Hawaii Five-O –
The Second Season thru The Seventh Season (1969 – 1975/CBS DVD Sets)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C- Episodes: B
As Hawaii Five-O kicked into high gear and
became both a ratings and moneymaking powerhouse for CBS, the show kept its
high quality, more money was put into the series and Jack Lord became one of
the biggest stars on TV. The show also
slowly became better and smoother overall.
You can read about the show in its debut season at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5298/Hawaii+Five-O+%E2%80%93+The+Fir
Wo Fat (Khign Dhiegh) was the big villain and The
Cold War was still a factor at times, but the writers diversified and came up
with all kinds of interesting one-shot stories that played on McGarrett’s past
as an effective cop as old enemies and other haters surfaced to take another
shot at him. Because of all of the hard
work, the shows hold up very well and the mystery aspects of the various
schemes are better than I remembered after all these years.
I also wanted to take time this time to give credit
to James MacArthur in his classic role as Detective Danny “Dan-O” Williams, one
of the best police assistant characters in TV history still to this date. For all the fandom and popularity surrounding
the show, he is underdiscussed and his character too easily dismissed. A good character actor, MacArthur was really
good here and when Kam Fong was on as Detective Chin Ho Kelly, he was also a
character ahead of his time.
Going from one end of the series to this mid-point,
another thing that improves is the editing and flow of the actual
episodes. I liked the older shows too,
but it is impressive how the editing works its way up to the shows moving as
well as they do. It is no wonder CBS
continues to issue the series on DVD; they are being rediscovered and making
viewers very happy all over again.
The full color 1.33 X 1 filmed image and Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono are as clean, clear and consistent as they have been since the
first set, with only some limits, variations and flaws that are to be expected
for an older such show. All the more
reason this should be a candidate for Blu-ray.
The only extra across these follow-up sets are the Episodic Promos that
Lord voiced himself, ending in an amusing “Aloha” after telling us about the
latest murders. People loved the idea
that bad things were happening in paradise and the show knew how to exploit that,
while still delivering top-rate TV.
- Nicholas
Sheffo
