Agreed. I think it was a mistake to cast two actors of the same age as McGarrett and Williams. Especially when they’re both playing “new guy” characters. There’s going to be too much overlap in their roles. They should have cast an older actor as McGarrett and made him the experienced wiser character and then had Williams as the younger volatile character.
As for their literal hair, I’m on record as not being able to take the Barney Rubble stubble look seriously. And both O’Laughlin and Caan are sporting their carefully tended “casual” three day beards. It was especially disconcerting on O’Laughlin who was supposed to be a Navy officer - one of his superiors would have chewed him out for not shaving.
Wait a sec - where in the world was McGarrett in the opening scene? For some reason I thought that was Hawaii as well, though I have nothing whatsoever to base that on.
And I was disappointed that they perpetuated the cop show meme of “2 cops with handguns take out half a dozen attackers armed with full auto weapons.”
As a former naval officer, I found the stubble jarring and unrealistic.
And forget being discouraged by his superiors–a lieutenant commander doesn’t need to be told that he should be clean-shaven when in dress uniform, especially when meeting a governor.
For that matter, I also found his behavior toward the governor jarring.
Probably, but 1)it’s just a TV show and 2)he just came from combat (from the sound of it, straight from combat) 3)he just found out that his dad had been murdered and probably wasn’t thinking about personal grooming and 4)as has been mentioned, he just flew in from South Korea.
Just watched a clip online, and you’re right, there’s a caption that says “Pohang, South Korea” at the very beginning. Of course it looks like Hawaii, what with the beach and palm trees and greenery covered cliffs.
And BTW, he didn’t realize he was going to meet the governor until his plane landed in Oahu, and the density of his facial hair changes quite a bit during the meeting.
As others have said, they cast McGarrett too young.
I was disappointed that they’re some sort of elite anti-terrorist group. That’s a big departure from the original. It’s like they took the names and music and pasted them on some random action/adventure show that has nothing to do with the original other than the setting.
In the original, Steve McGarrett was head of the Hawaiian State Police and, while they did occasionally investigate terrorists, they also investigated kidnappings, organized crime, smuggling, even things like a group of mainland public school teachers passing forged travelers checks.
They often pursued violent thugs, but they also sometimes pursued oddball eccentrics. The variety was one of the things that made it interesting, at least for me. The police force format allows for that.
The terrorist fighting format seems like it will limit the kinds of things they’ll be investigating. In fact, I think there will little investigating and lots of chasing and shooting.
They aren’t just fighting terrorists. The governor said they would be dealing with all sorts of problems. They’ve already added human slave traffic to the mix, along with arms dealers and potential diplomatic problems. They’ll have plenty to do without hitting the same note over and over.
I thought it was fairly amusing for a pilot. Grace Park in her underwear was a lagniappe.
I watched last night and if they don’t get better scripts fast, they aren’t going to last out their first season. The script would have made more sense in south Florida, but maybe they thought it Miami was overexposed.
Maybe they should have done a remake of Baywatch in Hawaii. They wouldn’t even have to change the cast, except to add a few more girls.
Fair enough but, if they remain believably true to the premise, they’ll only be investigating things that rise to the level of the Governor’s office and which can’t then be handled by regular police.
I’m worried they’re going to pull the same bait-and-switch that Nikita is apparently doing. In the pilot they had several scenes with Maggie Q in bikinis or lingerie. But since the first episode, she’s kept covered up. We’ll have to see if Hawaii Five-O tries the same trick of having its attractive female star appearing half-naked several times in the pilot to try and fool viewers into thinking that’s a regular occurence.
Heck, I remember an original episode that had them chasing a serial killer that shot people who reminded him of the villains in his favourite newspaper cartoon strip. Intersting episode, but not a lot of 24-ish opportunity for explosions and junk.
[standard disclaimer of being a hetro male]Jack Lord was a stud. Jesus, that little hair curl and full head of hair, he’s in great shape, and he started the series at 40+ something. Maybe not your cup of tea but I’d give my left nut to be like him at both 40 and 50. Shit, I didn’t look like him at 30…[/standard disclaimer of being a hetro male]
