Thanks to the earworm that is The Ballad of Gilligan's Island, most of the audience knows how Gilligan (Bob Denver) and the other missing people got stuck. Gilligan and the captain (Alan Hale) were taking five passengers on a planned three-hour tour of the Hawaiian Islands when they encountered bad weather and were thrown off course. The ship washed ashore on an unknown desert island, and the seven missing people had to learn to survive. Because Gilligan's Island was broad and cartoony, however, survival was never gruesome or even particularly difficult. There was rarely a shortage of food or water, and everyone carried huge amounts of clothing and provisions. Life actually seemed okay on Gilligan's Island, despite the complete isolation.

This was stated by the creator of the series, Sherwood Schwartz he intended Gilligan's Island to be an idealized microcosm of a well-functioning American democracy. Seven characters, all from different classes, are forced to live together due to extreme circumstances, but they manage to survive, thrive and get along without killing each other. For Schwartz, The Island was an upbeat series.

Of course, in its structure, Gilligan's Island is also a portrait of Sisyphean futility. At the beginning of each episode, an object or person appears on the island, offering the Westerners a potential avenue of escape. The professor (Russell Johnson) designs their escape route, and the hearts of the missing are full of hope. Then, as a cosmic agent of fate, Gilligan attacks the escape, and the missing sink into despair again. Hope is fleeting; our own flaws and folly keep us captive.

The series was never given a proper ending either. After three seasons and 98 episodes, the missing never really got away. Their escape would make it into a 1978 TV movie, and even then, it was only temporary. In that sense, there were multiple endings on "Gilligan's Island."

The last episode of Gilligan's Island was called "Gilligan, Goddess" (April 17, 1967), and its story was as typical as every episode before it. A neighboring king from a nearby island demands a young woman be sacrificed to the volcano gods (gotta love that 1960s cultural sensibility), so the refugees dress Gilligan in drag and offer him up in her recliner. There is nothing epic or significant about the story of that episode to indicate that the series is coming to an end.

Indeed, showrunners assumed that Gilligan's Island would be picked up for a fourth season. Instead, it was pulled from the CBS calendar at the last minute.

Speaking in 2013 Esquire interviewMary Ann actress Dawn Wells recalled how the long-running superhit Gunsmoke was canceled and the plan was for Gilligan's Island to move into its time slot. However, from what she understands, a CBS executive pushed to cancel "Gilligan's Island" instead of "Gunsmoke" at the insistence of their spouse, who loved the latter series. "(Barbara) Paley — the wife of the chairman of the board (William S. Paley) — was on vacation when 'Gunsmoke' was canceled, and when she got home, she said, 'You can't cancel 'Gunsmoke.' It's my favorite show.' "That's how they canceled us," Wells explained. Eventually, Schwartz's show was taken off the air while "Gunsmoke" lasted until 1975.

As /Film wrote earlier, the cancellation of Gilligan's Island was the result of then-new CBS president James T. William S. Paley, a longtime champion of "Gunsmoke," forced Aubrey to cancel the show, allowing the stars to renegotiate their contracts and ask for more money. The increased budget for "Gunsmoke" forced CBS to make cuts elsewhere, so "Gilligan's Island" was scrapped.

And so it went. Gilligan's Island never got a proper ending and moved into perpetual syndication, airing reruns for years.

Still, thanks to those reruns, Gilligan's Island remained a smash hit. Schwartz's series was never a critical success, but it was a pretty strong ratings hit. Ratings remained high in reruns, and the show was seen, again and again, throughout the 1970s. By 1978, interest was still high, and audiences were finally invested in the plight of Westerners.

The fans' concerns would finally be addressed in the 1978 TV movie Rescue from Gilligan's Island, an event that was supposed to conclude the Gilligan's Island storyline. The cast of the show is back, except Tina Louise (Ginger), who was replaced by Judith Baldwin. "Rescue" catches up with the missing after being blocked for 15 years. When a radioactive piece of a Soviet satellite lands on the island, the professor turns it into a barometer ... only to find that a storm is coming, big enough to destroy the island. In a last ditch effort, the castaways join their cabins together to create a makeshift sea vessel.

The ship drifts out to sea, was spotted by a passing ship, and the missing were rescued. They return to the mainland ... only to find that much has changed. Mary Ann is headed for an unhappy marriage, the professor can't return to his professorship because of his celebrity, and the captain gets caught up in an insurance rigmarole over the fate of the SS Minnow. There are also Russian spies following them all, hoping to locate their radioactive satellite.

Looks like the rescue didn't really make the lucky ones terribly happy. When the insurance payout finally comes through, the missing are reunited aboard the SS Minnow II to celebrate. Unfortunately, the Minnow II's compass is broken and when bad weather hits, it gets thrown off course. The film ends with the refugees returning to the same island, stranded once again.

The end of "Gilligan's Island" will be a big cosmic joke.

Rescue was popular enough, however, to get a 1979 sequel called The Castaways of Gilligan's Island, which also brought our seven heroes back to the mainland. The storm from the previous TV movie seems to have revealed a secret US Army airfield hangar that has always been on the island (!), so the professor builds a working plane from the machines inside. The plane accidentally drops Gilligan, forcing them to land back on the island, but their flight attracts the attention of the US Navy. The island is finally mapped and became American territory, and the missing are saved forever.

The second half of the TV movie was meant to be a pilot for a Fantasy Island-style serieshttps://www.slashfilm.com/Love Boat where the Howells open a beach resort on their old island, with guests starting to regularly visits to get advice on their love life. (Sisyphean, they made their rock "their work").

However, The Castaways of Gilligan's Island never spawned an actual series.

1981 saw Gilligan's last live-action adventure, and it was the strangest yet. "Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" sees the title basketball team crashing into the runaways' beach resort. At the same time, a rival of Mr. Howell tricks young Thurston Howell IV (David Rupprecht) into signing over the rights to the resort. To get him back, the Globetrotters have to win a game against the rival basketball team, which is made up of robots.

Yes, it's real.

There were also two animated Gilligan's Island spinoffsbut they are not usually considered canon. One of the shows takes the missing to a distant planet (!), where they communicate with aliens. However, when Gilligan's Planet was canceled in 1983, that was the last anyone heard of the missing.

At least until their 1987 guest appearance on the sitcom "ALF." The appearance of "ALF" implied that the missing were stranded once again and still longed for civilization. It seems that salvation will never be permanent for them.