Hawaii Five-O - Part 2

[Dark Raven]

Just watched the season finale. The episode was good, but it didn't feel like a finale at all. It could easily have been somewhere in the middle. I thought it was going to continue with some other major villain they had from before. Not that there's many left at all.

They also didn't leave other things as a cliffhanger. I thought Chin Ho was going to announce he was leaving for San Francisco.

 

[Kaleb]

Daniel Dae Kim, Grace Park Exit ‘Hawaii Five-0’

Stars Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park have departed CBS’ “Hawaii Five-0.” Their characters, Chin Ho Kelly and Kono Kalakaua, will not appear in the upcoming eighth season. The characters’ absence will be referenced in the season premiere.

Sources tell Variety that Park and Kim had been seeking pay equality with stars Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan, but were unable to reach satisfactory deals with CBS Television Studios

“I will never forget meeting Daniel while still writing the pilot and being certain there was no other actor who I’d want to play Chin Ho Kelly,” said executive producer Peter Lenkov. “Needless to say, Daniel has been an instrumental part of the success of ‘Hawaii Five-0’ over the past 7 seasons and it has personally been a privilege to know him. Grace’s presence gave ‘Hawaii Five-0’ a beauty and serenity to each episode. She was the consummate collaborator, helping build her character from day 1. They will always be ohana to us, we will miss them and we wish them both all the best.”

 

[Dark Raven]

Well that sucks. They'll be missed. It's ironic that the two main characters who left first were also the two main characters that left in the original series (although Chin Ho was killed off).

Are they going to get other Asian actors to replace them or will they have the replacement characters from the original series? But Duke Lukela was a replacement but here he's chief of police at HPD.

Weren't there rumours McGarrett also wanted to leave? With so many gone is it worth carrying on?

 

[Hunter Rider]

It seemed like season 8 would probably be the last and this just cements it, in fact I wonder if they might pull the plug now like they did when Stana Katic left Castle.

They left Chin's storyline up in the air with the San Francisco job offer but that at least gives him a smooth exit as they can just do a little scene of McGarrett and Danno talking about Chin taking the job, but the season ended on a cliffhanger for Kono and now we won't see what happens with her.

 

[Webfoot Hero]

I can't see this show lasting past next season as I don't think many fans will be wanting to stick around getting to know a bunch of replacements for their favorite characters. Just sucks that this happened over money and not because they felt their time on the show was done due to no more storylines. I wouldn't be surprised if CBS thinks the ratings won't tank because of them because H50 fans are pretty loyal to both the show and its main characters so I bet they see a big drop. And whoever they do hire, they should be Asian or Polynesian since the show's diversity is one its biggest strengths and is a good reflection of what Hawaii looks like.

 

[Teelie]

I'm surprised at those two both leaving and there is the fact both are asian and the leads are white which I am sure will play into this sooner rather than later.

Kim was more obvious with the write him off in San Francisco with Abby angle but Park leaving is much more unexpected.

 

[Dark Raven]

These are some replacement characters they could potentially have for the team:

1) Nick Kellogg
2) Ben Kokua
3) Frank Kamana
4) Sandi Welles
5) James "Kimo" Carew
6) Truck Kealoha

They've already had Lori Weston (Wilson in the original).

But then again, they might not use any of the original character names in future since Lou Grover and Jerry Ortega aren't from the original series.

It seemed like season 8 would probably be the last and this just cements it, in fact I wonder if they might pull the plug now like they did when Stana Katic left Castle.

They left Chin's storyline up in the air with the San Francisco job offer but that at least gives him a smooth exit as they can just do a little scene of McGarrett and Danno talking about Chin taking the job, but the season ended on a cliffhanger for Kono and now we won't see what happens with her.

They can't pull the plug like Castle, because at least with Castle we knew before it aired that it was the final episode and that the show had been axed. To do it now between seasons would be without any warning. The last episode also had some kind of cliffhanger and would leave things hanging without wrapping things up. At least they should have an episode to give it a proper ending.

I don't think Chin Ho and Kono should just exit off screen though but be given a proper send off. They shouldn't have been written out anyway because they're both popular with fans.

 

[Primal Slayer]

So they left since they couldn't get equal pay. No surprise coming with CBS.

 

[Sithborg]

Sucks for the show, but good for them for sticking to their guns. It is kind of bull that they weren't getting equal pay, especially with O'Loughlin's troubles.

 

[Webfoot Hero]

Sucks for the show, but good for them for sticking to their guns. It is kind of bull that they weren't getting equal pay, especially with O'Loughlin's troubles.

CBS should really have opened up the pursestrings a bit since Kono and Chin Ho were original cast members and play integral parts on the team. They've really relied on Park and DDK to carry on a lot of the action and plot the past couple seasons since O'Loughlin has really cut back what he does physically, Caan misses about 1/4 of the season due to contractual reasons of his own asking, and McBride is the oldest member of the team. With them having to replace half the team, it'll be interesting to see how much they focus on the new members versus finishing out McG, Danno, and Grover's stories. Anybody they get will need to be able to carry their own in the acting and physical action departments.

I get the feeling that they knew at least Grace Park wasn't returning since they put out a casting call for a potential female series regular role shortly after the S7 finale aired. I know they just started filming again in Hawaii and haven't seen anything about them looking for another series regular role to replace DDK so there may be a few episodes where it's only McG, Danno, Grover, and whoever the new female team member is.

 

[chamber-music]

It is really messed up that Scott Caan managed to negotiate into his contract to do less episodes so that he could spend more time with his family on the main land and yet still get paid more than Daniel Dae Kim & Grace Park.

The Big Bang Theory cast were willing to take a pay cut so that their co-stars Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch could get a higher pay when it came to negotiations. No solidarity with the Five-O cast but the looks of things.

 

[Dark Raven]

I wonder if this will be seen as racist in any way that the white cast members get paid more, and of course they must not ignore the black guy, but the Asians they think can work for cheaper.

 

[Loki882]

It's sadly not at all uncommon in Hollywood. You'd think that CBS would have enough common sense to know that this wouldn't look good for them PR-wise if it got out, and would have taken steps to correct it.

But guess not.

 

[Warhammer]

If Five-0 was more popular, we'd have a media firestorm right now.

 

[Webfoot Hero]

If Five-0 was more popular, we'd have a media firestorm right now.

The show gets 10 million an episode but many of those are older viewers, which makes the journalists not care since they only pay attention to shows that appeal to younger markets or have the most hype online. It seems that when most people heard this news, they were joking about who watches CBS and they didn't know this show was even still on. I'd say that happens to CBS and most of their shows because some people think it's cool to rag on CBS appealing to older viewers or keeping shows on for many years while others cancel shows like people change their socks.

 

[Dark Raven]

This is one of the most multicultural shows on TV where you have leads who are not white. The only other show which comes close to this where you get two Asian leads is Agents of SHIELD. But in this show you even get other cast members who are probably Hawaiian natives.

 

[Loki882]

What's really bizarre is that, out of the main cast, these two are the ones that probably are the most well-known. DDK has been in a lot of stuff, and Grace Park was a major part of Nu-Battlestar Galactica. By contrast, I'd really not heard of the other leads going in.

 

[Dark Raven]

It has to be the Asian thing then. Just treat them like dirt because they probably won't protest and neither will the media.

 

[TheVileOne]

Meh, the show has been spinning it's wheels since Wo Fat got killed. It peaked in terms of quality a long time ago.

 

[Webfoot Hero]

What's really bizarre is that, out of the main cast, these two are the ones that probably are the most well-known. DDK has been in a lot of stuff, and Grace Park was a major part of Nu-Battlestar Galactica. By contrast, I'd really not heard of the other leads going in.

I'd say Scott Caan had the biggest name between him and O'Loughlin since he was James Caan's son and he'd also been in stuff like Enemy of the State, Varisty Blues, the Ocean's movies, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Entourage leading up to H50. O'Loughlin had one of the thinnest resumes of the cast when he joined, having only a few indie films, a couple failed TV shows after being on The Shield, and a romcom with Jennifer Lopez.

 

[Dark Raven]

Don't forget that Scott Caan was also in Into the Blue.

 

[Webfoot Hero]

Don't forget that Scott Caan was also in Into the Blue.

Knew I was forgetting another one.

 

[Jedi Arrow]

Meh, the show has been spinning it's wheels since Wo Fat got killed. It peaked in terms of quality a long time ago.

True that. The only episodes post-Wo Fat that I've thought were just as good as the early episodes (and I mean, I thought the early seasons of this show were really good) were the ones where Grover was trying to prove that his old partner had killed his wife (mostly for Chi McBride's acting–"Go smoke on that." t, and the one where the whole team was on the run from the Yakuza along with Gabriel Waincroft, trying to keep him alive. Those three episodes, to me, were extremely high quality. Also, ironically, they were episodes that toned down the humor and focused on the serious stuff. I love Jerry, Kamakona, and Max, but I feel like when they're overused they pull episode quality down (a whole episode about Jerry's sister freeing an elephant being an example). The episodes that focus on the team–Steve, Danny, Chin Ho, Kono, and Grover–are the best episodes. Especially Steve, IMO; his early episodes were some of the best in the show.

 

[C. Lee]

Really sad to see those two go. Been a fan of both from before HF0 started. It won't seem the same. When my wife heard the news, she said it might be time to drop it.

 

[Dark Raven]

Kono has always been the sharpshooter. Who is going to fulfill that role now that she's gone? And it was always badass to see her in action.