Book 'Em, Danno

Well, this is a first for me. I'm doing a TV show review. But I figure it's worth it, since there are very few watchable TV shows on right now. And though I'm not someone who spends his time looking for liberals under the bed, I have gotten tired of show after show that finds a way to be anti-American and/or anti-conservative.

I don't expect every show on TV to be flag-waving patriotic, but it's very refreshing when patriotism is built into the plot without hitting you over the head with it. The few shows I do watch for the inherent goodness of Americans, or even quirky twists that show pro-American bias in odd ways are all on hiatus right now. NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles, In Plain Sight, and my favorite, Burn Notice are either in reruns or coming back for the next season. The NCIS series which succeeded JAG has floundered lately, complete with misunderstood and wrongly accused Muslims, but both shows seem to have gotten back on track.

Blue Bloods is also showing promise, though it needs to get a bit less formulaic and take itself a bit less seriously. But my guilty pleasure is Hawaii Five-O. The original series kicked off the year I got married. I have a forty year old daughter, so that tells you how different times were when McGarrett and Danno faced the evil Wo Fat. Unlike many of the miserably failed sequels we discussed on Andrew Price's article the other day, this one works, and works well.

Now let me start with the recognition that the show is not particularly cerebral, nor the least bit artsy-fartsy. Early previews by critics tended toward calling it "as mindless as its predecessor." That alone was enough to get me to give it a try. After all, these are the same people who have never seen a bad episode of Law and Order, which hasn't had a decent episode since Michael Moriarty left. Though I had no delusions about the original being high art, nevertheless I was expecting the new show to be a poor imitation of the original.

I was pleasantly surprised. The flavor of the original leads was retained, but neither of them tries to channel Jack Lord or James MacArthur. The Islands are just as exotic as they were then, even if some of the landmarks have changed a bit. The music updates the original theme somewhat, but not enough to have lost its catchiness. Playing Steve McGarrett is the somewhat familiar actor Alex O'Loughlin. I remembered him from the short-lived series Moonlight, and thought he had just the right combination of low-key stolidness and minimal earnestness to be a good substitute for Jack Lord. He filled the bill.

The real surprise for me was the one character I was sure was going to turn me away from the show. Replacing James MacArthur as Danno is the bull-necked, cocky Scott Caan. I have intensely disliked him in everything I've ever seen him in. I take it all back. He puts life into the role that MacArthur did so well. But unlike O'Laughlin who does a very good update of McGarrett, Caan actually changes Danno's persona, and I'll be damned--improves it. Instead of the father-son type of relationship in the original, these two are like opposite poles of a magnet. They have actually made the cop-buddy relationship work better than the original.

But let's concentrate on what makes what would be just another cops-in-paradise comedy-drama into a show that's engrossing without being the least bit pretentious (in other words, the middle-brow genre that prissy critics hate so much). The show is unabashedly patriotic, along with having a sense of history. Pearl Harbor is both a memory and a constant in-the-present theme in nearly every episode. The initial episode had McGarrett investigating the arms dealers who sell weapons to terrorists who hate America and killed his father. Best of all, he's a former Navy SEAL. He doesn't have to tell you he's brave by strutting his stuff, but rather the way real heroes do it, with quiet determination and occasional menace.

The show leaves little doubt as to whom they consider the enemy. Communists, Red Chinese, North Korean spies and murderers, and non-Muslim Filipino terrorists. In order to give Danno believability in this more dangerous world of the 21st century, the writers nixed the native-born white Hawaiian guy, and instead imported a New Jersey cop who thinks most of the islanders are slackers and surf-bums. The rest of the cast is equally appropriate.

Some notable lines from the series that indicate its decidedly non-politically correct viewpoint: When asked why the Filipino terrorists who kidnapped the US ambassador's daughter hate us, McGarrett replies simply "the radicals hate us because we support the democratically elected government." Danno calls McGarrett "G.I. Joe" and it's sometimes a slap and sometimes an affectionate jibe. And speaking of taking jabs, Danno frequently does so at politically-correct speech. Whenever a native Hawaiian refers to a white mainlander as a "haole," Danno explains that the character has just used "the H-word."

McGarrett has also blown up at the native islanders who would call him a haole. He let loose on one of them by coldly staring at him and saying: "I was born here. My parents are both buried here. I am named after my grandfather who is entombed in the USS Arizona. I am a native Hawaiian."

If you need Shakespeare, or Einstein, or even police detective angst, this show is not for you. But if you like cop shows, exotic locations, lots of action, plain good fun, and oh, patriotism, you'll like this show.