User Reviews

When even Mr. Howell admits the fact that Gilligan is smarter than they are simply because he's avoided capture from the Japanese submarine operator Vito Scotti, you know even the uppity Thurston realizes that they've messed up. Of course, the skipper hasn't been captured (yet), and it ends up being up to Gilligan to rescue them in a way they did not expect to be rescued. Gilligan thinks that they've been eaten by a sea monster, and he shows no other shocked then wanting to avoid the same fate.

Probably the only episode in my memory to have any type of controversy, it only isn't because Scotti is Italian, but he plays it as a stereotypical buffoon, even though he can rig the quickly made bamboo prison with grenades. Even though this is stereotypical in several ways, it is still very funny with a comedy cleverly mixed in, and obviously, it would take a buffoon to think that the war was still going on nearly 20 years after it actually ended.

Some of the cultural references aren't quite right either, particularly references to war movies with Robert Taylor and John Wayne, confirmed by the fact that Scotti has been in his submarine since 1941! Supposedly, this was based on actual incidents where Japanese soldiers and sailors on Islands were found, also believing that the war had not yet ended. A very funny scene of Gilligan trying to get the stuck Skipper out of the submarine is very amusing, I just the fact that Gilligan manages to get the prisoners out of their cages while Scotti is sleeping. So put aside canceling for 22 minutes and enjoy this for the period it was made in simply for its innocent humor.

So Sorry, My Island Now ranks as one of the best episodes of the inaugural season. It's a near classic, meaning it's a couple of lines and scenes away from being perfect, and the guest star's over-the-top performance can rub some viewers the wrong way. But it has a swift moving plot, lots of clever lines, above average physical humor, and an excellent, low-key ending where Gilligan comes through in the clutch.

In the teaser, Gilligan confronts what he thinks is a one-eyed sea serpent in the lagoon. In reality our lead has seen a one man submarine. His crazed description is, as usual, good for a chuckle, but greeted with skepticism by the others, who treat the poor boy like he's ready for a seat on a psychiatrist's couch.

Gilligan is spooked enough to take them down to the lagoon and show them that what he's seen is real. In quick succession, the doubters, starting with Mr. Howell, are picked off one by one by the Japanese sailor like low-hanging fruit. Only Gilligan and the Skipper remain unscathed.

Our duo uncover the sub and plan to steer it back to the mainland to rescue the others. There is a good but predictable bit where the Skipper gets stuck in the hatch and is freed by Gilligan, which paves the way for our lead to make the heroic trip to Hawaii. But the sub's instructions are unhelpfully written in Japanese, and another means of rescue doesn't make it out of the lagoon.

The Japanese sailor, meanwhile, holds the other castaways captive in two prison cells rigged with hand grenades. The Professor believes the ingenuity of the construction means their captor is intelligent and can be reasoned with, but he makes little headway. Similarly, the Japanese sailor can't be bribed by Mr. Howell or influenced by Ginger, a pattern that will be repeated in later episodes with other visitors.

He provides his backstory in the course of his interrogations: he has been on the island for twenty years, lost all contact with the outside world, is American-educated, and a big fan of John Wayne. Most importantly to the plot, he doesn't know that the War is over.

The best part of the episode is when the Skipper and Gilligan move in on the camp to pull off a rescue. They spot the overconfident Japanese sailor asleep in a tree. The Captain attempts to dig under the bamboo poles with his bare hands, an attempt that will take hours to work.

His little buddy gets perhaps his best scene of the season. His disarming solution is so simple it's brilliant, and he gives the Skip yet another chance to close with a great fourth wall break. It's a very simple, funny, and low-key cap to the episode, much more charming than the epilogue.

COCONOTES

The dated ethnic humor in the episode holds this back from being a classic. Vito Scotti's over-the-top portrayal is, like others characters on the show, an exaggeration, just as Mr. Howell is the richest man in the world and the Professor the smartest with seven PHD's. While Scotti looks ridiculous in his Coke bottle glasses and buck teeth, he is amusing and largely inoffensive. Do think he crosses the line with the 'good rooking' exchange with Ginger.

"Me? How did I get captured?" "Oh, I have faith in you, Gilligan!"

"I haven't seen one of these since the war." "Which one is it? The Monitor or the Merrimac?" "Not the Civil War, you lunkhead!"

Gilligan is a lot more clever and resourceful in this one. He knows the two ships from the Civil War, uses coconut oil to ease the Skipper out of the sub, outwits the Japanese sailor, rescues the others, and steals the sailor's glasses at the end to prevent his departure.

It's never made clear what happened to the sub or the sailor at the end.

I think we can get a bit too sensitive and politically correct in criticizing the casting of Italian-American Vito Scotti as a Japanese solder in "So Sorry, My Island Now". I would say that the producers were ahead of their time, especially as I think this inspired piece of casting served to pave the path to shows with more inspired casting.

For instance, Hogan's Heroes, which debuted the same year this episode screened, cast Jews as Nazi concentration camp soldiers. Definitely cast against type, and only 20 years after the end of WW2.

British actor Ronald Lacey starred as Gestapo agent Arnold Toht in Raiders of the Last Ark.

Mainly it was British actors who were cast as Nazis in the British TV series 'Allo 'Allo.

Valkyrie, yes Valkyrie, featured Tom Cruise and other Americans and British actors as the Nazis!! To be sure, Tom played a good Nazi.

So Sorry, My Island Now was really groundbreaking in its bold casting against type.

While bagging some lobsters in the lagoon (yes, lobsters), Gilligan has an encounter with a "one eyed sea monster" (the kind of story that told to the wrong person would get you slapped). The monster turns out to be a World War Two-era Japanese midget sub piloted by a Japanese sailor who doesn't know the war is over.

It's not long before the Japanese sailor starts capturing the castaways one by one until everyone but the Skipper and Gilligan are his prisoner. Unable to pilot the midget sub out of the lagoon, our two remaining castaways are forced to free their friends.

Highlights include Gilligan's explanation of Ginger's scream to the Professor, the well designed cages that hold the castaways, Gilligan questioning the Skipper about whether the midget sub they found is the "Monitor or the Merrimac" along with getting the Skipper out of the sub and Ginger's attempt to woo the Japanese sailor.

Unfortunately, everything about this episode is centered on the Japanese sailor. A buck toothed, coke-bottle glasses wearing, pidgin-English speaking stereotype of the first order as played by the very Italian Vito Scotti. While perhaps not quite as offensive as Mickey Rooney's portrayal of a Japanese stereotype in "Breakfast at Tiffanys", it's certainly in the same ballpark.

While it may be tempting to cut this episode some slack because it was made at an earlier time when it was more acceptable to create such stereotypical characters of another race, it certainly doesn't hold up today. I'm more forgiving of Vito Scotti himself since he was a really good character actor who was skilled at playing different types of roles. Here, he basically disappears into this character...but it is an offensive character nonetheless.

So, I'm giving this episode a mere three stars out of ten, the lowest of the first season. His second appearance in "Diogenes, Won't You Please Go Home" is somewhat less offensive simply because he's not in the episode as much and the damage was already done.

• This episode was certainly inspired by the discoveries of Japanese soldiers who were cut off on islands in the Pacific and didn't know the war had been over with for many years. The last verified holdouts surrendered in December, 1974 on Morotai Island in Indonesia.

• The new incidental music heard during the episode has a decidedly "Japanese" air about it.

• Midget subs of WW2 ran on batteries mostly which made them very short range craft. But even if you throw in a diesel engine...where does he get his fuel from? Still, if I'm going to ask that question...then there are a lot more questions to ask about Gilligan's Island itself :) - The conning tower we see the Japanese sailor emerge from at the beginning of the episode is markedly different from the one on the midget sub we see Gilligan driving.

• It's pretty easy to see when Gilligan is driving the sub underwater in the lagoon, it's just a periscope pushed by a guy in a scuba suit. You can actually see his scuba tank emerge from the water a couple of times.

• Mrs. Howell calling the Japanese sailor a "camera bug" is really the only racially-insensitive insult hurled at the Japanese sailor himself.

• If the Japanese sailor has indeed been out of touch since 1942, then how does he know about Lloyd Bridges who didn't even start getting noticed until the early 1950's?

• The epilogue scene does end with one final bit of stereotypical "charm" as Gilligan does his bit with the glasses.