DVD Reviews

Hawaii Five-0: Season 1 (2010)

In the fall of 2010, the classic television show to get the old ‘dust off’ and modern upgrade was Hawaii Five-O.  It’s no surprise that the writing talent behind other past properties made into current successes, writers Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci (Transformers, Star Trek) were behind the project.  After his father is murdered, Commander Steve McGarrett (Moonlight’s Alex O’Loughlin) forms a special task force in Hawaii dubbed ‘Five-O’ in an effort to uncover the reasons for his father’s killing and handle special cases for the current Govenor of the island. 

He recruits Detective Danny Williams (Ocean’s 11’s Scott Caan); a former New Jersey officer staying on the island to be near his daughter, Chin Ho Kelly (Lost’s Daniel Dae Kim); a blacklisted former Honolulu P.D. trying to repair his reputation, and Kono Kalakaua (Battlestar Galactica’s Grace Park); an ex-pro surfer on the verge of becoming a rookie cop and also Chin Ho’s cousin.

The Show

If you grew up on the original Hawaii Five-O’s medium pace and regular dialogue scenes, then this version will definitely throw you a new angle but it still manages to keep intact the spirit and tone of the old series.  The pilot episode helmed by feature film action director Len Wiseman (Live Free Or Die Hard, Underworld) sets the stage with a full amount of kinetic energy through action sequences, a running mystery plot that lasts all season, and a healthy helping of chemistry between its lead characters.  Not to mention that the iconic theme song is still a good one all these years later.

 It goes without saying that Hawaii Five-O is not a complicated program to get involved with.  Its purpose is to be television escapism at its purest form and intended to just be good fun.  That element reveals itself early in the comedic camaraderie between McGarrett and Williams (and yes, he becomes ‘Danno’ along the way) as they try to get along and get to know each other.  The action scenes also do a decent job of holding their own with each episode, and obviously the location of Hawaii provides a gorgeous backdrop.  The running sub-plot of McGarrett’s father’s murder and the box of evidence left behind gets a little convoluted the longer it goes, but I will admit that the season ends with a well-crafted cliffhanger because of it.

The DVD Box Set

Paramount has packaged the first season of Hawaii Five-O in a nice and tight 6-Disc edition that was released on September 20^th, 2011.  Unfortunately it is only available for now as a standard definition set, and is not yet offered in high-definition.  I watched the show as it initially aired on the HD channels and not releasing it that way is actually doing a disservice to the locale.  The Hawaii location is captured wonderfully by Hawaii Five-O’s camera work, but the image here is softer, darker, and less vibrant (but still good enough to view without much complaint).  The sound is a solid Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that re-creates the initial audio airing almost perfectly.

 The set also delivers a plentiful amount of supplemental material; more so than other recent Paramount television box set releases.  However, the powers that be have decided to spread these features out among each of the six discs, thus you have to pop in multiple discs if you want to take them all down in a single sitting.  I’ve always found that rather annoying.  I don’t mind for the Cast and Crew Commentaries (which are amusing when the cast is involved) or the Deleted Scenes because they are attached to the episodes they pertain to, but the featurettes are another story.

Disc 1 houses “Legacy” and “Picture Perfect: The Making of The Pilot”.  The first is the expected talk about how the upgrade was conceived, and the specific changes and non-changes made in comparison to the original through interviews with the producers and writers.  The second takes you through the process of filming the pilot with Director Len Wiseman and the cast chiming in on the experience.  An intriguing part uncovers how Scott Caan was a late casting arrival, his untested but instant chemistry with Alex O’Loughlin, and shows an awkward rehearsal reading via video links from the location to the producers with only two weeks to go before shooting begins.

Disc 2 and Disc 3 hold perhaps the weakest and least appealing features.  Along with the CBS Launch Promos, two throwaway features with Grace Park taking the viewer on a very brief Hawaiian tour (if you can call it that) and a “Re-scoring the Theme Song” (which is actually just footage of the orchestra playing the track and not an inside look into the musical differences) make appearances.  One worthy note is the Inside Comic-Con featurette that highlights the 2010 convention in which Dae Kim and Park made appearances to promote the show with CBS in tow.  Both are shown in a panel discussion and Dae Kim speaks very openly about what intrigued him about the project after grinding through the language challenges on Lost for several years.

Disc 4 contains a good in-depth exploration to the storylines of Season 1 with “Shore Lines” which includes McGarrett’s murder investigation of his father, but also what is going on with the other characters and why by touching on specific episodes.  Disc 5 delves into the action element of the show with “Aloha Action!”, and how the cast are more than willing to do their own stunts in order to make the visuals believable.  Attached to Disc 6 is an okay Gag Reel (one funny moment comes when an actress refers to Dae Kim as his Lost character in the line), and a look “Inside The Box”; the plot device full of mysterious items from McGarrett’s father that keeps the mystery story chugging along.

 Final Verdict

 Hawaii Five-O isn’t going to win a lot of praise for having a lot of depth or substance, but it’s not a show that really cares because it knows what it’s supposed to do…and that’s entertain a viewer.  It succeeds on a basic level with a good cast, decent action, and a few laughs.  What it could use is a change of gears for the future (instead of continuing to rely on a stretched plot device that could hinder the show if it’s not wrapped up in a timely manner).  This element is what left sour tastes in the mouths of Alias, and Lost followers in the past.

The DVD set for the most part is pretty impressive in the sense that it gives you a full 24 episodes and a lot of special features to play with (even if a couple of them fall short of the mark), but a high-definition option is a sorely missed opportunity.

Review By Ryan Young