Kurtzman, Orci Get CBS Greenlight for 'Hawaii Five-O'

It isn't just movies that are looking to the past; old is new again in TV as well. We'll forget the update of Knight Rider for the moment and get right to the good news, or better new, at any rate. CBS is looking to bring back Hawaii Five-O (and hopefully one of the all-time coolest theme songs ever). One of TV's longest-running cop dramas, and certainly one of the landmark series in terms of location shooting, Five-O aired almost 300 episode on CBS between 1968 and 1980. The easiest way to look at the new version is that CBS is having great success with procedurals these days between the CSI and NCIS franchises and Lost provided a modern blueprint for shooting in Hawaii. This doesn't have to be the same characters, just the same formula. So that's fine. CBS Studios picked up a "sizable commitment" to the new series back in October, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and now the network (sort of a separate entity from CBS Studios) has given the show the greenlight. Now, for movie fans, this is significant because it's being co- produced by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who of course have worked with J.J. Abrams for several years (though not on Lost). But they were Alias producers and work on Fringe on top of all of their big films, like Trek and Transformers. The duo is joined in the project by Peter Lenkov, and executive producer for the network's CSI: New York, meaning there will probably be major expectations for the show. Just think of those network promos: "From the producers of..." And just because, here's the opening credit sequence from the old show, with that bad-ass theme song.

Comments

[J.Bradley]

The theme is iconic, but it's still too 60's "surf-rock" for the twenty-first century. I'm sure they'll rework it though. I always thought "Hawaii 5-0" was to the late 60's and 70's what "Miami Vice" was to the 80's. They've been talkin' about this for a few years as a movie, bringin' it back to tv is their best bet I'd say.