Hawaii Five Oh No!

Umm... what the HELL, Hawaii Five-O?

Okay, here's my take on THIS show:  I don't have one.  BUT now I super hate it.

Here's the thing:  Even though I've never really seen an episode of the rebooted show, it's pretty much always on my TV.  My Monday night ritual usually involves turning on the TV, watching "How I Met Your Mother" and "Two & A Half Men," then turning the volume down and working on my newspaper column for the week.

As a result, "Hawaii Five-O" is on my TV a lot, though I've never paid attention to it.  The original was before my time a little bit, but I kinda thought it was a standard run-of-the-mill crime drama, wasn't it?  I assumed it was just like Kojak or whatever, but in Hawaii to create slightly nicer scenery, no?  And maybe I'm wrong there, since I never saw the original.

But every time I glance up at THIS reboot, it looks less like "Kojak" and more like "Apocalypse Now."  There's always someone being tortured or dudes running around with AK's and machine guns or what appear to be wicked Rambo-style jungle fights or huge explosions... this is NOT your parents' Hawaii Five O.

Well, even though I've never really watched the show, I've secretly rooted for it for a number of reasons... primarily the cast.  I was a "Lost" junkie, so it was cool that they cast Daniel Dae Kim as a lead character.  And then there's the show's leader, Alex O'Loughlin, who was really quite great in that-one-vampire-show-that-was-only-on-for-one-season-whose-name-I-can't-remember.  He's another in our current pantheon of British actors who play bad-ass Americans, and I dig that.

Then, THIS season, when they got Terry O'Quinn -- aka John Locke from "Lost" -- on a multi-episode arc, I respected the show even more.

But there was one secret reason why I reeeeeally rooted for Hawaii Five-O -- Larisa Oleynik.  Some of you might remember her from the classic Alex Mack Nickelodeon show... some of you might know her as Julia Stiles' little sister in "10 Things I Hate About You"... or you might remember her as Joseph Gordon-Levitt's girlfriend from "Third Rock from the Sun."

What I remember her from is the HUGE CRUSH I've had on her for years.  Call me pervy if you want, but she was always in that shortlist of girls that make me go "Wuh." (See: Holmes, Katie; Seyfried, Amanda; Birch, Thora; and Mulligan, Carey.)  And I was always kinda sad that she'd all but dropped off the Hollywood map.  But then, lo, there she was on Hawaii Five O, playing some kind of techie specialist person I think (based on my muted TV.)

So tonight I get home, watch sitcoms, and then bang out my column in record time.  "Cool," I thought to myself.  "Enough time to turn up the volume and catch a little of this Hawaii Five O nonsense."

I turn up the volume.  There's O'Loughlin getting tortured, as usual.  And there's the rest of the cast, running through random jungle.  And hey, there's Larisa Oleynik!  Aww, and she's still fairly cute.  It's so good that's she's on.....

BLAM!   BLAM!

And with two point blank shots to the chest, Larisa Oleynik is apparantly no longer a recurring cast member of Hawaii Five-O.  Worse yet, they apparantly turned her character EVIL at the end or something.  Or at least deeply, deeply flawed.  She apparantly was responsible for turning O'Loughlin over to the bad guys in exchange for some dude they'd kidnapped, and, well, he was dead, too, whoever he was.

Can't. Believe. They'd. Kill. Larisa.  It should be a crime to kill someone that cute, even a fictionalized version.  Actually, I think it IS a crime, and one that O'Loughlin will probably spend the next 2 seasons trying to remedy, IF the show goes that long.  I know it sure just lose its hardcore Alex Mack fanbase...