Twenty-Four Karat Kill

The episode starts off with promise, as a woman buys a tuna at the fish market and brings it home, then cuts it open only to have a gold bar drop out as she is carving it down the middle. But a villainous character has followed this random unfortunate person home, kills her, and retrieves the gold bar. But gold shavings are left behind on the knife, and this alerts Five-O as to what is really going on - the smuggling of gold.

At this point, the proceedings bog down, because Five-O quickly finds out who the bad guy is as well as the audience knowing who he is, so there is no mystery there, just a rather boring almost documentary style episode on how gold is being smuggled in this particular case. The only real tension is from concern over the safety of a policewoman who goes undercover to gather evidence against the enterprise.

Someone else has mentioned it, but I'll mention it too - It is rather flummoxing that Richard Denning is playing a federal agent here when he has always - in past and future episodes - played the governor. Don't let this rather uneven dull episode put you off on the series, because after a season of getting its moorings and finding its voice, it really is quite excellent. And for the most part, the rest of season one is pretty good too.

The episode starts with a Japanese woman buying fish at the local fish market with her ten month old baby in a stroller. Richard Denning usually played the Hawaiian governor is playing a US Treasury agent. The tragic and senseless murder of the young mother when she made a discovery during slicing the fish in her kitchen. Marj Dusay played a female undercover agent. Everybody wants to find the diamonds. Jack Lord is usually perfect and handsome as Steve MacGarrett of Hawaii Five-O. Too bad, they didn't have a female regular cast member on the show like Marj Dusay or Patricia Smith. The male cast members get all the fun.

The show begins with a housewife buying a tuna. When she's at home cleaning it, a bar of gold drops out of the fish! Soon, an assailant comes in the house and murders the lady to get the gold. This woman innocently tumbled into a smuggling ring and paid the price with her life. So, it's up to McGarrett to come to the rescue. Things heat up, however, when Chin Ho is attacked and nearly killed during a stakeout--probably because of his questionable talents in the stakeout department (see episode 1.02).

This is not a particularly interesting or inspired episode and it's clear that the series has not yet hit its stride. One of the most obvious problems is continuity. In this episode, Richard Denning plays a federal agent. However, in a previous episode and all subsequent episodes, Denning plays the Governor. While reusing actors (especially villains) is understandable, having Denning play the Governor in episode 1.04 ("Samurai") then play the agent Phil Grey in this one and then the governor in all subsequent shows is pretty sloppy. Another problem is the plot itself. It could have been interesting, but towards the end, instead of working through the gold smuggling/murder ring, there is a chase scene where the motivations aren't particularly clear--especially of the gang members who are following the gold smuggler. It's like the characters weren't worked out completely. As a result, it's hard to enjoy this show and it rather fizzles out at the end with a dull chase scene.

I am watching again from season one, after going through all 12 seasons, now can watch in more depth. I too was a little confused when I heard McGarrett refer to Richard Denning as Phil, I think many people thought the governors name was Phil until we saw a nameplate in one episode saying Paul Jameson. There were a lot of continuity mistakes then, we spot them all the time now. The drive to the dock was a stock scene, we saw him many times drive past the fountain, which was the opposite way from from the docks anyway. Surely someone was paid to notice he was wearing a different colour suit several times in a scene. on one occasion he drove to the airport in a dark suit and arrived back in a light grey one. There were several others. I'm sure if I worked in continuity, I would make notes at the end of the shoot saying what colour suit he was wearing.