Hawaii Five-0 Style

I was reminded of a few things while watching an episode of the new Hawaii Five-0. The episode was about a foreign dictator type who massacred innocent civilians for years and then one day decides to change his ways and goes to Hawaii seeking political asylum.

There are so many things wrong with that sentence, but let's move on…

What I like about the show:

1. Alex O'Loughlin – I probably don't need to elaborate, but I will. Hadn't really paid attention to this guy until now. It's kind of hard to miss him on the show. He takes him shirt off every episode. That works for me. He also plays a former Navy SEAL who is always ready to jump into the water and rescue something or someone. Good times.

2. The buddy concept – The two males stars engage in much witty repartee. They are good together, play off each other well and have good timing. I know that sounds kind of dirty, but it's not. It's good family television.

3. Hawaii – The scenery on this show is like travel porn. The shots are gorgeous and my hubby and I play the "hey, that's the XX!" game the whole time the show is on. He grew up in Oahu so he can pretty much tell where everything is shot. For some reason that tickles me.

What I don't like: The plots. They border on ridiculous. Let's go back to the dictator episode…

1. This very bad dictator guy who is likely wanted as a war criminal comes to Hawaii seeking asylum and the governor handles it. And the dictator doesn't sneak into the state for this asylum, mind you. Oh, no. He makes a big production of it. There are protestors and everything. Basically, everyone knows he's coming. That's strange enough, but the governor part is my favorite. The bad dictator guy is being handled not by the federal agents or anyone in the federal government. The Hawaii governor is taking care of it. Um, no.

2. When said bad dictator guy comes to Hawaii and needs protection he is given…a team of exactly four people (the Five-0 team), one of whom is a brand new cop and another is a disgraced officer. Uh, really? See, I'm thinking he'd have a full contingent of federal agents protecting his ass. Not four people.

3. To be fair with regard to #2, a contingent of…uh, mercernaries of some sort, is also assigned to watch over the bad dictator guy. These guys were so obviously crooked that the Five-O folks need to go back for some training for not picking up on it.

4. After the Five-0 team is attacked by the obviously crooked mercernary team, what does the Five-0 team do? That's right, they go back to Alex O'Loughlin's house. Not to the police station or FBI headquarters, hell not even to DEA. The four-person team goes to the one guy's house with the bad dictator guy and his family in tow. Lordy.

5. The head Five-0 guy does call the police to let them know he has the bad dictator guy and his family at the house. Then, for reasons that aren't clear, they all wait at the house for hours (you can tell this because it gets dark outside) without realizing that even if the police walked there barefoot they should have been at the house at least three hours before. General thought: Oahu is an island. It's shouldn't take half a day for the police to go from one end to the other. Then there's the part where Oahu has more than one police station. I'm thinking there's one near his house and he should know that.

6. On the phone thing…turns out the mercernary dudes did some magic cell phone cloning and stopped that call from ever getting to the police. Not sure when this happened and don't really care because the whole going-to-the-house-and-waiting-for-hours-for-the-police-without-noticing-there-was-a-problem thing overwhelmed everything else.

7. When the mercernary dudes come to the house to kill the bad dictator dude, there's a shoot-out…and the head Five-0 guy goes outside in the middle of it. Of course he does. That is the logical thing to do, right? Again, no.

8. Then, since we needed a happy ending, the bad dictator guy had to realize the error of his ways thanks to his love for his son. This is romantic and all, but yowsa. Homicidal sociopaths do not just wake up and stop being bad guys because they have cute kids. Just no.

I will, of course, continue to watch [See previous comment about a shirtless Alex O'Loughlin] but, damn, this plotting needs to get better. I should not laugh while people are shot unless I'm watching a Police Academy movie. This is an hour drama…right?

Good actors. Good characters chemistry. Beautiful setting. Writers with great resumes. Now we need realitic suspense plots. Please…