"Pilot" | |
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Hawaii Five-0 episode | |
Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 1 |
Directed by | Len Wiseman |
Story by |
Alex Kurtzman Roberto Orci Peter M. Lenkov |
Teleplay by | Peter M. Lenkov |
Production code | 101 |
Original air date | September 20, 2010 |
Running time | 44 minutes |
Guest appearance(s) | |
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The pilot episode of the reimagined crime series Hawaii Five-0 premiered on CBS in the United States on September 20, 2010. The pilot's teleplay was written by Peter M. Lenkov, based on a story developed by Lenkov, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, and was directed by Len Wiseman. The episode introduces the four main characters: Alex O'Loughlin as series protagonist and Navy SEAL, Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett, Scott Caan as Steve's partner Danny Williams, a former Detective from New Jersey who moved to Hawaii to be close to his daughter, Grace, Daniel Dae Kim as Chin Ho Kelly, a disgraced HPD cop and Grace Park as Kono Kalakaua, a former surfer-turned-HPD Academy graduate who is also Chin's cousin. In the pilot, McGarrett returns to Hawaii to find Victor Hesse (James Marsters), a terrorist who murdered his father, John McGarrett. The Governor of Hawaii, Pat Jameson (Jean Smart) offers McGarrett to head a new task force to fight serious crimes by any means.
Since the end of the original Hawaii Five-O series, there had been a number of attempts to create a remake, but ultimately none went beyond the pilot stage. CBS later hired Lenkov to pitch a pilot story. Kurtzman and Orci were approached; while originally hesitant to participate in the project, they were impressed with Lenkov's pitch. The episode was filmed in March 2010 and took over two weeks to shoot. When the episode became too long certain sequences were cut from the final product, including the funeral scene with Taryn Manning as McGarrett's sister; the character would be introduced in a later episode. Almost 14.2 million Americans viewed the pilot, increasing to 17.59 million when Live+7-day digital video recordings (DVR) are taken into account, and was also considered a ratings success in other countries. Critical reactions were generally positive.