Continuing this advance thread on the series... Now that the show has finally premiered in its primetime Wednesday slot, what do y'all think? Thumbs up? Two stars? Cancelled before Thanksgiving?
I'll start things off with a recap of reviews from TV critics across the country. Overall, low marks, but at least not quite as low as "North Shore."
Salt Lake City Weekly
The Oregonian
Philadelphia Inquirer
Chicago Tribune
Calgary Sun
Chicago Sun Times
Star Telegram (Dallas-Ft. Worth)
New York Daily News
Ottawa Citizen
Cincinnati Enquirer
I'll start things off with a recap of reviews from TV critics across the country. Overall, low marks, but at least not quite as low as "North Shore."
Salt Lake City Weekly
A smart, slick and highly unlikely combo of Fastlane, CSI and Hawaii 5-0, Hawaii could be the best cop drama to drop in NBC’s lap since Boomtown—and we all know what happened with that. Sexy undercover cops (including Crossing Jordan’s Ivan Sergei and Six Feet Under’s Eric Balfour) driving hot cars real fast, solving too-easy crimes and pissing off the captain is nothing new, but Hawaii’s authentic eye for detail is so dead-on, it looks like nothing else on TV—especially not Fox’s ’ho-riffic North Shore, which may as well be shot at a Joe’s Crab Shack in Ventura. The best of the lot so far ... cancellation must be looming.
Built entirely from cast-off parts from "Hawaii 5-0," "Magnum, p.i.," "Miami Vice" and the Travel Channel, "Hawaii" comes with all the usual character types, stabs at moral conflict, exotic locales and impossibly lush foliage. Also, everyone's extremely pretty, with great clothes and facial hair that raises scruffiness to an art form. But the moment the actors start to talk and the plot kicks into gear, we come zooming back to reality. It's not a pleasant trip.
Hawaii, which premieres tonight at 8, provides any student of the medium with a virtually complete compendium of every cliche, shortcut and stereotype in an entire genre of TV that is more than 40 years old... At least Las Vegas has James Caan and Nikki Cox and the vestigial smidgen of a tongue in its cheek. Hawaii, named for the only other supposedly surefire exotic location in the TV lexicon, is nothing but stupid.
Clearly the network, moving full-throttle into its post-"Friends" era, has high hopes for this action thriller, which boasts an opening episode flush with paradisiacal imagery and hip, streetwise lingo. But take just about every action-movie cliche, and toss in a few soapy ones, and you get an idea of the crammed mess to be found in "Hawaii"... "Hawaii" is an overly complex crime story and a simplistic human one. The performers, particularly Biehn, Atkins, Sumika and Sergei, manage nice nuances, lending the episode its modicum of charm. Subsequent installments will determine how successfully the story lines evolve. For now, "Hawaii" is a luau at which you're tempted to ask, "Where's the poi?"
More straight-faced — if far less compelling — than the Tom Selleck ’80s private eye yarn, and a whole lot gorier (thus the mystery about four decapitation victims), Hawaii is yet another example of networks cannibalizing themselves until even their original programming feels like a spinoff of a rival’s existing hit. Call this one Magnum CSI or CSI-Five-O. Oahu, admittedly on breathtaking display, deserves far better. (And just when they thought they’d safely erased the memories of Baywatch Hawaii.)
"Hawaii" (7 p.m., WMAQ-Channel 5): This new ultraviolent * goop melange of bad '70s cop show cliches that's utterly inappropriate to air earlier than 9 p.m. does have one subtle bit of wit to it. One of the four heads found in a car trunk belongs to a fellow named Alfred Garcia. As in "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia." That's more than you would expect from "Shasta McNasty" creator Jeff Eastin.
Upbeat, playful and effortlessly banal, Hawaii is an old-school crime show, the kind of viewer-embracing adventure that won't impress or depress anyone with its utter fear of originality. Nothing in the pilot of this brilliantly mindless contraption suggests inventiveness, imagination or a willingness to elicit much emotion -- which ought to come as an exciting jolt to those still weeping over the death of, say, Fastlane.
The new cop series "Hawaii" isn't your father's "Hawaii Five-O." It's probably not yours, either, or your child's, or anyone's. It's awful. If you turn the sound down and don't read lips, so you don't get any sense of the tired plot and stereotypical characters, "Hawaii" looks beautiful... As a screen saver, "Hawaii" is pleasant to watch. As a dramatic TV series, it doesn't come close.
But seriously, Hawaii is not a serious cop show -- not serious in the way CSI and Law & Order are serious, at any rate. True, it's a cop show, with all the trappings of a cop show -- good guys, bad guys, violent crimes, car chases, a crusty but benign squad commander (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) -- but there is room for laughs. It's more like Starsky & Hutch the movie than Starsky & Hutch the TV show.
In an overstuffed hour set in the Honolulu Metro Police Department, we get chases, wisecracks, a shoot-out and a grisly crime. The settings are pretty; the stars (Ivan Sergei, Sharif Atkins, Aya Sumika) are prettier. Even the flashy police cars look great. What Hawaii doesn't do is get us to care. The empty quips and repartee only make the cops seem less human; the cases do little to stir interest. Let's hope Hawaii slows down enough to tell a story.
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