The Good
This show is simply superb and on DVD and with it's lush transfer, it seems like we can see it the way it was originally intended.
The Bad
No real extras.
Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) and the rest of the boys are back in Hawaii Five-O: The Third Season. As anybody who has watched this show can attest it is filled with amazingly strong performances, edge of your seat action, and cutting edge stories that still resonate deeply today. Opening this 6 disc set with "And Time To Die," Five-O find themselves up against the infamous Wo Fat (Khigh Dhiegh) while trying to save the life of a wounded Secret Servicemen. The brilliant "Reunion" is a history lesson of sorts that has Five-O hot on the trail of a former, brutal World War II commander who is doing business on the Island. My favorite episode on this release is "Over Fifty? Steal," which has the team going after one of the smartest criminals (Hume Cronyn) that McGarrett has ever seen. The best parts of this entry are seeing Cronyn and Lord go up against one another. This is about as good as TV gets.
Television today is still going strong and a release like Hawaii Five-O: The Third Season does nothing but emphasize that.
Features
No extras came with this release. Yes, I know the box says "Episodic Promos" but do those really count?
Video
Full Screen Format. In a word these digitally remastered episodes look awesome. Paramount has done a solid job of bringing these shows to DVD. I have been watching this show for a long time on KDOC and it has never looked as good as it does here. While I hate to think what I am missing because of this disclaimer, "Some episodes may be edited from their original network versions," what I have gotten is something special indeed.
Audio
Dolby Digital: English Mono/Spanish Mono. Subtitled in Spanish/Brazilian Portuguese. The audio for this release was also top notch. The music on this show is incredible and it's half the reason why these episodes resonate like they do. In fact the audio is so ahead of its time it almost seems like the cutting edge Miami Vice took its audio cue from it.
Package
The front of this slipcase cover features McGarrett, Dan-O (James MacArthur) and other members of the team with the skyline of Hawaii behind them. The back of this slipcase gives us 4 images from the show, a technical specs listing, description and it even has the chutzpah to call "Episode Promos" a Special Feature. The 6 discs are jam packed into 3 slipcases which all feature the same front cover image as the slipcase that stores them. The back covers provide episode listings, descriptions and airdates. The DVDs themselves also offer us more artwork from the show. Nothing too amazing about this but it gets the job done.
Final Word
Man, oh man, do I love this show.
In fact, I remember the day clearly when the MovieWeb lords dropped their bag of DVDs for my review at my doorstep. It was like a treasure trove of Boomer, DVD goodness and the fact that Hawaii Five-O: The Third Season was in there made me smile from ear to ear. Okay, so there isn't much in the way of extras, I can forgive that because with 6 discs and 24 episodes clocking in at 20+ hours, this release really gives us a lot of bang for our buck (no pun intended). I often say it about one hour procedural shows but it really bares repeating here. It is incredible that they were able to put out this show every week. Yes, the Five-O team does always seem to get their man, but there is an awful lot of story, plot structure and just about everything else that makes TV like this great in every single episode.
Also, as I mentioned above they really incorporate American history in some of these episodes, but they do it in a way that keeps Hawaii Five-O: The Third Season as covert as its main operatives.
Hawaii Five-O was released .