For the third time in four weeks, CBS’s new Hawaii Five-0 tried a gimmick to hook viewers. This time, however, the show looked to its own past for inspiration.
Season 3, Episode 15 is the first in the new series to have and English title – “Hookman.” That’s because it is a straight remake of the original series’ Season 6 premiere, which aired Sept. 11, 1973, also titled “Hookman.”
I was optimistic about this remake because the series’ writers did a good job adapting the 1975 episode “Wooden Model of a Rat” to accommodate a guest appearance by Ed Asner (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant) in Season 2, Episode 19. And that’s not all! They followed that up by writing Asner’s character, August March, into an all-new Episode 2 this season.
As one might guess from the name, the original “Hookman” introduced an antagonist with mechanical hooks in place of forearms and hands. In the remake, the man has modern, prosthetic limbs.
And who better to play a mechanically augmented cop-show character than Peter Weller (RoboCop), who also directed the episode.
Peter Weller portrays a sniper with prosthetic forearms and hands.
Both “Hookmans” involve a former military sniper who had both hands blown off in a botched bank robbery. Released from prison, he tries to kill the Honolulu Police officers who foiled the bank job. Using his sniper skills, he picks off those cops one by one while investigators struggle to find a link to the killings. In 1973, Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) was one of those officers. Because the Steve played by Alex O’Loughlin in the new series is considerably younger, the writers tweaked the story so that it was his father Jack (William Sadler) involved in the bank incident.
When I started blogging H50 for the TV Tyrant three years ago, I viewed a Netflix DVD of the original series’ first few episodes from 1968 so I could develop a frame of reference. What a difference just a few years can make. This week I streamed the original “Hookman” from Netflix straight to my new 55-inch Samsung smart TV.
As I wrote above, the new “Hookman” was a pretty straight remake but for the inclusion of Papa McGarrett. That alteration influenced the ending, in which Steve sees a vision of his father and the murdered cops.
“You’re all I could’ve hoped for in a son, Steven,” his ghost father says. “I’m proud of you.”
On its own, that might’ve been a big much. But the new Hawaii Five-0 has been dealing with Steve’s daddy issues since the series premiere. It will be interesting to see whether this development will put those issues to bed – especially since Steve has had to address a ton of new mommy issues this season.
Otherwise, the main difference I noticed in the two episodes was the pacing. The earlier version was considerably slower, with the camera lingering on various procedures: the loading of a rifle; the stamping of letters on gold plating, getting ahold of parties via the old police radios.
Some other differences between the old and new episodes:
- The sniper in 2013 engraves each victim’s name on the shell casing. In the original, the names were letter pressed on the rifle itself, necessitating a different weapon for each killing.
- The shop where the sniper plans to take out McGarrett is a printing shop in the original. The new series’ writers made it a gun shop and had Danno (Scott Caan) picking an argument with the store owner about gun control.
- The 1973 episode ended with Danno (James MacArthur) taking out the sniper with a rifle Steve retrieved from the car trunk at great personal risk. This time, the shot was taken by Kono (Grace Park), who has demonstrated her sharpshooting skills several times on the new series.
- The original version had a white, male governor who was totally supportive of McGarrett. He was portrayed by actor Richard Denning. In the new series, Steve has had complicated relationships with female and African-American governors, the latter being a Gov. Denning.
Note
- Promos for the next episode of H50 reveal that sic-fi fanboy favorite Summer Glau (Firefly, Serenity, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Alphas) will be a guest star .
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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.