User Reviews

Mrs. Howell, pining for the days of being socially involved with her old friends, spots Gilligan carrying Mary Ann and conceives the idea of setting them up for matrimony. Mr. Howell is reluctantly brought into the scheme to work on Gilligan while Mrs. Howell focuses on Mary Ann.

Inviting them both to dinner, the Howells wish to impress upon the youngsters how glorious it is to be married. But instead wind up arguing and leaving each other. The rest of the castaways band together and recreate the night Mr. Howell proposed to Lovey at the Tour Dargent on West 47th Street...or is it West 52nd Street?

This is one of those "necessary" episodes that was obviously in response to the question "Why does no one ever "hook up" on Gilligan's Island?" Still, it is actually well executed with a superb bit of timing that keeps the possibilities open for Gilligan and Mary Ann without spoiling it one way or another.

Highlights include Mr. Howell's initial reluctance to get involved in his wife's scheme, his subsequent action of nearly throttling Gilligan when he's reminded of the solid gold camera he destroyed, the Professor and the Skipper commenting on Gilligan's upcoming dinner at the Howells (arguably the best and funniest scene in the episode), the recreation of the place where Mr. Howell proposed to his wife and the epilogue scene where Mr. Howell nearly loses it all as Lovey spots another potential couple in the making.

All of these elements come together quite well, although arguably the set up for the final "soup" joke with Gilligan is somewhat lame. Still, a funny, well executed episode that is fun to watch and with a great epilogue scene as well.

• The timing of the Howell's re-entry into their hut to help Mary Ann and Gilligan was simply perfect as we actually see these two progress through their feelings a bit...enough to entice thoughts of what might be, but not enough to really confirm anything.

• The set-up of the Tour Dargent is actually well crafted with the "kitchen" being on the outside of the hut. I suppose that's the Skipper's record player, which is probably powered off of a spring and it's a good thing his record collection included music that Ginger could sing and dance with. :)

• Funny, the Skipper's ability to cook has now returned after being absent for "St. Gilligan and the Dragon"

• Although it was a little hard to see (for me at least), Gilligan sports a somewhat new hairstyle and penciled-in mustache as the waiter.

The twenty-fifth entry of the first season squanders its early potential in favor of a stock plot that will be repeated several more times in the show's run. A shame, really, because The Matchmaker is fun, entertaining, intriguing and even romantic for half an episode, anyway, and then it loses its luster.

Mrs. Howell is the catalyst in this one. She misses the social season back home. She spies Gilligan carrying Mary Ann in the cold open and sees a power couple in the making. Mrs. Howell believes they just need a little push in the right direction, and soon Gilligan will be carrying her over the threshold.

Along with her reluctant hubby, Mrs. Howell sows the seeds of matrimony into the heads of the potential lovebirds. Mr. Howell's talk with Gilligan goes over his pointy head, and ends with our lead destroying his prized solid gold camera. Mrs. Howell's talk with Mary Ann goes decidedly better, as she appeals to the farm girl's biological clock. To spur things further, they mislead Gilligan into delivering flowers to Mary Ann, who then believes she is being courted, and they invite the couple separately to their hut for a (hopefully) romantic dinner.

The episode gains steam as Ginger has a heartfelt talk with Gilligan over how appearances can be misleading, which misleads him into thinking that she is his love interest. In a very funny scene, the other single men on the isle tease him over the romantic entanglement he's gotten himself into.

The episode peaks with the dinner scene. Once the Howells give them a moment to themselves, the couple shyly and awkwardly begin to connect. It's a wonderful, but all too brief moment.

It's brief because the Howells, for purposes of the plot, just have to meddle. They try to show the couple what a real, long-lasting relationship looks like, and wind up quarreling over the details of their own first date. Their quarrel escalates rapidly to the point where they've stopped speaking to each other, and the tension upsets the castaway's morning meal.

Gilligan and Mary Ann's relationship is sidelined and largely forgotten as the second act steadily declines into a standard plot to get the wealthy Bickersons back together. Typically, the castaways hit this project with the same zeal as they did Ginger's stage play and Gilligan's trial, with total group participation, as they recreate the Howell's special night at the Tour D'Argent French restaurant in their hut.

Okay, the set design isn't bad; Gilligan does get to play a French waiter with a pencil-thin mustache; and Ginger performs the sexiest rendition of Alouette on record. (It takes exactly one song to reunite the Howells). But mostly it's broad, silly farce designed to get all the castaways into the action, and to put the far more interesting relationship on the back burner.

Gilligan-Mary Ann shippers can only wonder what might have been.

COCONOTES:

Have to dispute the notion by Mrs. Howell that Mary Ann and Gilligan have never had any romantic interest in each other up to this point. A budding relationship was clearly hinted at in Goodbye, Island.

Mr. Howell's solid gold camera is a different model from the one in How to Be a Hero.

Love Mary Ann's giggle at the idea of Gilligan being husband material.

It's back to the community hut arrangement for the men.

It's never explained why the Skipper thinks Ginger has bats in her belfry.

What starts off as an episode focusing on Gilligan and Mary Ann switches to the Howells as Lovey's plan to bring a romance about between the younger castaways turns into an argument between the Howells. They are minor little squabbles but it's enough to create some backbiting at breakfast and the rest of the castaways gather together to recreate their engagement dinner 22 years before at a New York restaurant that they disagree about the address.

With Gilligan as a bumbling waiter (complete with thin mustache), Ginger singing a slow French song, the skipper as the chef and the professor of the maitre'd, it's a romantic but often silly sequence with Gilligan blocked by Ginger's dancing as he desperately tries to serve soup, and all seem to go well. But no sooner has it then resolved then Lovey, desperate to be society queen, is at it again.

We get to see Thurston with a solid gold camera that Gilligan manages to destroy, and some glamorous island cuisine that no civilized person would probably eat. Still, an episode that focuses on the Howells is an enjoyable one, mainly because of the brilliant acting of Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer.