Hawaii Five: O: The Sixth Season and beyond - Page 4

I stand corrected.   The reference guides keep listing him on the show from 72-74, but now that I recheck he was in early S7 episodes only and thus gone from the show by the end of 74.

I agree with everyone else, Season 7 represents another outstanding piece of DVD artwork, very eye-catching on store shelves (even though Season 6's art is still my personal fave).  I've said it before and I'll say it again, the show definitely has some fans inside CBS-Paramount, as the quality that has gone into the show's restorations and front/back artwork consistently exceeds those of other CBS-P TV show sets.  I also like the fact that they have been correctly using images of the characters that line up very closely with the seasons they are representing, whereas they could just as easily have used some earlier-season or later-season images if they weren't paying attention.  While obviously the quality of the episodes is the big draw, I think one of the other reasons fans/general consumers keep buying each season is because of the attractive artwork that jumps off the store shelves compared to the more generic artwork of numerous other DVD sets.

In response to the questions about Ben's involvement in Season 7, he was around for the first half or so of the season (as noted above), but allegedly was released from the show due to pressure from the star, Jack Lord.  Creator Leonard Freeman had brought him in to replace Kono (Zulu) starting with season 5, but after Freeman's death toward the end of Season 6, Lord unofficially took over in an executive producer capacity to help fill the void and maintain the show's quality and integrity.  However, he had never been a fan of Harrington's (not sure if it was the character or the actor himself he wasn't pleased with), and Harrington left during the 7th season.  He was replaced by Doug Mossman as Frank Kemana in the remaining half of the 7th season.  Frank is a rather non-descript but agreeable enough character who never really had a chance to shine in the shows he appeared in (even Ben had a couple good moments in season 5).  Mossman never received a credit during the show opening as Zulu and Harrington did.  The Ben character's image in the season 7 opening was replaced with a shot of a fireman with a blow torch.  In season 8, Herman Wedemeyer's Duke character (seen in a police uniform since season 4) gets promoted (off-screen apparently) as a member of the Five-0 team, and Frank disappears.  Duke doesn't get his opening sequence credit until Season 9, though.

Yeah season seven is another must buy for me I'll hang in atleast till season 8 , but after that there is saddly a huge quality drop off s9 is only decent ,and  the last three season are mostly un watchable . Yes s7 and s8 are must buys after that only if $$$ permits.

Never mind.  Nothing to see here.

Nope.  It was just a mistake.  I don't really have a comment except that I think we'll get the artwork we are seeing now.  It's always possible they could change it up at the last minute, but I doubt it in this case.

Gary "I hope they don't change it - it's incredible" O.

This is SUCH great news!  I still have three episodes left from season 6, and I'm saving them for a good viewing time (preferably a rainy afternoon, where the family is off visiting the in-laws...a couple of cold ones, watching Steve McGarrett kick a little criminal booty).

I am so happy that season #7 is coming out. This show is a classic one and love watching them over and over again. Nothing beats bookem Danno or watching the old cop techniques/work. The forensic work has help police work, but, the old methods of solving crime are very fascinating.

I hope there are more seasons to come.

I was going to stop collecting with Season 6, but I think I will keep going abit longer.

Well they did change the cover art to show Duke instead of Ben which may not have been totally necessary in the end, but I think does set the stage for the rest of the run where his picture should be on the front for all remaining seasons.

I don't really have a dog in this race, but it was completely unnecessary and it kind of demonstrates just how poorly some people research things.  It would have only taken a couple of minutes via Google for anyone to see that "Ben" was on the show at the beginning of Season 7.  It's not like it was some big secret issue.  But I honestly don't care one way or the other.  The night shot stayed the same, which is the important thing to me because it looks so great! 

Gary "it's a little crazy that CBS wouldn't even check that out before changing it up" O.

 would have been nice to put Harry Endo on the cover. he was CSI: Honolulu

Duke has actually been around as an HPD officer since Season 4.  However, he doesn't suit up and become a member of the Five-0 team until Season 8, and he doesn't start getting an opening titles credit until Season 9.  And unlike James MacArthur, he's there until the bitter end (meaning the wretched Season 12).  And if you watch enough season 12 episodes someday, you will notice that the actor playing Duke does in fact seem to become bitter or downright surly (playing second fiddle to Kimo, Lori and Truck, the rocket scientists that joined the team during that season).

I think people's mistaken impressions on Harrington's presence in S7, and I will plead guilty on that score myself, can be traced to the influence of the old Brooks/Marsh reference guide on TV shows which people would devour the details of for shows they didn't know the ins and outs of to the point where what they would know about the show before they became acclimated to it came from there.    In that reference book Harrington is listed as a regular for "1972-1974" which to anyone studying it would imply two seasons only.     But instead, Brooks/Marsh got overly anal retentive and decided that since his last new episode aired in the CALENDAR year 1974 that would be how the entry would read even though of course his episodes would surely have been repeated in calendar year 1975.      And that's ultimately how mistaken impressions can get formed.

That said, the fact that they show Duke properly as an HPD officer shows they're giving him the spotlight for how the character was *that season* and for a character who was a more constant presence throughout the season than Harrington was, and so I think in the end there's no reason to complain about the change on the grounds that it shows something inaccurate about the show that season.   If they'd showed Duke as a Five-O member, that would have been different.


Edited by Jack P - 8/5/2009 at 10:03 pm GMT

I can certainly understand the Complete Directory book causing a misunderstanding on the issue.  And like I said earlier, I don't have a dog in this race.  To me the nice thing was the background artwork showcasing the nighttime beach scene.  As long as that stayed intact, I was going to be happy.

Gary "kinda weird that 'Ben' would disappear in middle of a season" O.

 I want to see season 12, but only with an ample supply of pineapple flavored rum

Joe Corey, if the season 12 episodes were actually reasonably enjoyable, a nice pineapple flavored rum would be a perfect drink to enjoy them with.  However, given the fact that season 12 is incredibly horrifying, you will want to smash the rum bottle over your head until you black out and call it a night.

Here's the link, Richard:  http://www.paramounttv.com/
Look it up under 'Series'.  There's a note in there somewhere saying that the HD remastering currently taking place is not for syndication.  As for the syndication remastering that took place a while back, you are correct: the majority of non-remastered shows came from seasons 10-12.

The pre-title sequence teasers were done away with starting in season 5.  30-second pre-show 'previews' started in season 9.

Richard,

1) To the best of my knowledge, every episode in the DVD seasons released so far has been digitally remastered in HD.  This is separate from the syndicated lists in the CBS-P bible, in which ~74 various episodes, especially in the latter part of the series' run, were not remastered for syndication and subsequently are not available in the current syndication package. Thus, a number of the episodes on DVD, starting around season 5, are not available to local tv stations for broadcast these days.

2) I think the Jack Lord minute-long promos (that we have on the DVDs) continued at the end of each episode as next week's scenes, just as they always had been doing.  However, in syndication in the 80s and most of the 90s when the shows were uncut, 30-second previews (usually cutdowns of the 1-minute next week's scenes) were added to the very beginning of the episodes in seasons 9-12.  I presume they were shown like that in the series' original CBS run as well.

I finally found some time to watch the final three episodes of season 6.  Of course, I knew that nothing remaining could equal the powerhouse of 'Nightmare In Blue', but even with expectations down, I was still pretty disappointed to see season 6 go out on such a whimper.  'Mother's Deadly Helper' certainly started things off on the right track (with the always great Anthony Zerbe), but boy, do the final two shows fizzle.  'Killer At Sea' is more like a Muder on the Orient Express type show, with just about everyone being a suspect...and '30,000 Rooms and I Have A Key' really hits bottom, with a recycled idea from a previous show (actually, two shows) being done once again.  By the middle of the episode, your basically wondering when the end credits will come.

Well, it was still an outstanding season of shows ('Nightmare In Blue' alone was worth the purchase).  I am SO looking forward to October's release of Season 7!

I am also looking forward to Season#7. I still rank Hawaii Five-O up there as one of the best police dramas.