By Stu Robinson

Mark your calendar for the return of August March to CBS’s Hawaii Five-0.

The episode scheduled to air on Monday, March 19, will feature TV legend Ed Asner (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant) reprising the role of art smuggler March, which he played in an episode of the original Hawaii Five-0 in 1975.

According to Examiner.com, Taryn Manning will return as McGarrett’s sister, Mary Ann, and be accused of smuggling conflict diamonds. The Five-0 team will go to March for help in clearing her name. And there’s more: Tom Sizemore will be involved in the episode as Honolulu Police Capt. Vince Fryer, drab suits and all.

CBS released this promotional video featuring Asner, Scott Caan and an unusually animated Sizemore.

Notes

• You may have heard that H50 star Alex O’Loughlin, who plays McGarrett, has left the show briefly to recover from an addiction to pain killers. “Alex is taking a short break from Hawaii Five-0 to receive supervised treatment for prescription pain medication,” his rep said in a statement. Season 2 filming is ahead of schedule, and various reports have speculated that he will miss only one episode. According to E! Online, that will be the Los Angeles portion of a crossover story with CBS’ NCIS: Los Angeles. E! reports that Danno (Caan) and Chin Ho (Daniel Dae Kim) will make the trip to the mainland in lieu of McGarrett.
• Terry O’Quinn has signed on for a season-ending, two-episode story arc on TNT’s alien-invasion mashup Falling Skies. I don’t know how this will affect his availability for Hawaii Five-0. His character, Joe White, took an indefinite leave after Season 2, Episode 14.
• CBS has picked up Hawaii Five-0 for a third season.

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Stuart J. Robinson, a college friend of the TV Tyrant, is a writer, editor, media-relations practitioner and social-media guy based in Phoenix.