, no one gets involved with some cult (well, for very long), no one leaves (well, they can't!)

And yeah, it's a very unrealistic show. Coconut tech and all. But if you remind yourself it's just a show and you should really just relax, it's kind of fun. I mean, it's a "bottle episode" every week - they're stuck on the island, they'll be there again next week, nothing ever really changes.

perhaps in real life "nothing ever really changes" would be bad, and there are ways it could be done grimdark (now I think of Sartre's "Huis Clos" (No Exit) and realize that THAT is basically a "bottle episode," but it's three souls stuck in Hell. And yes, I'm aware of the "seven deadly sins" interpretation of Gilligan's Island, and also of the variant "six deadly sins and Gilligan is the devil" but my brain tends not to go there) 

It is a funny tendency in "modern" people to want to make things grim and dark. I don't know. I find life grim enough sometimes; I want things light and fluffy and I can watch Gilligan's Island as something purely fluffy - the characters are ridiculous but never malicious to each other, the problems are cleared up easily enough,. And there's coconut cream pie sometimes.