GULLIBLE'S TRAVELS

I hate to admit it, but I am a big fan of pop culture. Pop fiction. Pop movies. Pop TV shows. When they make sense. When they have a brain. The trouble with most of them is that they are mixed bags. Partly fun and partly dumb.

I recently watched the entire first season of Hawaii Five-O, and it gets progressively more stupid and less believable as it goes on. Who is this series for? I can't figure out their demographic, i.e., their target audience.

(SPOILER ALERT)

At the end of Season One, Steve McGarrett, our ex-Navy SEAL hero -- Can anyone be more heroic than that? Especially now? -- suspects that the governor, who hired him and set him up to lead Five-O, has had her assistant killed, and that the assistant, a lovely woman who likes one of his cops, was sending Steve evidence from his late father's case, evidence that could lead Steve to his father's killer.

Yes, it is very convoluted and not very believable. I presume the point is to keep us jacked up, to keep us in suspense. But it doesn't work that way for me. I start laughing when it gets too ridiculous.

How does Wo Fat (the big bad guy) know McGarrett is there? What is Wo Fat doing in the governor's mansion? Does he live there? It doesn't make any sense. He just shows up, out of the blue, or out of the night, and zaps Steve with a taser, knocks him him, picks up his gun and shoots the governor, then puts the gun in Steve's hand, presumably so Steve's fingerprints will be on the gun.

But wait. Isn't Steve wearing gloves? How is it that Steve doesn't hear Wo Fat come in or sense his presence? Isn't Steve highly trained? The scene has McGarrett stupid and vulnerable for the sake of the plot.

So the story doesn't work on its own terms. I don't know if I can keep watching. It is so hard to find movies and TV shows that are not idiotic. Maybe I'll keep watching. If I can.

Today, I'm trying to watch the next episode, where Steve is in prison, and the guards conspire to let in his father's killer, who tries to kill Steve.

Wait! Say what? How the hell did that happen?

I wouldn't say the show is stupid, but it does assume that the audience is not going to question its credibility, that the audience is going to be exceptionally gullible.

I think I'm going to call it "GULLIBLE'S TRAVELS." 

For me, the lack of believability takes the fun out of it.

-- Roger

Copyright © 2012, Roger R. Angle