Four Ways 'Hawaii Five-0' Can Stand Out From Other Procedurals

Why has 'Hawaii Five-0' been a ratings success so far? It's not hard to figure out the formula. It's in a good timeslot that served 'CSI: Miami' well for a number of years. There isn't a heck of a lot of competition (maybe 'Castle,' but that's about it). And having Grace Park in a bikini or otherwise sexy outfit every week doesn't hurt.

But after three episodes, the show still has yet to break out from the procedural shell it's in. There have been signs that the show can become more than just a "case of the week" kind of program, but they're minor at best. So far, the show's been carried by some good action, good chemistry between Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan, and the aforementioned Park-in-bikini scenes (can't mention those enough).

Based on those signs, and the legacy of the original series, there are a few ways Roberto Orici, Alex Kurtzman, and their writers can take this show in a direction that makes it stand out from other procedurals.

Use Hawaii more, and not just for lush externals. Both the original 'Five-0' and its Hawaiian successor, 'Magnum, P.I.,' took advantage of the fact that, even though hundreds of thousands of people live in the state -- most of which live on the island of Oahu, where the show is based -- there is a definite small-town feel there. It's isolated, and families have lived there for generations, so saying that "everyone knows everyone" isn't that much of an exaggeration.

The new 'Five-0' needs to take advantage of this, showing how interconnected everyone really is with each other there. In last night's episode, for instance, Chin Ho and Kono found out their cousin Sid is working undercover with a Samoan gang. But Sid is still smarting from the corruption allegations that got Chin Ho kicked off the HPD, and he refuses to work with his cousin on the case.

Remember, three-quarters of the 5-0 team are natives. Even McGarrett has an extensive history there. Seeing how they wriggle out of sticky situations involving friends and family that are up to no good will shape the characters and make them more than just two-dimensional super-cops.

Put more emphasis on Scott Caan. Just three episodes in, it's pretty apparent that Scott Caan's version of Danno is the breakout character of this show. He's intense, he loves his daughter and will do anything for her, and doesn't follow McGarrett around like a lapdog. The writers have wisely given the modern-day Danno his own back story; we know more about Danno at this point than we know about any of the other main characters, and that's mainly because of Caan's performance.

Even though James MacArthur's version of Danno in the original 'Five-0' was an iconic character, he didn't have 10% of the personality we've seen in Caan's version of Danno. That was just how shows were written back in the '60s and '70s; Jack Lord's McGarrett was the dominant character and everyone else was simply there to help him bust the bad guys. The modern-day Danno is a fish out of water -- I give Caan respect for saying "mutz" in the proper New Jersey way -- who is struggling with being a responsible single dad and a 5-0 cop. At some point, Danno's job will put his daughter in jeopardy, and I'm looking forward to seeing Caan's performance as the intensity ratchets up.

Bring back James Marsters. McGarrett needs an archrival, for a number of reasons. The main motivation for McGarrett coming back to Hawaii is to avenge his father's death at the hand of Victor Hesse, and for now, we haven't really revisited that part of his story all that much. The reappearance of Hesse -- remember, his body never reappeared after he supposedly drowned in the pilot -- will bring back all those feelings.

However, Marsters, who plays Hesse, hasn't been signed beyond the pilot so far. But I'm sure Orici and Kurtzman didn't bring him on, with all of his 'Buffy' geek cred, just to have him on the pilot. He needs to be McGarrett's white whale, like Wo Fat was in the original version, popping up a few times per season to torture the cop all over again.

Give Grace Park more to do. Park needs to be more than eye candy. She proved during her years on 'Battlestar Galactica' that she has the acting chops to play more than just the newbie cop in the group. So far, Kono's only real back story is that she's Chin Ho's cousin. But I'd love to explore more of her background and see if we can mine stories from that (from the descriptions of future episodes, by the way, we might be seeing more of Kono's past soon.).

If Park can play a tortured Cylon, she can assuredly play a conflicted cop. In a bikini, of course.

Are you enjoying 'Hawaii Five-0' so far? What do you think it needs to do to improve?

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