NEW TOOB REVIEW: THE "FIVE-O" REBOOT

I wrote a lengthy comment for MediumRob's review of 'Hawaii Five-O' while apartment-sitting, using a really crappy keyboard. It was a chore. So I'm not inclined to rewrite it again for Inner Toob.

Here it is again, with the proviso that you should visit Rob's site "The Medium Is Not Enough". The link is to the left.

The Toobworld take on 'Hawaii Five-O':

For me, the Stupid was best exemplified by the coincidence of Chin Ho Kelly just happening to run a curio shop right where he could witness the meeting between McGarrett and the Governor - a guy who just happens to have a personal connection to McGarrett with a back-story that luckily makes him useful to the plot.....

It's not that I saw it all as sacrilege; I just didn't see the point in remaking the original. Why not instead honor the original and build off of it with a continuation? Show us the Five-0 department thirty years later with all new characters. It's a premise that certainly worked with 'Star Trek'. (At least the movie "Maverick" was able to have it both ways.)

Another argument for continuation rather than remake: As with 'Star Trek', there was a rich history of old plots, with some of those same guest stars still alive, which could have been resurrected for the new team to revisit.

I watched the pilot and found it to be mindless fun. I liked the characters a lot (and agreed with the early reports that Scott Caan was stealing every scene he had with O'Loughlin.) But I saw nothing that said O'Loughlin HAD to be McGarrett, or Caan the new Danno. Why couldn't Daniel Dae Kim have been Chin Ho Kelly Jr., which would have been an excellent way to keep the original series' memory alive in the cast rather than erasing the originals and starting over. (To me, using the characters' names again is just lazy.)

I liked the recasting of gender for Kono, but then Grace in a bikini would have sold me on just about anything to do with the character.

It's been reported that James MacArthur is coming on board in a guest spot. So I think it would have been more interesting to see him return as the original Dann-O rather than as this Danno's father, or whatever he's slated to play.

But like I said, I did enjoy it. I just don't see why it had to be this way. It's not even like today's audiences are invested in the original characters that these actors couldn't be anybody else but.

There's only reason I can see why they felt the need to re-use the original character names - just for the chance to say "Book 'em, Danno." And even that was played out badly, almost as a spoof. If anything, that only brought back memories of the original than feel like a fresh take.

But since this is the way they're going, why not take it a step further? Bring back Wo Fat. Get the guy who played Dogen in the last season of 'Lost' to play the role.

Yeah, I am looking at it all from a Toobworld point of view, but I think it's still a valid argument.....

BCnU!