Book ‘Em: The ‘Five-0′ pilot that crashed
Gary Busey and Russell Wong shoot wildly across Beretania Street. (Courtesy CBS)
BY BURL BURLINGAME / bburlingame@staradvertiser.com
It’s a newspaperman’s holiday, and so the dissection of today’s new episode of “Hawaii Five-0” will have to wait a day or two. But we’ll get to it.
This new, buffed-up, oversaturated and shiny edition of “Hawaii Five-0” is considered the offspring of the original show, which ran on CBS from the 1968 season through the 1980 season. But there was another version, one you were never meant to see, one hidden away in dusty closets and forbidding warehouses. This was a pilot filmed in 1996, when CBS was looking into reviving their franchise creations.
The network hired Stephen J. Cannell to knock out a pilot script. Cannell, creator of “The Rockford Files,” “The A-Team” and other TV classics, was apparently never a fan of the original show. He watched a few episodes and figured he had a handle on it. The pilot episode was filmed, executives at CBS took one look at it and round-filed the whole production, slamming the door shut behind them. The public never saw it, and so the missing episode entered the realm of “Five-0” mythology.
Was it really that bad?
I took a look at the 1996 Cannell pilot this week and can report that: (A) It wasn’t terrible, but (B) it wasn’t much good, either, and (C) the things that made “Hawaii Five-0” work were largely missing.
Busey attempts to make an arrest before his nose starts bleeding again. (Courtesy CBS)
Cannell, who died a few years ago, was a clever dramatist with a keen reading of story arc, motivation and pacing, and also had a good sense of humor. Often his shows seemed to make fun of themselves, and by extension, the whole of televised dramaturgy. It was this nudge-nudge wink-wink that made people fond of his shows. They also made dramatic sense — clues actually led somewhere, motives were revealed by character, cases were solved by solid, deductive skullwork.
His vision of “Hawaii Five-0” was essentially a by-the-numbers Cannell operation. The entire chain of command was shattered when Cannell replaced autocratic, tense, megalomanical Steve McGarrett with two characters, one a laid-back dude who worked by intuition (Gary Busey, in his best Nick-Nolte-drunk-driving mode), the other, an up-tight Washington-based G-man (Russell Wong, seething in his dark polyester suits).
They are given equal power in the Five-0 office. If you’re imagining that this pairing is an entirely artificial situation designed just to rachet up the snippy dialogue and shoehorn in some dramatic tension, you are correct, sir.
James MacArthur was back briefly as Danno, newly elected governor of Hawaii, but he was shot in the opening scene and wounded. The other Five-0 regulars, played by Kam Fong, Zulu, Harry Endo, Moe Keale, and Herman Wedemeyer, have all retired from the force, but volunteer to help track down the assassin. Wong, Mr. By-The-Book, is appalled by this team effort. Busey, of course, is all for it, and the retired old cops help out a bit with stake-outs and tracking.
Moe Keale, Kam Fong and Herman Wedemeyer get their assignments from Busey. (Courtesy CBS)
This is a nice touch that connects the original show to the pilot, and one of Cannell’s pet themes was a subtext of older people being capable and smart (remember, this was on CBS). But, but, try wait, you cry, wasn’t Kam Fong killed off in the original series?
You are correct again, sir. One of the sticking bits of legend attached to this pilot was that actor Kam Fong, desiring another Hollywood paycheck, deliberately neglected to tell Cannell that his character Chin Ho Kelly had been killed off, and his “Five-0” cast members, in on the gag, also kept their lips zipped. When Cannell found out, it was too late to reshoot and so the completed pilot has a miraculously resurrected Chin Ho.
That’s a good story. However, Kam Fong’s screen time in the pilot is very, very short, and newspaper stories about the filming at the time often mention that Chin Ho was killed off. So, chalk one up to Hollywood magic.
Elsie Sniffen, now known as "Kayla Blake," blazes away at some perps. (Courtesy CBS)
Anyway, with director Bradford May helming, the pilot is a fairly standard police procedural. Busey always makes interesting business in his scenes, and Wong is convincingly dour as the G-man bureaucrat. The other standout in the cast was local actress Elsie Sniffen a junior Five-0 officer named — get this — Rell Sunn. She was smashing, and Sniffen later changed her name to Kayla Blake and moved to the mainland. Also excellent, Andy Bumatai as Five-0 laboratory functionary “Danny Kahala.” Bumatai is still an underused resource here.
The plot had something to do with a crime kingpin — Branscombe Richmond, with the world’s biggest mullet-hair — being blamed for the assassination attempt so that Russian-mafia types could operate freely in the islands. There’s a shootout or two, and some laughable attempts at pidgin, and stock locations get a workout. Apparently, Ala Moana park is where all “Five-0” folks go to kick back after a long day solving crime.
Wong and Busey — would they have made one of the great screen teams? Nah. (Courtesy CBS)
Busey had a hard time filming because of frequent nosebleeds, and Cannell and CBS became leery of picking up the show with him in it. As it turned out, Busey had a “plum-sized” tumor in his sinus cavity that had to be later cut out with surgery. I wonder what they thought he was doing?
If the lost episode ever becomes available, look quick for local celebrity actors Michael W. Perry, Cynthia Yip, Dave Carlin, Achilles Gacis, Elissa Dulce, Dennis Chun and Eden-Lee Murray.
———
Burl Burlingame is a features reporter at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Email him at bburlingame@staradvertiser.com and follow him on Twitter.
Related Video:
