Classic H50 does not fare well in this book of reviews

[Mr. Mike]

The Critics' Choice: The Best of Crime & Detective TV by Max Allan Collins and John Javna

This relatively slim 1988 book took a poll of mystery writers and TV critics to come up with ratings of TV shows. I was surprised that Classic H50 seemed to be totally missing, especially since there is a picture of Jack Lord on the first (index) page, but comment on it appears at the end of one chapter, sort of buried away. You will probably not like what they have to say!

By the way, their choice for private eye shows in order were The Rockford Files, Harry-O (a stunning example of how network meddling can totally botch up a production!!), Peter Gunn, City of Angels, Tenspeed and Brown Shoe, Perry Mason (!), Magnum, P.I., Richie Brockelman - Private Eye, 77 Sunset Strip and Mannix. The top police procedurals in the poll were Hill Street Blues, Dragnet, Naked City, Columbo, Police Story, The Untouchables, Crime Story, Kojak, Cagney & Lacey and Baretta.

Here are the three shows they really hated, including you-know-what:

Hawaii Five-O. 1968-80

"Book 'em, Danno." Along with "Dragnet," this is the most successful cop show in history. It was among the top 25 shows for most of its twelve-year run, and ranked in the top 10 four times. Significantly, it first appeared as anti-war protests swept America and Richard Nixon was emerging with his new "law and order message." Nixon was elected two months after the show's debut. This is the ultimate right-wing cop show. Steve McGarrett, the head of a Hawaiian special police brigade, is the humorless personification of the penal code, a man who thinks like Joe Friday walks. Lacking compassion or humanity, he embraces the letter of law as if on a holy mission. There's no gray in McGarrett's world; he smugly seems to believe that everyone who disagrees with him is a criminal. You can picture him saying, as Ed Meese once did, "If they weren't guilty, they wouldn't be suspects." There was also something vaguely racist about the "great white father" element of the show, Tarzan in a business suit ordering the natives around. "Hawaii Five-0" was lavishly and attractively produced, and many fine guest stars made appearances on the program (maybe they all wanted to work in Hawaii). So technically, it was a good show. But that doesn't make up for its quasi-fascist message. From a strictly generic standpoint, the authors admit we may have been remiss in not covering this program in more depth. But after all, it's our book and we don't like the show. Our message to McGarrett (Jack Lord): "Book you."

The F.B.I. 1965-74

This could be called, "I was a publicity vehicle for the FBI." It's exactly what you'd expect from an officially sanctioned show about J. Edgar Hoover's agency—a technically perfect bit of hype in which the gray-suited good guys preserve good ol' American values. Interestingly, as is so often the case in this kind of "Gangbusters" presentation, the title heroes emerge as dull, colorless, and humorless, while the villains of the piece come off as vividly portrayed human beings. In the FBI's view of itself, emotions are a flaw, so only criminals have emotions. Efram Zimbalist, Jr. (who has never made a secret of his extreme right-wing politics) starred as Inspector Lew Erskine, whose exploits were supposedly based on real FBI cases. "The FBI" was watchable and popular. It was also reactionary. As civil unrest grew in America, Zimbalist's FBI began taking on radicals, hippie scum, pot smokers, and other enemies of the state, something Hoover clearly wished he could do more actively. During the "77 Sunset Strip" days, Zimbalist was regarded by the national press as a potential superstar. "The FBI," in a weird way, killed his career. It wasn't just the typecasting; Lew Erskine simply wasn't as appealing a persona as Stu Bailey had been. As a P.I., he seemed sophisticated and charming; as a government agent, he came across like the dark side of Ward Cleaver.

S.W.A.T. 1975-76

"S.W.A.T." means "Special Weapons and Tactics," and big-city police forces do have S.W.A.T. teams to handle major emergencies. However, according to real life S.W.A.T. members, the stuff that happened on this show every week represented once-in-a-lifetime experiences. ABC's fictional S.W.A.T. team, led by Hondo Harrelson (Steve Forrest), was about as authentic as a Chuck Norris movie. It had the same appeal, too. What do we do about urban violence and inner city lawbreakers? Call in the S.W.A.T. team and blow them away. We are so offended by the extreme amount of violence in this show that we feel everyone involved with it should be torn limb from...oh...sorry...too much TV.

[vrinda]

The writers are morons. I will write more in greater detail later, but their comments on Hawaii Five-O wreak of woke, paranoid, political-correctness-obsessed idiocy.

[Mr. Mike]

Karen Rhodes who wrote a book ("the" book) on H50 which was published in 1997 (and reprinted more than once after this), emailed me about the above review, she says I can repost her thoughts (below):

Good grief, what an execrable review -- filled with excrement. Take a look in Booking Hawaii Five-0 at what I said about the charge that the series or McGarrett was "fascist" on page 12. These two authors are just regurgitating sixties rhetoric, which usually had to adhere to a prescribed ideology, marked by a total resistance to and knee-jerk crticism of authority without any rational argument behind it. Sure, we should question authority. But question it rationally, not create a critique out of whole cloth which sounds the alarm that the sky is falling. Radicals on either side of the spectrum tend to be pretty hidebound and close-minded. The authors speak as though they had never watched an episode of the series beyond the pilot, "Cocoon." See page 3 of Booking Hawaii Five-0 for how I feel about critics who extrapolate from one exposure to a series and base their entire critique on that one exposure. (Oh, I always do love to have a chance to plug the book! LOL!) Sounds like they read other critical reviews of these three series rather than actually watching them. I do have to concede, though, that in the case of "The FBI," the producers were most likely constrained terribly by ol' J. Edgar, as concerned as he was about his image. And his power. He was in office WAY too long. Little anecdote: I came across a statement by someone who did not cite a source for it that after Prohibition, Eliot Ness applied for the FBI, and in response, J. Edgar wrote across Ness's application, "Not him!" Probably afraid Ness would have had his job as director. He probably would have.

Max Allan Collins has a bias; he has written several novels with Eliot Ness as the protagonist, and more recently wrote a book about Ness and Capone. I happen to be batty about Robert Stack, who played Eliot Ness in "The Untouchables" (1959-1963). But I can speak at length about the virtues and vices of the series as a television series. These two authors lack any objectivity about any of the three you cited. I think it pretty funny that they lambasted Five-0 and McGarrett as "fascist" and the other descriptors they used, yet rated The Untouchables among their top police procedurals. Other critics skewered Robert Stack as playing Ness pretty much a "fascist," law-and-order-uber-alles, stone-faced plank of wood, much the way these two skewer Jack Lord's portrayal of McGarrett -- about which they are dead wrong, just as prior critics were wrong about Robert Stack's Ness.

[Mr. Mike]

I have uploaded the introductory pages of the book where these bad reviews are found here:

https://fiveohomepage.com/misc/crime-tv-intro.pdf

These pages mention the various TV critics and writers who contributed to the "poll" that the book's ratings are based on, which are not actually spelled out anywhere.

It seems to me in the case of H50, FBI and SWAT, the authors of the book threw their own weight around as far as opinions of these shows was concerned.

Most WWW pages which list "the greatest TV shows of all time" may not include H50 in the top 10, 20, or whatever, but the show would typically be at least at the level of "a guilty pleasure."

[ringfire211]

The problem with that book is that it’s clearly biased because of their extreme left wing views. In their world anything even remotely right-wing is bad. Left wing is good. Simple as that. So you can’t take their review of any show seriously because their like or hate of it will be based solely on their political views. They aren’t judging a show on its own merits. I like Rockford Files and I could care less if James Garner was a Democrat. I just think it was a good show. And most of the shows I like I don’t even know what the political views of their stars was. I really don’t care.

[Bobbi]

I won't buy this book ever. However, I thoroughly enjoy/enjoyed Karen's book. Her reviews were spot on and objective.

These guys come out of the gate with the show as "right-wing". What the heck are you even watching dudes? That tells me they're taking Five-O completely out of context. It was made in the 1970s for gosh's sakes!

I think it's less left-wing and more smugness - the very smugness they talk about McGarrett having. "It's our book" reeks of arrogance, no matter their political leanings. I have both right-wing and left-wing leaning friends and NONE of them reek of this kind of arrogance. The authors are just being stupid.

[Todd]

Yeah I don't understand how Five-O is supposed to be "right wing". If anything, the show was more left than right, with some episodes featuring pro-environmental or anti-gun messaging.

Truthfully, it was just a police procedural show with the twist of an on-location Hawaiian setting. Politics typically didn't play into it.

The mostly apolitical nature of the show was best shown in the episode "Mother's Deadly Helper". McGarrett said something which remains correct 50 years later -- "Right or left, the lunatic fringe is ready to take things into its own hands, that's one thing they share in common."

While the villain in this show is a fanatical, uneducated right winger, McGarrett is also shown having disdain for a liberal talk show host named Freddy Dryden (played by Casey Kasem), who had apparently unfairly criticized him and Five-O before.

The writers were careful to show unsavory characters from both political sides in this one.

Presumably the author believes McGarrett is a right wing authoritarian because the modern left believes the police are the enemy of the people.

In short, the review is incredibly stupid.

[John Chergi]

Great topic and conversation. I think McGarrett is definitely the head and leader of Hawaii Five-O. In several episodes, he dishes out assignments to Chin, Duke, Kono etc. McGarrett is determined and serious fighting crime but can lighten the mood or smile with the HFO team. It's not just McGarrett solving everything though. He will enlist his detectives in solving the cases. EX: Journey Out Of Limbo. McGarrett gathers the team to figure out what could have fit in the empty bunker Danno noticed. Also, in A Study In Rage, McGarrett and the team analyze the dead psychiatrist's painting for possible clues or meanings. I've never thought of Hawaii Five-O as a right wing show. I think To Kill Or Be Killed can be seen as an anti-war type episode. One son an officer commits suicide from the experiences and horror in the Vietnam War. Another son refuses to be inducted into the service. He probably most likely will go to jail. Other episodes like Diary Of A Gun, it shows the trouble and damage a handgun can do over a series of hours. That would be an anti-gun episode. I never believed McGarrett as a right wing or left wing character. He's an intelligent and hard-working leader of HFO trying to solve cases. McGarrett was a NAVY officer and the leader of HFO. He still is a Reserve Officer later in the show. Both the military and police are seen as "right." You might remember that McGarrett in "Not That Much Different" investigates to find Julian's killer even though the Peace Group doesn't make it easy for him. He also backs his men in difficult circumstances like Chin in Cry, Lie and Danno in Pig In A Blanket. McGarrett is seen as an honorable man and even when he is under attack or framed...It doesn't stand up and McG is exonerated. JC

[ringfire211]

I also wonder if at the time when they wrote that book (in 1988) Hawaii Five-O was perhaps seen as an old and corny cop show. Your parents’ or grandparents’ show. I don’t think procedurals were “cool” at that time. This was the time of Miami Vice and Hill Street Blues and more “realistic” look at police work/life. So maybe that added into that. I’m sure in the late 80s Five-O was considered too by-the-numbers and too square. I remember watching reruns of 80s shows like Knight Rider in the 90s as well as Five-O. To me Knight Rider seemed very modern (even though it was already 10 years old) whereas Five-O seemed much older (my mom was a big fan). Imagine my surprise when I found out that Knight Rider debuted just 2 years after Five-O went off the air. I thought Five-O was much older. On the other hand I was also really surprised when I found out that Five-O debuted in 1968! I definitely didn’t think it was *that* old! LOL!! I thought it was a strictly 70s show - somewhere in the mid 70s. Had no idea that it basically touched 3 decades. Wow!!!

I actually think that maybe today Five-O is held in higher regard than in the 80s. Maybe in the 80s it felt “old” but today I actually think it holds up and looks better than most shows of its day and even shows that came after. Does anyone even talk about (or remember) Hill Street Blues today?? I’m sure it’s been eclipsed by NYPD Blue since then. But even NYPD Blue I feel is largely forgotten. I mean who talks about it anymore? Whereas Five-O has kind of reached iconic status. Also I feel these last few decades of gritty and realistic cop shows has made folks yearn for the older days of more procedural structured shows with not as much emphasis on grit and interpersonal relationships.

[John Chergi]

Ringfire

I was just thinking about Hill Street Blues. You would always hear how acclaimed Hill Street Blues was from TV critic types but I could not tell you 1 episode. Same thing about the equally acclaimed Police Story. Classic Hawaii Five-0 🌊 has stood the test of time. 12 mostly strong seasons and the iconic Steve McGarrett. Here we are on the forum 55+ years later and 44 years after its last episode...Talking about the brilliance and greatness of HFO. I think another reason HFO stands out...You can think of an episode name like Hookman or Highest Castle 🏰 , Deepest Grave or King 👑 Of The Hill or Nine Dragons and immediately recall the characters and plot. Most shows the recall is not as strong. The Kojak and Streets Of SF episodes I can also recall some of the episodes but not as strong as Classic HFO 🌊. Thankfully, there's a great Classic HFO 🌊 community here on the forum. NYPD also was an excellent show in the 1990's. I do remember some of the episodes. JC

[Todd]

I also wonder if at the time when they wrote that book (in 1988) Hawaii Five-O was perhaps seen as an old and corny cop show. Your parents’ or grandparents’ show. I don’t think procedurals were “cool” at that time. This was the time of Miami Vice and Hill Street Blues and more “realistic” look at police work/life. So maybe that added into that. I’m sure in the late 80s Five-O was considered too by-the-numbers and too square. I remember watching reruns of 80s shows like Knight Rider in the 90s as well as Five-O. To me Knight Rider seemed very modern (even though it was already 10 years old) whereas Five-O seemed much older (my mom was a big fan). Imagine my surprise when I found out that Knight Rider debuted just 2 years after Five-O went off the air. I thought Five-O was much older. On the other hand I was also really surprised when I found out that Five-O debuted in 1968! I definitely didn’t think it was *that* old! LOL!! I thought it was a strictly 70s show - somewhere in the mid 70s. Had no idea that it basically touched 3 decades. Wow!!!

I actually think that maybe today Five-O is held in higher regard than in the 80s. Maybe in the 80s it felt “old” but today I actually think it holds up and looks better than most shows of its day and even shows that came after. Does anyone even talk about (or remember) Hill Street Blues today?? I’m sure it’s been eclipsed by NYPD Blue since then. But even NYPD Blue I feel is largely forgotten. I mean who talks about it anymore? Whereas Five-O has kind of reached iconic status. Also I feel these last few decades of gritty and realistic cop shows has made folks yearn for the older days of more procedural structured shows with not as much emphasis on grit and interpersonal relationships.

Interesting observations.

I am a big fan of Miami Vice. However, I would not call it a "realistic" look at police work/life. Miami Vice was actually a television version of film noir. It was more about the style and setting than the actual plot or police investigations. Miami Vice actually holds up extremely well 40 years later, whereas many other dramas from the time do not.

I agree with you that Five-O is held in higher regard now than in the '80s, because a lot more time has passed since it went off the air. In 1988, its cancellation was just 8 years prior, which would be like us talking today about a show cancelled in 2016. Now that we're more than 44 years past Five-O's final episode, it's much easier to view it through the lens of a product from a completely different time.

One timeless aspect of Five-O is the setting. The on-location shooting on real spots throughout the islands (though mostly Oahu) gives it an authentic and scenic feel. Much of Five-O's appeal during its run was the fact that it essentially gave the viewer a chance to take a Hawaiian vacation from their living room -- something otherwise impossible before the world wide web. I do enjoy the on-location Hawaiian setting when viewing Five-O today, and every time I feel tempted to book another vacation to Hawaii. It's been 9 years, so I really should go back sometime soon.

Incidentally, while it's less scenic than Hawaii, the on-location shooting was also a source of the appeal of The Rockford Files, which was shot largely in and around the streets of Los Angeles.