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Post-55th Anniversary Viewing
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Gilligan's Island
"Gilligan Goes Gung-Ho"
Originally aired December 26, 1966
Frndly said:
In an episode illustrating the abuse of power, Gilligan becomes a deputy sheriff and goes way overboard, arresting---and jailing---everyone for silly infractions.
Gilligan comes upon an overacted love triangle altercation between Ginger, the Professor, and Mary Ann which ends with Ginger shooting the Professor dead. I recall that they had a gun early on, though I don't think it was snub-nosed...and who brought the blanks? Gilligan runs to get the Skipper, and after the finding the Professor appearing to be lying dead (actually suffering from a nosebleed) and the girls trying to wash the blood out of a handkerchief, discover that they were just rehearsing for Ginger's benefit--and the gun with blanks seems new to the crewmen. Despite it all being a false alarm, just the men gather to elect formal law enforcement. Mr. Howell claims to know karate, but his demonstration proves comically ineffectual. The Skipper is elected sheriff, with Gilligan as his deputy, and they study up on the latest find from the island's library, a book on legal code. Gilligan, sporting a starfish star and a bamboo-tech whistle, catches Mr. Howell taking Skipper's binoculars without asking, and Howell gets himself in deeper with a bribery attempt. (They have a stage gun with blanks, but nobody brought a real thermometer or whistle.) Rather than use the standing bamboo cage from previous episodes, they put a bamboo cell door on the cave, with Howell as the first incarcerated castaway. Meanwhile, an Air Force seaplane crewed by uncredited Glenn Langan and James Spencer searches the area for an uncharted island where marooned people have been sighted--Maybe one of the many people who've left them behind on the island at this point tipped somebody off!
The girls are soon keeping Mr. Howell company following an altercation over a fire that's too close to their hut; and Lovey is caught trying to smuggle in a file via cake. The Professor, who's been gathering phosphorescent rocks with the Skipper for making a signal, is taken in for carrying a concealed weapon--a stick of homemade dynamite he had stuffed in his shirt. The Skipper forces the key from Gilligan and goes to free the others, but Gilligan locks him in for police brutality. The incarcerated castaways try to get out by reenacting scenes from a couple of prison movies that Ginger was in, but Gilligan has seen both films. He then attempts to recreate a favorite scene, which involves locking himself in with them and tossing away the key. Right on cue, the castaways hear the plane passing overhead. When the others are about to pronounce sentence on Gilligan, he manages to do what the six of them couldn't manage together--to bust through the cell door.
In the coda, Skipper locks up Gilligan for interfering with their potential rescue, but Gilligan demonstrates how he can dig like a mole because he saw
The Count of Monte Crisco.
Even if there were no castaways out and about, you'd think that perhaps the plane might have spotted signs of habitation, like the hut area and the bamboo car.
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"The Night of the Lord of Limbo"
Originally aired December 30, 1966
Wiki said:
Jim and Artie encounter Colonel Vautrain, a crippled, legless former Confederate officer who has mastered the ability to travel through time. His plan is to go back in time and alter history, thus not only restoring his legs but also having the Confederate Army win the war—by killing Ulysses Grant.
Having received tickets anonymously, Jim and Artie are unimpressed with the parlor tricks of Arabian-dressed stage magician Abu the Magnificent (Ricardo Montalban), until he sees them about to leave and makes a harem girl named Yasine (Dianne Foster) appear, along with what he identifies as King Solomon's throne. Yasine goes into the audience and chooses Artie to sit in it, following which the magician makes himself, Yasine, the throne, and Artie disappear. Concerned at the theater manager (Harry Harvey Sr.) clearly not having expected the sudden ending, Jim goes backstage to be informed that there are no trap doors, and hears what sounds like Artie's ghostly voice calling him. The one thing left behind is Abu's "Sword of Ishtar," a saber which is stamped "N.B.V., Vicksburg, Miss."
Jim heads to a vets' club in Vicksburg, where he tries to find out who "N.B.V." is and has to fight off a man named Scoffield (Felice Orlandi) who wants to take the sword; following which the bartender (Davis Roberts) slips him a note with the names of Noel Bartley Vautrain and his manor. There Jim meets the wheelchair-bound Vautrain and his niece Amanda--Abu and Yasine in contemporary clothing--and has to fight off Captain Scoffield again along with a couple of other heavies, following which Jim accepts Vautrain's insistent invitation to dinner. Vautrain reveals that it was Jim that Yasine was meant to pick from the audience, and that he holds West responsible for saving his life during the war only for his legs to be amputated. He wants Jim to help him regain those legs, and using Artie's whereabouts as bait, directs Jim to a door upstairs...which Jim walks through to find himself in a dark, misty void.
Jim exits into a wood, where he's with a man named Levering (Gregory Morton) who informs him that he's there to duel a Jack Maitland--who turns out to be Artie. The fencing duel commences, but is interrupted by a group of bandits who enter by shooting Levering. Jim and Artie disarm the bandits, but one of them shoots Artie, to have a saber thrown into him by Jim. As he dies, Jack maintains his character, clearly not knowing who Jim is.
Jim returns with Artie, now living and remembering who he is. Vautrain explains that he sent Jim back through time, and after demonstrating his ability to make a bronze bust disappear, describes how he's mastered the ability (apparently in India) to open a warp in space through which teams of Marco Polos could explore...the fourth dimension. (Note that Montalban's appearance on
Trek is still a month and a half ahead of us at this point.) He believes that by going back through time himself, he can regain his legs, and feels that Jim owes it to him to accompany him on the potentially hazardous journey. Jim has a romantic interlude with Amanda, who doesn't want him to go, hinting at things her uncle hasn't told him, though Jim feels that if there is a fourth dimension, he owes it to his country to conduct a threat assessment. The trip proceeds, with both agents accompanying Vautrain back to his manor at the height of its splendor. Vautrain is younger now, his full beard replaced by a thin mustache...and while he's still sitting in a wheelchair, his legs have been restored, and he rises to enjoy walking downstairs.
Vautrain removes a robe to reveal his Confederate uniform underneath, and his desire to use his trip through time to win the war for the Confederacy. Captain Scoffield and a couple of other soldiers appear to report the Union Army's advance, and Vautrain helps jog Jim's memory of how he commandeered the house as General Grant's aide. Vautrain reveals that he has his old hiding place behind a bookshelf filled with explosives, waiting for Grant's arrival. Jim and Artie jump the soldiers, and as Jim finds himself at a standoff point with Vautrain, a Union shell enters the house and history repeats itself...Vautrain finding his legs crushed under the fallen bookshelf. As flames rise toward the explosives, Vautrain insists that Jim leave him to his fate this time, using a wounded Artie's welfare as incentive. Jim carries Artie upstairs through the Time Tunnel door, and the agents find themselves outside the manor...which for some reason is still burning seven years later, so that Jim can inform Amanda that her uncle is inside.
In the train coda, we learn that no bodies were found inside, and Jim convinces Artie to submit a falsified report to Colonel Falk (Ed Prentiss, billed as Col. Fairchild) that involves him having gone missing with amnesia.
In addition to the lack of time travel logic, nobody in the episode even attempted a southern accent.
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Hogan's Heroes
"Art for Hogan's Sake"
Originally aired December 30, 1966
IMDb said:
An assertive Gen. Burkhalter "requisitions" the famous Édouard Manet painting, "The Fife Player," from the Louvre museum in Paris to give to Hermann Goering as a birthday present. Undaunted by seemingly impossible logistics, Hogan and LeBeau decide to steal it back.
Burkhalter has to get out of his car on the way to Stalag 13 to take cover with the packed-up painting because of Allied bombing. He wants to keep it there until Goering's birthday for safekeeping, and LeBeau, eavesdropping on the office to find out what Burkhalter brought, is outraged to the point of tears, and sneaks into the office to cut the canvas out of its frame. Hogan initially wants to return it to keep Klink in Burkhalter's good graces; then has second thoughts, seeing the opportunity for some intel gathering while taking it back to Paris. Hogan returns ashes to Klink's office, leading Klink to believe that LeBeau burned the painting; then Hogan suggests a scheme for him and LeBeau to travel to Paris with Schultz and Corporal Karl Langenscheidt (Jon Cedar) to have the painting duplicated by a forger LeBeau knows. They smuggle the painting in the car, and along the way persuade Schultz to impersonate a general.
At a sidewalk cafe, while General Schultz watches nearby--and a couple of Gestapo types watch more closely--Hogan and LeBeau meet a pair named Suzette (Ina Victor) and Verlaine (Norbert Schiller). They take the painting to Verlaine's studio for copying, where Schultz sees
the real painting NOTH-THINGK! The plainclothes Gestapo man (John Crawford) and his uniformed aide pay the place a visit, where everyone hides but Suzette and a drunken Schultz, who covers for the others by acting offended at the interruption. The forgery is taken back to the stalag, where Burkhalter examines the painting carefully, thinking that something's wrong with it. Hogan and LeBeau drop in, LeBeau inspects the painting, and confirms that it's a forgery...claiming that sources back home have told him the original was already taken by Goering and replaced.
In the coda, Hogan has Kinch send London the intel they gathered on the trip about the deployment of German forces, and Schultz wants to borrow the general's uniform for a leave.
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He's got wanderlust.
Yeah, that was too subtle to be funny.
If only we had gotten that fourth season. I want to see that Professor versus Evil Professor showdown!
Or just reveal that the Professor was evil all along...
I forget how he got Batman off the hook.
Defeated R'as al Ghul, took over his criminal organization to repurpose for humanitarian purposes, and used the Lazarus Pit.
It was hard to tell what they were doing in that documentary video.
