So I suppose it's not exactly a huge surprise that Lucie and I are watching the remake of Hawai'i Five-0... it's a remake of a retro show, it's got Daniel Dae Kim in it, and it's all about one of our two favorite U.S. States. It's a fun action show with good amounts of comedy, witty lines, shave ice, beautiful scenery, and things that go bo'om.
So, there's that.
And I'm also willing to admit that maybe it's not exactly the best example of intelligent writing out there, but we've got Bones and reruns of Numb3rs for that; and it's not a wacky and fun comedy, for which we have Modern Family and How I Met Your Mother; and while it's a crime show we already have Psych and Mexico: One Plate at a Time; and it's possible I'm not too good at pigeonholing shows into their proper genre. Psych should totally be in the wacky and fun comedy. And it's also possible that we watch a bit too much tv.
But back to Five-0.
As mentioned, it's not the best comedy, or crime drama, or brain stimulant; but I'll stick with the opinion that it's the best combination of the three that's set in Hawai'i (because Burn Notice is also a good multiple-genre show but it's set in Miami, and Chuck has dibs on the Left Coast, and I already admitted we watch too much tv.). We can watch the show and enjoy the action and the clever lines, and every few minutes we can say to each other, "Man, we miss Hawai'i.". Or "Just look at how clear that water is!" Or "Where can I get one of those Waiola Shave Ice shirts?" Or even "So did Daniel Dae Kim just relocate to Hawai'i completely, or what?"
And it's also educational programming, because we can even learn new things by watching the show, such as Honolulu's crime rate is so high it's like the Oakland of the Pacific (except for the rioting -- my mental image of a Hawai'ian riot would go "Heck no, we won't... ooh! Shrimp truck!"); or that apparently Korean is the new Chinese; or it's just got to be mathematically impossible for so many people to be bobbing in the water with all of those surfers and not to have at least a dozen or two fiberglass-to-head collisions per day, 'cuz that's just crazy.
And I can also learn that Windows is throwing TONS of money into their product placement. Last episode, for example, Chin Ho tells his cousin Kono to "Bing it" when talking about an artist, and there follows a blatant scene of her whipping out her Windows Mobile phone (Microsoft's competition to Apple's iOS and Google's Android) and doing a search on Bing (Microsoft's competition to Google's Google.). Saw basically the same thing on the latest Bones as well, with a Tempe POV of her Windows Mobile phone.
Now, I don't have any real issue with product placement -- I've noticed that McGarret sports an iPhone 4 and they use an iPad at Five-0 HQ, and Chuck is an Apple fanboy who eats at Subway -- but this one's little over the top, isn't it? An extended scene with a main character's POV of the Windows Mobile screen and their search engine is bad enough, but i just can't overlook the egregious usage of "Bing" as a verb.
Bing is not a verb! It hasn't been around long enough to evolve into a verb, and throwing tons of money into advertising doesn't count. That's like the business version of genetically modified food, except that I don't really have an issue with genetically modified food. Let's call it more like the business version of Pleather.
Oh, and if you haven't heard of Pleather before... Google it.
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