Think about it. You're a fairly young, good-looking, unattached college professor. You get stranded on a desert island with a glamorous Hollywood sex goddess and a wholesomely gorgeous farm girl. Your only competition consists of an aging, married millionaire whose wife is right there and would never let him get away with anything; an overweight sailor who'd never stand a chance with them; and a man-child stuck in psychological prepubescence. You're just about the only remotely competent person around, so all the others -- including the two gorgeous girls -- respect you, trust you, and rely on you completely.
Now, tell me: even if you did know how to build a boat or otherwise arrange a rescue, would you
want to?
Yes, and everybody else would get off the island, too. Everybody
but
Gilligan. I would leave the child-man to stay there and survive by himself, which would force him to grow up and survive.
It's been said that the reason they never get off of the island is because Gilligan doesn't want then to. Everybody else has a purpose in civilliazation, but Gilligan doesn't. He's inept and completely fucked up, and can't survive without the help of the Skipper (I believe that he's most likely borderline retarded, or he has a severe learning disabillity.) The show is called
Gilligan's Island because on that island, he's king, and he has a purpose-he's not inept, he can thrive, and his shenanigans aren't a problem there as they are in society. So Gilligan could stay there. But without other people, it would be hell, so thanks to his jack-in-the-box mishaps he causes every time the other castaways are on the verge of leaving, they're thwarted -the attempt to make a film that would tell the outside world where they are and how they got there that's botched by Gilligan is one example. (This is a reversal of the situation in the novel
The Admirable Crichton by J.M. Barrie, because the main character is not an inept person, but a strongly intelligent and resourseful man who makes the others-the family that he was a butler for back in England-survive living on the island by taking charge so that they can do exactly that, and get off the island, which they do.) Gilligan isn't Crichton, so the others have to take up the slack of survival, with Gilligan helping out, and as I said before, he sabatoges their efforts every time they're all on the verge of leaving.
A great ending for the show would be for them to realize that Gilligan is the one keeping them there, and devising a plan in secret to leave that does not involve him. They succeed at it, and Gilligan is left there when they are rescued/leave the island in a ship of their own making. Gilligan is left to fend for himself, learns how to do so (he has an advantage, since all of the structures he helped build are already built, so he won't be cold and wet when it rains!) Gilligan survives, and because he has to catch coconuts and fish, he grows and becomes more mature, although he becomes angry with every passing day at the betrayal of his 'friends' (who help out by periodically dropping off 'care packages.') Eventually, they arrange for him to get off of the island-or somebody takes pity on him and rescues him-and he returns to civillization, where he tearfully and angrily confronts each of them as to why they left without him. They tell him that they all had lives to live, and that they didn't want to spend all that time with an arrested development case stuck at the age of ten who treated the island as his own private kingdom with subjects to help him out of his messes. Gilligan realizes that they were right in leaving him there, eventually gets over it, goes back to school (vocational school for adults?) and gets a job driving a taxi, eventually befrending the owner of a diner, becoming BFF's, and being best man at the man's wedding.
He does not see his former friends ever again, though-and the feeling is mutual.
