Gilligan's Island vs Survivor

Dear Ian:
It's late, or early, depending on how you look at it.

But sometimes, if you are lucky, thoughts will come to you whenever, and you just run with them.

So, I was thinking, the world sure has become a different place. More frightening than I ever imagined.

Now, when I was growing up, we had Gilligan's Island. Some in black and white, some in color, but most assuredly in reruns. I think. Am I that old? Anyhow, I remember constant debates with friends, Todd V. for sure, about the relative "hotness" of Ginger or Mary Ann. This may be the debate of the ages, for we were certainly not the first, nor the last to travel down that path. But the important lesson was always how this group of relative strangers worked in unison to get off the island. With each episode, hope would spring eternal, and a new solution would be given to their predicament, and nearly without fail, it was Gilligan who would muss things up, and there they would remain.

Odd that the island would be named after him, no?

Anyhow, by the end of the episode, everyone would forgive Gilligan and they would go about their lives and be thankful for being together, and perhaps indulge in one of Mary Ann's famous coconut cream pies. No wrankling, no infighting, no blame, no hate...

But now, in this generation that we are setting out for you, we have Survivor, and the impetus seems to be one of elimination. The castaways, one by one, vote each other off the island. They work in unison when it suits them, but will quickly turn on one another.

This has spawned countless "reality" television shows like Big Brother, The Apprentice, and even "The Real Gilligan's Island." All of them work as an force of elimination.

I find it sad, if one considers the planet we live on may be our very own Gilligan's Island, that we are being taught and encouraged to eliminate one another.

There are no reruns on this one.