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Hawaii Five-0: 1x02 "Ohana" - Discussion and Spoilers

Grade the episode:

  • Excellent

    Votes: 1 5.3%
  • Good

    Votes: 13 68.4%
  • Average

    Votes: 4 21.1%
  • Bad

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Terrible

    Votes: 1 5.3%

  • Total voters
    19
Tonally, I think the big shift is the relationship between McGarrett and the rest of the team. In the current show they seem alot closer to each other friendship wise.

Interesting that you see it that way. I have totally the opposite impression. In this current show, it comes across to me as Steve and Danny simply "tolerating" each other.
Not an unusual situation in cop shows and movies. They get on each others nerves but are becoming buddies. If one was female they'd fall in love. ;)


Exactly. It's the male ego in conflict story, developing into mutual respect, developing into I LOVE YOU MAN, sorta thing.

Caan's doing great with it. The other guy, he's fine. He's just not as fun to watch.
 
Tonally, I think the big shift is the relationship between McGarrett and the rest of the team. In the current show they seem alot closer to each other friendship wise.

I had the impression that McGarrett was the top cop in the state and he was mentoring Danno for bigger things. Now he is a 90 day wonder put in command by a governor who has to slap him down sometimes this year. Danno is the Sergeant who has to train his new commander. I don't know what to make with corruption inside of HPD so strong that an outsider, Danno, is alone in investigating papa McGarrett's murder.

Your impression of the original is consistent with what I remember.

I was sitting here thinking about the original series and certain aspects and I don't believe we ever got much background on McGarrett, at least accounting for the time between him being in the Navy and being appointed to the head of 5-0. I do recall a scene with McGarrett and the Governor early on, perhaps in the pilot, if not the pilot at some point in season 1, where it's pretty strongly hinted that 5-0 had just been created. But I'm not sure we ever got much more of McGarrett's background and why he was picked to head up the task force.
 
So, again, I'll ask: why do you think the show isn't much like the original? Tone? The action sequences?

Well if you're truly interested, as opposed to just looking for an argument, I will be glad to expand. You politely asked, and I'll politely respond. Again this about what's DIFFERENT, not about what's good or bad.

First of all, it starts with McGarrett. Jack Lord's Steve was very much by the book, he would NEVER dangle somebody off a building or torture them as seen this week. Steve was much more of a professional police officer than in this newer version.

Then there comes the relationship between Steve and Danny, or the whole team for that matter. It's just totally different, there's definitely more respect, just a more civil way of interacting with each other in the original than in this new version. Actually I think it's this relationship difference that I find the most different, and the thing I struggle with the most.

I don't recall if in the original if Chin Ho had a cloud hanging over him or not, I don't believe he did, but I can't be 100% on that. My best recollection is that he was just another straight laced officer who went to work for Steve. But other than that, I actually feel like the new Chin Ho most closely resembles his past counterpart.

Finally Kono. The original Kono was portrayed by Zulu, an actual native born big burly Hawaiian male, again another established police officer. You have to admit the way they cast this new character was quite a departure from that. No one will mistake Grace Park for Zulu. :lol:

Those are the things that jump out at me as "bearing no resemblance" from one show to the next.
Thats all true but did you think they were going to make a show with 1960s attitudes and characterizations? Stiff by the book officers in suits uttering their lines in a clipped barely emotional manner isn't how its done these days. Even by the book shows like the L&Os try to give their cops more personality than was exhibited in the orginal 5-0. Lets face it not all that much difference between Danny, Chin and Kono except for their appearance. McGarrett was their boss and that was his big difference. In the new show they've gone for more of a Starsky & Hutch vibe with McGarrett and Dano being contemporaries, though McGarrett is still the boss its Dano who has the experience. OTHO McGarrett is a native born Hawaiian and Dano's from the mainland so he's our POV character who can ask questions so Steve, Chin and Kono can fill him ( and the audience in.)

Yes Grace Park and therefore Kono is a woman. Females leads in cop show!!! Whatta crazy world. ;)


Exactly. You hit the nail on the head. I've tried watching the old show, but it was pretty drab. The acting wasn't great, and it was stiffer than a body at a morgue. They've injected the characters with a personality in this version. Ironically, I feel this has more in common with cop shows from the 80's where the focus was character, before the starkly serious procedural dramas took over in the 90's. I always liked Magnum P.I for that reason, and this version of 5-0 has more of that feel.
 
Tonally, I think the big shift is the relationship between McGarrett and the rest of the team. In the current show they seem alot closer to each other friendship wise.

I had the impression that McGarrett was the top cop in the state and he was mentoring Danno for bigger things. Now he is a 90 day wonder put in command by a governor who has to slap him down sometimes this year. Danno is the Sergeant who has to train his new commander. I don't know what to make with corruption inside of HPD so strong that an outsider, Danno, is alone in investigating papa McGarrett's murder.

Your impression of the original is consistent with what I remember.

I was sitting here thinking about the original series and certain aspects and I don't believe we ever got much background on McGarrett, at least accounting for the time between him being in the Navy and being appointed to the head of 5-0. I do recall a scene with McGarrett and the Governor early on, perhaps in the pilot, if not the pilot at some point in season 1, where it's pretty strongly hinted that 5-0 had just been created. But I'm not sure we ever got much more of McGarrett's background and why he was picked to head up the task force.

I was hoping hulu or youtube would come to the rescue but the best I found was this:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4A8ZUIGv5Q[/yt]
Unfortunately, it needs more on both ends.

Just think, when the first show debuted Hawaii had only been a state for 10 years.
 
I don't think that's the clip I'm thinking of, but my memory of it is vague so maybe it was. The scene I'm remembering (possibly misremembering) involved the guy who came to play the Governor on a regular basis.

But that was a good find. Thanks for sharing.

EDIT TO ADD: That inspired me to dig out my Season 1 DVDs and rewatch the pilot. Because now I'm curious to see what this "manhandling" was that the governor referred to. If he's dangling someone off a roof, I'll have to come back and eat crow. :lol:
 
Did they use the same theme song? (even if it's updated )

That's the great thing -- it isn't updated. Aside from being cut down to half-length, it's simply a new performance of the exact same arrangment of Morton Stevens's theme.

And they actually used most of the original musicians as well. That's pretty cool.

The new Dano is the one to watch.

I totally agree with this. I don't know if it's the character or the acting, but I find myself wishing I was watching his show and not McGarrett's.
 
^Well, the way you tell the difference is that the old show was Hawaii Five-O (letter O) and the new one is Hawaii Five-0 (numeral zero). Wasn't it nice of them to provide such a clear way to keep them straight? ;)

No, the old one was Five-0, too. All numbers. As in, "Hawaii, the 50th state."

Also.... Really not liking the "un-alike partners" vibe going on. Danno wasn't a partner. He was a rookie colleague in the original.

Now, of course, we have to have the whacky partner team up, for all the wise-ass banter that everyone expects today, instead of plot.


Personally I'm finding the guy who plays McGarret to be bland and void of personality, and the show to be, basically, just another action/cop show with nothing but the locale and Grace Park's fine booty to distinguish it from the rest.

This. Very much this.
 
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Now, of course, we have to have the whacky partner team up, for all the wise-ass banter that everyone expects today, instead of plot.

Yeah I guess that's one of the things I've learned from this thread. Apparently being a smartass/jackass/asshole is something to aspire to now days.

I guess this is just another case of me being old, but I guess I just find it to be a sad commentary on society when an "old fashioned" hero type as portrayed by Jack Lord has gone so totally out of style. :(
 
I'm 51. The "smartass/jackass/asshole" has been around for most of my life and the "old fashioned hero type as portrayed by Jack Lord" was on its way out before he filmed a single frame of his "Hawaii 5-0" pilot. A little film he was in called Doctor No probably contributed to its demise. ;)
 
I'm 51. The "smartass/jackass/asshole" has been around for most of my life and the "old fashioned hero type as portrayed by Jack Lord" was on its way out before he filmed a single frame of his "Hawaii 5-0" pilot. A little film he was in called Doctor No probably contributed to its demise. ;)
It seemed that cop shows moved from Sgt Friday on Dragnet to everybody being Serpico
 
^Well, the way you tell the difference is that the old show was Hawaii Five-O (letter O) and the new one is Hawaii Five-0 (numeral zero). Wasn't it nice of them to provide such a clear way to keep them straight? ;)

No, the old one was Five-0, too. All numbers. As in, "Hawaii, the 50th state."

Also.... Really not liking the "un-alike partners" vibe going on. Danno wasn't a partner. He was a rookie colleague in the original.

Now, of course, we have to have the whacky partner team up, for all the wise-ass banter that everyone expects today, instead of plot.
Wise ass banter contributes to characterization, not plot.

I never thought of Danny Williams as a rookie. A younger, less experienced detective than McGarrett, but not a rookie. Wasn't he the number two man on the team? Ahead of the obviously older Chin Ho Kelly, even?
 
I don't recall if in the original if Chin Ho had a cloud hanging over him or not, I don't believe he did, but I can't be 100% on that. My best recollection is that he was just another straight laced officer who went to work for Steve. But other than that, I actually feel like the new Chin Ho most closely resembles his past counterpart.

Chin was the older, seasoned, professional detective of the team. Wife and lots of kids. No cloud. And Chinese/American, not Hawaiian - and played by a Chinese actor, not by a Korean (not that it matters, just an observation).

5-O in the original series wasn't an elite unit the way this new one supposedly is - it was simply the state police; professional cops, handling normal felonies. McGarret was the head of the Hawaii state police. Nothing fancy.

That whole bit with the governor picking some hotshot to head a no-holds-barred unit and allowing him to pick random, especially colorful employees with questionable pasts that needed redemption is just ... I dunno, pretty unbelievable. IMHO.
 
^Well, the way you tell the difference is that the old show was Hawaii Five-O (letter O) and the new one is Hawaii Five-0 (numeral zero). Wasn't it nice of them to provide such a clear way to keep them straight? ;)

No, the old one was Five-0, too. All numbers. As in, "Hawaii, the 50th state."

Also.... Really not liking the "un-alike partners" vibe going on. Danno wasn't a partner. He was a rookie colleague in the original.

Now, of course, we have to have the whacky partner team up, for all the wise-ass banter that everyone expects today, instead of plot.
Wise ass banter contributes to characterization, not plot.

I never thought of Danny Williams as a rookie. A younger, less experienced detective than McGarrett, but not a rookie. Wasn't he the number two man on the team? Ahead of the obviously older Chin Ho Kelly, even?

Yes.
I've been watching an episode per weekend since the original show came out on DVD. I just started season 8.
 
I don't recall if in the original if Chin Ho had a cloud hanging over him or not, I don't believe he did, but I can't be 100% on that. My best recollection is that he was just another straight laced officer who went to work for Steve. But other than that, I actually feel like the new Chin Ho most closely resembles his past counterpart.

Chin was the older, seasoned, professional detective of the team. Wife and lots of kids. No cloud. And Chinese/American, not Hawaiian - and played by a Chinese actor, not by a Korean (not that it matters, just an observation).

5-O in the original series wasn't an elite unit the way this new one supposedly is - it was simply the state police; professional cops, handling normal felonies. McGarret was the head of the Hawaii state police. Nothing fancy.

That whole bit with the governor picking some hotshot to head a no-holds-barred unit and allowing him to pick random, especially colorful employees with questionable pasts that needed redemption is just ... I dunno, pretty unbelievable. IMHO.

That was my impression, but then I can only fully remember three episodes and none of them featured Wo Fat. Besides that it was another cop show with Asian faces in the supporting roles.

The corruption deep in HPD kind of stuff didn't happen on TV until the early 70s and H5-O was already on the air. Maybe they did go there one episode but that's not in one of the three ;)
 
I'm 51. The "smartass/jackass/asshole" has been around for most of my life and the "old fashioned hero type as portrayed by Jack Lord" was on its way out before he filmed a single frame of his "Hawaii 5-0" pilot. A little film he was in called Doctor No probably contributed to its demise. ;)

Guess we didn't watch the same shows growing up, because I don't remember that at all. McGarrett, McCloud, Canon, Mannix, Columbo, McMillan, Dillon, Barnaby Jones, Ironside, and the list goes on and on, and NONE of them were a smartass/jackass/asshole. None, nada. NONE Of them were anything like this current version of H5-0.

The change you're talking about came later. Even the less "straight laced" characters were mild compared to the smart asses that populate our screens today. I didn't really watch Starsky and Hutch so I can't really remember their characterizations clearly, but I think it's probably fair to say they might have been more like that. Baretta was a different kind of character too, but it's been so long since I've seen that, that I'd be hard pressed to call him a smartass/jackass/asshole. His character was definitely more comical than a Steve McGarret for example. He may have been among the leading edge of the change.
 
This site gives a run down of Lord's McGarrett. Seems that like the New McGarrett, Lord's version might have gone from the Navy to heading up the Five-O unit.
 
I'm 51. The "smartass/jackass/asshole" has been around for most of my life and the "old fashioned hero type as portrayed by Jack Lord" was on its way out before he filmed a single frame of his "Hawaii 5-0" pilot. A little film he was in called Doctor No probably contributed to its demise. ;)

Guess we didn't watch the same shows growing up, because I don't remember that at all. McGarrett, McCloud, Canon, Mannix, Columbo, McMillan, Dillon, Barnaby Jones, Ironside, and the list goes on and on, and NONE of them were a smartass/jackass/asshole. None, nada. NONE Of them were anything like this current version of H5-0.

The change you're talking about came later. Even the less "straight laced" characters were mild compared to the smart asses that populate our screens today. I didn't really watch Starsky and Hutch so I can't really remember their characterizations clearly, but I think it's probably fair to say they might have been more like that. Baretta was a different kind of character too, but it's been so long since I've seen that, that I'd be hard pressed to call him a smartass/jackass/asshole. His character was definitely more comical than a Steve McGarret for example. He may have been among the leading edge of the change.

Perhaps Starsky and Hutch started approaching the a hole status as their captain always wondered about his two 'plain clothes' cops in Starsky's special car. It was on Kojak were I think the changes started happening.

Tony Blake was a Little Raschal/our gang child actor alum. The same year Baretta appeared a "more real" Toma lasted half a season as an undercover lone cop probably last seen in Belker of Hill Street Blues
 
I'm 51. The "smartass/jackass/asshole" has been around for most of my life and the "old fashioned hero type as portrayed by Jack Lord" was on its way out before he filmed a single frame of his "Hawaii 5-0" pilot. A little film he was in called Doctor No probably contributed to its demise. ;)

Guess we didn't watch the same shows growing up, because I don't remember that at all. McGarrett, McCloud, Canon, Mannix, Columbo, McMillan, Dillon, Barnaby Jones, Ironside, and the list goes on and on, and NONE of them were a smartass/jackass/asshole. None, nada. NONE Of them were anything like this current version of H5-0.

The change you're talking about came later. Even the less "straight laced" characters were mild compared to the smart asses that populate our screens today. I didn't really watch Starsky and Hutch so I can't really remember their characterizations clearly, but I think it's probably fair to say they might have been more like that. Baretta was a different kind of character too, but it's been so long since I've seen that, that I'd be hard pressed to call him a smartass/jackass/asshole. His character was definitely more comical than a Steve McGarret for example. He may have been among the leading edge of the change.
I watched all of those shows and I said it was on the way out, not they had disappeared. TV was slower to make the shift than movies. By the 70s tough,streetwise "undercover" cops who bucked the system were becoming more popular, influenced by "Serpico" "Dirty Harry" and other films. I dont recall Baretta being totally comical. There was some humor but he was a still tough cop. Baretta was also a reworking of an earleir series called Toma which was based on the life a actual cop. Apparently it came under fire for its portral of violence. ( the more things change...)

I think it was Han Solo who cemented the role of the smartass/jackass/asshole as hero in the minds of the viewing public. ;) ( but it might have been Jim Rockford)
 
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