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RedbirdCraig
Reviews
Hawaii Five-O: For a Million... Why Not? (1971)
One of the More Interesting Heists
This episode was interesting for a couple of reasons. One, the setup of the heist was more elaborate than most, with a fake bank robbery and a cast of characters with seemingly little connection involved in the scheme. Two, this is one those what I call "DH" episodes where Jack Lord doesn't take the episode off but just pre-films about 3 minutes of scenes and leaves everything to the rest of the crew, sort of like a designated hitter in baseball.
I don't know if it's because the writers didn't have to account for the Jack Lord screen time but I felt like this gave more opportunity for the plot to develop. It gave James MacArthur more screen time and more opportunity to be the one figuring out the crime instead of always being McGarrett who has to come up with the ultimate solution to the means/motive.
Sam Melville was, as usual, very good at being the heavy. One oddity was seeing Al Harrington and Glenn Cannon as bad guys when we know them mostly as being on the good side of the law, especially Cannon.
Hawaii Five-O: Blood Money Is Hard to Wash (1977)
Lack of Execution and Believability
Any of us 5-0-heads who do things like write reviews on the shows will find this to be familiar ground. Cartoonish monster comes from Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland to expand business in the islands only to be foiled by McGarrett and crew. We've seen this show before- I think it was just this type of show that Kam Fong was thinking of when he left the show because the stories were repetitive.
This episode had the chance to do something a little different but the main thing that's different is how stupidly the protagonist acts. I thought in the first 10 minutes when he is trying to buy a football team to launder his money and breaks the QB's shoulder as a warning to the owner was going to lead somewhere. All it led to was Chin putting him on surveillance at a golf course where Jovanko goes ape-crap crazy when he sees it, then getting more angry when he's working out some other deal and spots the boys on his tail.
All I could think of was, this guy is supposed to be some stone-cold mobster and he freaks out every time he sees a cop watching him? I'm sure the Cleveland PD must have spent at least some time in surveillance on him, but he acts like he's shocked a cop might be eyeing him.
Also, the end where he tries to kill McGarrett was almost laughable. He checks in the hospital under his own ID and expects no one will notice that the guy who just tried to kill every 5-0 cop happens to be admitted to the same hospital? Being a monster in Cleveland must not have an entrance exam.
Hawaii Five-O: Tour De Force, Killer Aboard (1976)
Interesting Story, Bad Ending
"Tour de Force" has an interesting premise, a little twist on the old "top-level assassin comes to town to kill VIP" story that we've seen on 5-0 and a bunch of other shows over the years. This guy is a good-looking, charming dude who uses his skills with the ladies to get the inside intel that he needs. However, the execution is a little lacking.
For one, my experience with international assassins honed through years of watching cop shows is that they don't exactly hang out with tour groups and try to pick up babes as part of their MO. I also feel like they don't do things like climb around on narrow ledges 23 floors up to get a shot at their target as the target is walking into the building. I kept thinking, "OK, how does this guy think he's going to escape after doing the deed? He's on a ledge staring at 5 security guards and 100 cops." If he were a political assassin that would make sense, doing the whole martyr for the cause thing, but he's a gun for hire.
Also, as has been pointed out previously, how can Chin not pick up on the vibes Welles is putting out? He's on the top squad on the islands, not some rookie! And they really seem to use the Welles character as the dumb blonde a lot on this show. I know it's the 70's so there weren't as many strong female characters as now, but wasn't "Police Woman" on around that time? She's just used as bait most of the time and she can be counted on to do something totally clueless in every appearance.
Hawaii Five-O: Termination with Extreme Prejudice (1975)
A Bit Disappointing
At the start of the episode I was a bit excited because Dan O'Herlihy is usually a very interesting actor so I looked forward to his strategic battle with McGarrett. Unfortunately we didn't get a lot of that interaction except for a couple of scenes.
There was a bit of intrigue with Dansby's fake death (which I never quite understood how McGarrett sniffed out so quickly- it was almost immediate that he saw it as a fake) and figuring out exactly what each player in the game was trying to accomplish. However, it was "muddled" as my friend Plankton called it and not as interesting as I'd hoped.
Also, these guys are spies. Don't they notice that there's almost always a chopper about 200 feet above them? Not to mention guys in suits in a tropical climate who just happen to be walking around 50-100 feet behind them in fairly quiet areas? Chin and Duke don't exactly blend in as tourists with their sports jackets.
Hawaii Five-O: The Skyline Killer (1979)
Interesting Plot...for 30 Minutes
This episode has some good points in that there's a good guest actor in Charles Cioffi as well as an appearance by Mrs. Tom Hanks. The story has the opportunity to be interesting as it's not the usual "mob guys trying to muscle in on Honolulu" deal, it's about a serial killer and how a journalist is both a detriment and an asset to the investigation.
However, there's a couple of real issues with this episode, which happened more often as the series started to wind down. For one, how easy was it to.figure out that the writer's daughter was going to be the next target? Five-O seemed to be the only ones who didn't figure it out. Also, as Plankton points out, why was there just McGarrett waiting for him once they figured it out? Wouldn't you have a whole phalanx of cops waiting to shut off any escape?
Last but not least, as good as this show is it has perhaps the worst body doubles of any show since "Plan 9 from Outer Space". I mean, they don't even try to get it close with the build and the hair.
Hawaii Five-O: The Case Against McGarrett (1975)
An Average Ending to a Great Story Arc
I loved the Vashon trilogy that took place in season 5. This is a solid episode but it's not quite at the quality of the earlier entries.
Without giving away too much, the point of this is that the remaining Vashon, Honore, gets his paroled scotched by McGarrett and takes the opportunity for revenge by putting him on "trial" for his son's "murder" using a hastily-arranged escape plan as cover to get Steve in the room. As you might guess, it doesn't end well for Honore.
It's not a bad episode, as Harold Gould is as solid as can be as a TV character actor. However, the plot has some areas that strain credulity. For instance, this escape/revenge plot seems to get put together in about a day or two, quite an undertaking even for someone with Vashon's juice. Also, Honore always seemed to be the rational one but this whole plot seemed to be irrational. His main thing is to be paroled but when McGarrett puts the kibosh on it Vashon pivots toward a plan that at best puts him in the can for the rest of his life. It just seemed against the character's previous thought process.
Hawaii Five-O: The Two-Faced Corpse (1974)
Good Start, Bad Ending!
This was a good plot with excellent guest stars in Sam Elliott, Jessica Walter, and Alan Fudge but it fell apart at the end. The plot involves a mob informant who obtained a new identity (not to mention a new face and body) and his subsequent murder.
It turns out that Walter (the informant's wife) and Elliott (his business partner) figured out that the guy was not who he said he was and came up with a neat little plot to off him, collect the insurance money, and blame it on mob vengeance. Not a bad idea for a plot and with credible actors at the helm the first 35 minutes or so were strong.
Where the train goes off the tracks is how they get tripped up. It's not so much Five-O figuring it out because, c'mon, that's how this series rolls. It's that the way they got the crooks to incriminate themselves presupposed them being really, really stupid, and it paid off! Instead of taking the 15 chances they had to simply make the right play, Elliott in particular handled it about as stupidly as one could. It's too bad because this could have been an excellent episode but the ending made it land way short.
Hawaii Five-O: Retire in Sunny Hawaii... Forever (1975)
Great, Fun Story with Great Supporting Cast
This is one of the better entries in the "Five-0" series. First of all, when you have the First Lady of the American Theatre dropping by you know it's going to be good.
Helen Hayes is just the right mix of sweet and savvy as Danny's aunt who gets caught up in a fraud and murder scheme. She's got no police experience but she uses her acting experience to help crack the case. Having her be an amateur theater actress is a nice touch. The scenes with her and James MacArthur (her real-life son) have some sweetness to them that helps make the episode enjoyable.
It's nice that they invested in some other strong supporting players as well. Ian Wolfe is one of those guys who was in every 70's TV show as "the old guy" and plays his bit well. Charles Durning is appropriately smarmy as the crooked senior home operator and Lynne Hollinger provided fine support as well.
All in all, one of the more enjoyable episodes in the series.
Hawaii Five-O: Welcome to Our Branch Office (1974)
Great Idea, but Ridiculous!
Look, I remember watching this as a kid and thought this was such a cool episode. Watching it now, though, it's so riddled (Get it? Riddled? Sorry, bad Frank Gorshin joke there) with holes that it's a poor episode by the standards of the show.
First of all, Gorshin is such a lively, rubber-faced actor and he's reduced to a bit player in this episode. Secondly, the ROI can't have been all that high considering all the trouble and risk they had to take on in order to make it happen. You had to buy all that stuff, have it built, and hire all these impersonators while evading detection. Third, why would you screw a guy over by locking him in a phone booth where he can call the cops? It seems like a lot of risk and stupidity by people who are supposedly so clever.
It's really too bad because the idea is extremely clever. I feel like the writers pitched this great idea, got the green light, and then looked at each and said, "Oh crap, how do we fill the other 45 minutes of the show?"
Hawaii Five-O: Anybody Can Build a Bomb (1973)
Well Written, But Derivative
As my friend Plankton mentioned as well as others, this was the second episode in a row where the expert is actually on the other team. It's slightly different as in "The Finishing Touch" the expert was the mastermind while in this episode he's more of an unwitting patsy. It's a fine episode- Lee Ayres is suitably disheveled and haggard as the expert- but you'd think they'd space out these "expert is really the perp" episodes a little more.
Hawaii Five-O: Death Is a Company Policy (1972)
Five-0 Transition to Ben and Duke
This episode marked a pretty big change in the show, dropping the character of Kono and adding Ben and Duke to the series. Overall I think their addition was an improvement to the show.
It's nothing against Zulu, the actor who played Kono, more that they seemed to give Ben and Duke much more to do then Kono. I think Harrington and Wedermeyer were somewhat better actors, but they also gave Zulu's character nothing to do so he didn't have the same chance to develop the character.
As for the episode, the plot is an interesting one in how it shifted from what you'd expect from the opening scene. The ending is, as the others have said, a bit silly, and the way Steve figures out who the mole is seems a bit far-fetched (I mean, could he really spot those little notes on his report card as they're flying by?) but overall a nice little twist to the traditional "catch the bad mob guy" episode.
Hawaii Five-O: Rest in Peace, Somebody (1971)
Excellent Plot, But Some Holes
I thought this was a well crafted episode. The plot was more interesting than most of your "killer of the week" episodes. The would-be assassin is pretty clever in most aspects, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that for a while have 5-0 confounded. It really keeps the plot moving as you try to figure out the motive and who the guy is going to kill. It's fun to see McGarrett and the boys kept off-balance for once.
There's a couple of problems, though. For one, nearly all of Hawaii's police budget must go to Steve, Danny, Chin, and Kono. Some nut sends 5-0 to Chin'a house and Danny's car and Steve and Dan-o are the ones opening up a possibly booby-trapped door and trunk? What, there's no bomb squad who can at least take a peeky-boo at it first? And the guy is able to drop red paint from McGarrett's office all the way to the Guv's office with no one seeing him? Must be short-staffed at HPD!
The other part was the ending. First of all, Cameron is able to knife an HPD guy mere feet from the Governor's path and none of other cops who are crawling all over the place see it happen? Plus, the guy finally has his shot from relatively close range at his target and he goes for a body shot instead of a head shot. For a guy who's a great shot there's no way that guy risks a bulletproof vest.
Those issues aside, though, I thought this was one of the more creative plots in the series. Well acted and well constructed tension.
Hawaii Five-O: All the King's Horses (1969)
An Episode with a Little Twist
I thought this episode about former mainland tough guy turned flower magnate Mike Finnery who's now the target of a zealous political climber has some very interesting plot points. It's fairly well-acted and has a twist or two that makes it different from the usual straight-forward approach of the show.
For one, what you would think is a simple "McGarrett tries to slow down witch hunt" turns a different way when Finnery's former pals decide he's a liability. It's an interesting shift of focus because usually Five-O's plots are pretty linear. I'm not critiquing it, just that's the way it rolled.
One other thing I thought was striking- Senator Osihi gave an impassioned short speech about how he, as a Japanese-American, was treated between WWII and the present day. For a show that didn't often delve into issues like that I thought it was a very well-written little scene.
Hawaii Five-O: A Bullet for McGarrett (1969)
A Little Disappointing
This is an interesting episode because it shows a very 60's way of understanding psychology and hypnosis. This policewoman gets hypnotized pretty easily and ordered to kill McGarrett. It's a snapshot of how people thought hypnosis could get someone to do anything with just a tape recording and some trigger words.
What's disappointing is, besides some of the inconsistencies of the story (if the hypnosis is supposed to make her a remote control killer, why is the prof hanging out at the scene to egg her on? And why would she be acting so suspiciously when she's not in "activation mode"?), is that it's a Wo Fat episode with almost no Wo Fat! If you've got him on the set use him!
Hawaii Five-O: Diary of a Gun (1975)
Poorly Written
Look, love me some "Hawaii Five-O". I have many great memories of watching it as a kid and enjoying the good v. Evil construct of every episode. However, this was the worst-written of the episodes I've seen through the first 7 seasons.
Like most "message" episodes of 70's shows, they are not content to make their point when they can repeatedly jam that point into your skull. The point is not an invalid one- guns in the wrong hands can be powerful tools of personal destruction- but did they ever pour it on thick! Like I said, I'm not looking for shades of gray when watching 5-0 but the "Afterschool Special" level of explanatory excess was a little much. I felt the episode could have made its points much better if they weren't so concerned with putting exclamation points on each of them. A disappointing entry in the series.
Hawaii Five-O: 6,000 Deadly Tickets (1975)
Farewell To Ben!
This was the end of season 7 of "5-0" and the end of Al Harrington's run as Ben Kokua. It's too bad because I always thought that character had real promise to grow into a more defined role, unlike Kono's. Anyway, this episode struck me as odd because after a number of episodes where Kokua was nowhere to be seen he shows up in the last episode of the season to play a bit part. I never quite understood why he got dropped in the first place.
Anyway, this is an unusual plot line of using pirated airline tickets as an extortion tool. The guys who do the stealing force travel agents to buy the tickets from them or else suffer some mob-like consequences. Five-0 enlists the help of an agent from the feds to go undercover in order to break the extortion ring. It's an interesting idea for a criminal enterprise, though I thought it had some holes in it.
For one, the local ne'er-do-well has a former mob enforcer working with him. Why bother with this whole "buy stolen tickets" scheme when you can just run a good old fashioned protection ring? I mean, they wind up blowing up the guy who doesn't go along so what's the difference? Second, why would the hit man try to take out the fed when he must know the area is crawling with cops? I'm no criminal mastermind, but I think if I know the cops are setting me up then I stay away from the action rather than shooting federal agents, but that's just me.
All in all, not a bad episode but not among the best of the 5-0 series.
Hawaii Five-O: A Bullet for El Diablo (1973)
Average Episode in the Series
As the previous reviewer mentioned, this episode is not bad but it's not one of the better-written episodes in the series. It involves a Central/South American dictator who is lured to Hawaii because of his daughter's kidnapping so he can be assassinated. Besides the problems with the "double" part of the story, there are other issues.
Where the plot falls apart is in the execution of the crime, especially the getaway. First of all, that hotel is crawling with cops and no one sees the killer rappelling down the balcony? Also, these revolutionaries are hanging out at the same hotel and Five-O didn't realize they are a couple of floors below? It strains credulity.
That being said, the story moves fast and if you look past some of the holes in the execution it's an enjoyable ride.
Hawaii Five-O: The Sunday Torch (1973)
Interesting plot with holes in the execution
This is a very clever plot idea- a shady businessman who wants to get out from under an impending investigation of his company's practices hires a professional "torch" to burn the evidence of his misdeeds. The clever part is how they set up the arson by setting a series of fires on consecutive Sundays and therefore making the real focus of the arson seem like simply part of a pyromaniac's pattern. They also set up a patsy by finding someone who shows up at most of the fires who's also a recovering pyro and framing him for setting the blazes.
Where it breaks down, for me, is in how the plot is followed through. They do a good job of setting the guy up by supplying him with a plausible motive and making it difficult for him to alibi himself. However, it falls apart in a couple of aspects from there. Part of the frame is someone anonymously sends a videotape of this guy at the fires to the local newspaper knowing they'll send it to Five-O. For some reason McGarrett at first takes this piece of evidence at face value. Wouldn't a smart cop like McGarrett wonder why someone just happened to zoom in on this dude hanging out at all the fires? It took the psychiatrist to point out that it didn't follow her patient's pattern to set McGarrett to question his assumptions. Also, why wouldn't a guy who's up for murder have his lawyer there while McGarrett is grilling him? And, at the end, the way the former pyro ID's the woman who was part of the frame was a real leap of logic.
All in all, an enjoyable episode with strong writing. I just had a couple of problems with how they got from Point A to Point B and Point C.
Hawaii Five-O: 'V' for Vashon: The Patriarch (1972)
Excellent Episode!
This was a great ending episode to a memorable plot line. What I liked about this particular episode was that it was unexpected how the patriarch of the Vashon family planned to get back at McGarrett. One would expect another assassination attempt, especially by the old-school founder of the criminal clan, but he had something more subtle up his sleeve. Or elevator, if you will.
One thing I always find interesting in these old series is how certain issues are treated. In this one there is a key plot point revolving around a prominent member of the community being a closeted gay. They don't go into too much depth but they certainly make it obvious what the secret he's holding is, which I'm guessing in 1972 marked a bit of a change from what one would normally see on prime time. I don't think you see much mention of anyone's sexual preference in the 60's, but it's become enough of a part of the public discussion by this point that a straightforward show like 5-0 can use it as a plot point.
Also, one of the hidden gems of the episode is when McGarrett is suspended and those of us who watch the show knows what that means- McGarrett breaks out the cabana wear! It never ceased to amuse me, as a kid or now, seeing him in that ascot and big hat. Totally stylin' and profilin'.
Hawaii Five-O: Try to Die on Time (1973)
Sorry, Plankton
Plankton, I hate to break the news to you but Jack Carter is currently alive. I agree that he suffers from terminal unfunniness, though. And I agree that this plot is very complicated- either that or I'm not very bright. Then again, both are possible.
I think overall this season was when the episodes started to show some better writing and more interesting plots. I think having Al Harrington added to the cast really helped because he seemed more professional and was a better actor than Zulu. Zuni's character seemed as much for comic relief as anything whereas the Ben character was more of a "full member" of the Five-0 team.