Thank goodness the presidential candidates finally got around to debating. Up until now, this has been a surreal campaign, in large part because of a novel utilization of television. Bypassing the usual news outlets whenever possible, Bush, Clinton and Perot have basked in the cozier settings of MTV, Arsenio, TNN's Nashville Now, Larry King Live, Donahue, breakfast nooks like Good Morning America and soft-focus newsmagazines like Dateline and 20/20. It's a chatty, feel-good campaign calculated to disarm a restive, fed-up electorate. Who wants to cross swords with Sam Donaldson when you can shoot the breeze with Ralph Emery? But why do I gel the feeling that come November, no matter who is elected, all this eager intimacy will abruptly end and once again we'll only see the President waving as he boards a helicopter?

>CASTAWAYS AND INCORRIGIBLES

ON FRIDAY (OCT. 16, 8 P.M. ET) TBS PRESENTS the never-before-seen pilot from one of the '60s' most popular and curiously enduring sitcoms, Gilligan's Island. The crucial castaways were in place when this was shot in 1964: the hapless Gilligan (Bob Denver), the blustery Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.), lock-jawed millionaire Thurston Howell III (Jim Backus) and his wife, Lovey (Natalie Schafer). CBS used a different episode when the show premiered that September.

And while we're looking back, John Byner introduces a noon matinee of the Bowery Boys every Sunday on A & E. The leader of these risible ruffians was Leo Gorcey as the scrappy, malaprop-spouting "Slip" Mahoney. Huntz Hall played his goofy sidekick, Sach Jones, and Gorcey's father, Bernard, was the apoplectic Louie. These quickie comedies have held up remarkably well since they were made in the '40s and '50s. Watching today, you can clearly see that big-in-France movie star Mickey Rourke patterned his acting style, his accent and all his smug facial expressions on Leo Gorcey. As Slip might say, "It's inconfutable."