Rating: Summary: Excellent episode guide for H5O fans (current and future) Review: Karen Rhodes gives the fans more than just an episode guide. She writes about the genius behind the show, Leonard Freeman, the stars of the show (even the very private Jack Lord), the politics and the concern around the way Hawaii would be portrayed in a crime drama. There are pictures that most fans have never seen from the show. The only thing missing are interviews with the stars. It's too bad she couldn't get to Hawaii and California for interviews, but I'm sure if she did, she would of had to cut something else out to please the publishers. Every fan should own a copy.
Rating: Summary: LET'S GET THE EPISODES ON DVD!! Review: Of all the Amazon releases I have been looking for, HAWAII FIVE-O, THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON, is without a doubt, the one DVD set I have been looking for over the years.
WHEN IS IT COMING TO DVD?, IT'S LONG OVERDUE!!
Rating: Summary: Background of how the book came to be. Review: There are some things I think readers need to understand about how the demands of the publishing industry affect how a book turns out. Let me just say a bit about how Booking Hawaii Five-O came to be. I wrote it because I loved Hawaii Five-O; I think it had a lot to say to us and still has a lot to say to us. However, I was limited by several factors. For one, I live in Florida. I was limited in my research--I could not fly to California or Hawaii to conduct interviews of cast members, much as I would have liked to. For another, the original manuscript I wrote was some 1000 pages long (typed, double-spaced, on one side of the page), a length I knew no publisher would want to touch. I shaved it down to 700 pages, but even that was too long and I was asked by the publisher to pare it even further, to no more than 500 manuscript pages. Unfortunately, much was lost that I would like to have had in there.
The book is an arms-length history. I tried to distance myself, purposely, in order to see both the good points and the not-so-successful points about the series. I think I succeeded.
In assembling photos and illustrations, I tried to stay away from the same publicity shots we see all the time in magazines and the chapters of other books. Three of the photos, the ones taken on-scene during the filming of "'V' for Vashon: the Father" had never been published before.
Some of the things I wanted to accomplish, I accomplished: pointing out the way McGarrett symbolizes responsibility; bringing out some anecdotes and background information; examining the elements that made the series successful; picking out some of the in-jokes, trivia, continuity errors, and the ways Five-O is part of our culture.
Of course, it is up to each individual to decide whether I succeeded or failed. Some will have expectations that no book could meet, or that only a book written by someone who was REALLY on the inside could write.
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