Well, Tiger by the Tail is a crackling episode with a cool twist and just awesome from beginning to end. Maybe it wasn’t all down to the writer. Perhaps the writer had to follow a certain structure when he was writing for one show vs another. Maybe the script supervisors (or whoever) on Five-O made sure the script was lean and sharp whereas the supervisors on Ironside made sure the writer made things needlessly overwritten. Maybe that’s not how they saw it but probably what they thought made their show better. Different shows follow different structures and different script supervisors perceive things differently as to what constitutes a well told story.

Some follow the “less is more” mentality while others prefer “more is more”.