Another Sherwood Schwartz produced series with a catchy theme song, It's About Time, serves as the basis for this entry. The series runs during the third season of GI before CBS cancels it after one season due to poor ratings. It is about a pair of astronauts who travel back in time to the prehistoric age and befriend cave dwellers. In a bid to save money, GI borrows the set, props, and wardrobe from the failed series and builds an episode around it. The episode is mainly interesting as a curiosity, with pretty good production design, a strange dream sequence, and hit-or-miss humor.
In the cold open, we have the trope of Gilligan discovering something of value. He stumbles upon a prehistoric tablet in one of the isle's 'unexplored' caves, which looks strangely identical to the all-purpose cave used every week. The tablet contains hieroglyphic markings. The Professor believes they show a way to get off the island, but the tablet is only a piece to a larger tablet, and the castaways need to collect all the other pieces to find the answer.
The first act then is a scavenger hunt where the group finds the pieces to their prehistoric puzzle in mostly uninspired ways. Nothing of interest happens, outside of Gilligan mistaking acid for soup and nearly giving himself permanent indigestion.
A fairly funny scene does happen. The castaways are short one piece; our lead just happens to be using it as a serving tray. The Professor doesn't make the connection right away even though it's right in front of his eyes. Once he does, Gilligan drops it, of course, and it crumbles to pieces.
But wait! The pieces are easily restored in the second act and the puzzle is completed. Based on the tablet's markings, Gilligan and the Skipper are tapped to make another raft trip to Hawaii.
With that plot point wrapped up, writer Bruce Howard has time for a random segue into the dream sequence. Gilligan starts obsessing over cave people and drifts off in the middle of his chatter. In his dream, he is an artist and unlikely leader of an idealist group who wants to explore the scary 'other side of the hill.' The Howells are his loin-clothed, long-haired chieftains who forbid independent thinking. The Professor, in a predictably good gag, is the inventor of the wheel. The others are in the same supporting roles they are in when our lead is awake and do much the same things.
Chief Howell imprisons Gilligan and the Skip for their idealism. They are freed in no time, however, by Ginger's funny and successful seduction attempt. Mrs. Howell clubs her hubby and drags him by the hair in a bit done on It's About Time. However, in the next scene, the group is all together on their way to the other side. They encounter a pretty good stop-motion dinosaur and flee.
Shortly after the dream ends, so does the castaways plan to flee the island. The Professor doesn't know hieroglyphics as well as he thinks he does and makes a rare Gilligan-sized error.
That's the way the tablet crumbles.
COCONOTES:
Writer Bruce Howard won an Emmy for his work on The Red Skelton Show. He later was a staff writer for The Dukes of Hazzard, another CBS series.
Minor plot hole: So Gilligan has been using a piece of the tablet 'for months' and has never once noticed the unusual markings?
Minor blooper: The restored pieces of the tablet clearly don't resemble the crumbled pieces.
In her long, dark wig, Mrs. Howell is a stand-in for Imogene Coca of It's About Time.
Ending scene is sweet and thoughtful.
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