“The Real Gilligan’s Island”

Last night on TBS

No stars

‘THE Real Gilligan’s Island” isn’t the real “Gilligan’s Island” at all.

Last night on the premiere of the highly hyped new reality-TV version of “Gilligan” on TBS, there were no natives babbling gibberish, no stunt men in gorilla suits lobbing hand grenades and no shell-shocked Japanese sailors who believed World War II was still under way.

Instead, you were left with a bunch of strangers dressed up in costumes to look like the beloved char acters from the orig inal “Gilligan’s Island,” but that’s where the similarities ended.

On the updated reality version, therewere two ofeach character – a total of 14 castaways divided into two teams who competed for island dominance in the manner of “Survivor,” whose producers should sue everyone involved in “The Real Gilligan’s Island.”

How modern is the new “Gilligan”? On the new version, both Gingers (real-life “movie stars” Rachel Hunter and Nicole Eggert) curse like drunken sailors, one of the professors is gay, and one of the Mary Anns comes across more like a working girl than a farm girl, especially when she straddles one of the millionaire’s backs and delivers a massage that leaves him moaning.

And the original Lovey Howell was likely turning over in her grave.

Last night’s premiere ran for two hours, but it could have been 15 minutes for all the time that was wasted watching the castaways sitting around and bickering – and accomplishing nothing.

No one bothered to build a telephone out of coconuts, or lash any stones to the bottoms of bamboo strips to create golf clubs, or attempt to generate electricity by building a stationary bicycle out of bamboo and driftwood and then hook the contraption up to the radio.

Most of all, what was lacking in “The Real Gilligan’s Island” was humor, something the producers forgot when they were turning this classic TV series of the ’60s into one of the worst reality series of the ’00s.