User Reviews

Diogenes is a definitely a change of pace episode. It's leisurely with very little action and uncharacteristically quiet moments. If the series had had more of these offerings, this one wouldn't seem so oddly out of place.

All that happens in the cold start is the Skipper trails Gilligan through the jungle. By the end we learn that our lead is hiding something from his big buddy. It's a slow news day on the island apparently because the rest of the castaways really have to know what Gilligan is hiding. The speculation is it must be something valuable. Mr. Howell suggests it's a bottle of Scotch.

The unwanted attention from his fellow castaways gets to our lead. He takes his grievances to the Professor, not able to understand all the fuss over a diary, which is all he has been hiding. The Professor shares this revelation with the others to satisfy their curiosity and give poor Gilligan a break. His break is all of one scene, since human nature sets in and now the others want to know what's in the diary.

Again, a really slow news day.

The rest of the first act are scenes we've seen many times before with the others doing their best to order, bribe, and coax Gilligan out of his privacy. Our lead refuses to budge and winds up chucking the diary into the lagoon, and the others return disappointedly to their uneventful lives.

At least the second half offers some fun, a little action, and feels more like a typical episode. The three major castaways outside of Gilligan-the Skipper, Mr. Howell, and Ginger-decide to write their own versions of events that have happened on the island. Gilligan wanders in on the Skip journaling in their hut and randomly brings up the Japanese sailor from the So Sorry, My Island Now episode. After a replay of Gilligan's rescue, the Skip tells him he has it all wrong and offers his take where he is the brave hero who single-handily saved them all, and we get fresh scenes with the sailor. In Mr. Howell's version, he is the one who escaped from prison and defeated the sailor with a rumba move, of all things; and in Ginger's take, she is a spy who judos him into the lagoon. Of the three alternate realities, the funniest is the Skipper's dramatically over-the-top take.

Following all the silliness, the episode returns to being quiet and low-key. Mary Ann recovers the diary and reads aloud some of its contents to the others. They hear the simple, naïve way in which our lead views them-well, the major castaways, anyway-and are so touched by his kind words that they burn their copycat diaries. It's an atypical finish for a show that is known for slapstick and dumb hijinks, and is nicely effective.

The final gag is more typical, with Gilligan as the butt of the joke.

COCONOTES:

Very nice episode for Alan Hale. He is at his Hardyish best working on his diary: self-important, pompous, and egotistic.

"Stand back, ladies. Sometimes the shrapnel comes through my fingers."

Like how the Japanese sailor pours the entire cup onto Gilligan in the water torture scene.

Gilligan writes in his diary that Mr. Howell doesn't think money is important. Really? He certainly forgot all the times the billionaire tried to swindle him.

Would like to know what Gilligan wrote about his love interest, Mary Ann. Certain the word 'sweet' came up.

We start with Gilligan walking through the jungle with the Skipper following him intently. It turns out that Gilligan is hiding something and everyone else on the island wants to know what it is. When it's revealed that Gilligan is keeping a diary, their curiosity is ramped up even more until Gilligan decides to toss the diary into the lagoon.

Unhappy with Gilligan, the Skipper, Mr. Howell and Ginger decide to record their own recollections. When the story of the Japanese sailor is retold (Originally seen in "So Sorry, My Island Now" from earlier this season), each castaway has their own point of view that differs significantly from Gilligan's and the truth. In the meantime, Gilligan's diary washes ashore and Mary Ann reads it to the rest of the group.

This is a well crafted and sweet episode in its own way. It reveals a lot about the closeness of the castaways while still packing in the laughs. The Skipper (Alan Hale) is really the star of this show starting with his overly curious nature (the delayed reaction to Gilligan's discovery of his attempted theft of the diary is priceless) to his over the top heroics he tells in a calm, condescending fashion to Gilligan about how he saved them from the Japanese sailor ("Watch out ladies, sometimes the shrapnel comes through my fingers.")

Ginger (Tina Louise) and Mr. Howell (the always great Jim Backus) have their moments as well in recalling their superhuman efforts in saving everyone from the Japanese sailor, with Gilligan being completely hapless in all of their versions. Mr. Howell's "dance" with the Japanese sailor is particularly funny and well done.

The highlight is clearly Mary Ann's reading of Gilligan's diary, which is very sweet and thoughtful. It's always pleasant when the show takes a moment to reflect on how much they care about each other. Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) was the perfect choice to read the diary and she delivers a very good performance.

Unfortunately, we have to revisit the Japanese sailor, a pidgin-English speaking, buck tooth, coke-bottle glasses wearing stereotype played at full throttle by the Italian-in-origin Vito Scotti. In the 1960s, this character was merely offensive, today he's pretty much unacceptable and difficult to watch at times, especially for younger generations who may be quite shocked that such a character was created in the first place. To be fair, Vitto was a talented actor, playing a wide variety of roles and did what he was told to do in this episode, but it is so difficult to get past him that it drags the show down considerably.

Still, there is enough here to enjoy and the technical aspects of recreating elements of the original Japanese sailor episode is also impressive as well. For those who can stomach Vito's performance, this is a very nice show...but if not, that is perfectly understandable as well.

• The Japanese sailor's response to Ginger's claim of being a black belt ("...and I'm good looking.") is a direct callback to the original episode when Ginger repeatedly told him he was "good looking".

• You can easily tell that when Ginger and the Japanese sailor "fight", it is two stunt people with very different hair that we see. Plus, the stuntman playing the sailor that was launched into the lagoon by Mr. Howell certainly earned his pay as he must have flown 20 feet through the air.

• It's clear that Mary Ann and the Professor are still considered "minor" characters in the show since they are not mentioned when Mary Ann reads the diary. While it's understandable that Mary Ann may not want to read aloud about what Gilligan thinks about her, not mentioning the Professor is rather strange when everyone else got mentioned.

• With this episode I have a little bit of an embarrassing confession to make. When seeing it as a small child, I never really got the joke when Gilligan asked the Skipper and Mr. Howell to repeat certain words like "quartered" when they threatened him, only to have both characters smile and back away. Some 20+ years later I found myself re-watching the episode with a few friends when I finally got it. Needless to say, my friends did not let me off easy.

Of all the episodes for the castaways to claim heroism over, the Japanese sailor episode is probably the best choice even though it's further exposes the anti-Japanese sentiment of the 1960's. It's easy to overlook the actual episode, but by exaggerating it through fictional flashbacks, the subtle racisms are made all the more obvious. Vito Scotti is even more over the top in this episode, and in some of the scenarios, far dumber than in the actual episode that aired much earlier in the season.

The episode surrounds the mystery of Gilligan's diary which at first, the other castaways think is a valuable possession he's hiding from the others. When Gilligan decides to get rid of the diary because it seems to be causing nothing but problems, the others are disappointed and decide to write their own versions of what has been going on. Is there that much ink on the island?

Of course, the fact that this is simply burlesking the episode makes it purposely over the top, but it also shows the various insecurities and narcissisms of the other castaways. When Gilligan's diary does miraculously show up, it almost canonizes him, although I do question what he wrote about Mr. Howell who has been often cruel to him and Ginger who in a few episodes used her sex appeal to try to manipulate him.