Aloha, Hawaii Five-O

Where did the long weekend go?  Oh, yeah. How would I know? If I wasn’t in a car headed some place, I was asleep and watching TV. Save for a Holy Week pilgrimage that had us trekking up some 200 steps to Jesus in Quezon, my activities were limited to small spaces: my part of the backseat of my brother’s car, my bed, the living room couch. Then again, that’s how I’ve always spent the Easter break. If nobody’s bringing me someplace, I stay at home and watch television.

I count among my major accomplishments discovering the new Hawaii Five-0. It’s another police procedural drama—but one that brings back the flavor of the old Hawaii Five-O reruns I grew up watching in the 1980s and mixes it up with modern elements. The opening billboard alone is a blast from the past: it uses the same theme and also shows Hawaii’s famous waves, albeit framed by a modern computer screen of some sort.

When I started watching the original Hawaii Five-O, the series was already over in the United States. It ran from 1968 to 1980, but television worked more slowly back then, so I caught the reruns. 

I don’t really remember a lot about the original series, except for the music, the Aloha shirts, the original Steve McGarrett wearing darks suits (in Hawaii!), and the rarity of the show featuring a lot of Asians. I know they solved a lot of crime and that, as in most procedural shows we followed back then, there was a very Asian archnemesis.

Reading the newspaper recently, I would remember that that archnemesis was called Wo Fat and he was Chinese. In the show’s latest incarnation, Wo Fat is now Japanese, with ties to the Yakuza. He’s portrayed by Iron Chef America’s Mark Dacascos, who is always touted, at least in local media, to be part-Filipino, though he’s also part-so-many-other-nationalities.

Hawaii Five-O was reborn as Hawaii Five-0 in late 2010, with four mainstays:  Alex O’Loughlin as Lt. Comm. Steve McGarrett, a former Navy SEAL; Scott Caan as Det. Sgt. Danno Williams, a Honolulu Police Department detective; Daniel Dae Kim (the Korean guy from Lost) as Det. Chin Ho Kelly; and Grace Park as Ofc. Kono Kalakaua, a rookie cop who just got out of police academy.

The episodes I caught were smart and compelling. Truth be told, I was afraid of how it would fare against shows like CSI: Miami an NCIS, but I think the new Hawaii Five-0 can stand on its own merits. The Steve and Danno (Scott Caan!) duo have undeniable beefcake factor, of course, but they also get the no-nonsense cops role down pat. 

What I remember loving about the old Hawaii Five-O is that they always brought out the human factor — perhaps it’s something that’s typically Hawaiian? — and I’ve noticed that the current Hawaii Five-0 does the same. I’ll need to catch several more episodes to know for sure, though. Times have changed.

Speaking of which, I’ve always wondered about the title and, thanks to the leaps and bounds made by technology since I first watched Hawaii Five-O, I now know the answer.  In the original series, Five-O is, indeed, “five” and “letter O.” The title, however, is taken from the fact that Hawaii is the United States’ 50th state. 

In the new series, in case you were wondering, it’s a zero. CBS has explained that it’s more for Internet searches. Time have changed, alright.

And here’s nice touch: In one of the episodes I caught over the Easter break, Episode 14 “He Kane Hewa’ Ole,” Steve and Danno have a running dialogue on another show I grew up watching in the 1980s, CHiPs. They’re arguing who gets to be Erik Estrada. 

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