Thu 3 Jan 2013
CBS has announced that the January 14th episode of HAWAII FIVE-0 will let viewers select the ending to a murder mystery. There will be three suspects to vote for live on each coast using twitter. This means the ending on the East Coast could be different from the one the West Coast picks. All three different endings will be available to see on cbs.com afterwards.
NOTE: Thanks and a tip of the hat to Michael Shonk for the information above!
January 3rd, 2013 at 9:51 pm
I’ve never seen the show myself, but I may vote anyway.
January 3rd, 2013 at 9:53 pm
Uh-oh. I just read the fine print. I don’t have a twitter account and it looks like I need one.
January 3rd, 2013 at 10:57 pm
I think it is a dumb idea. Why bother to watch for clues or solve the murder when the killer will be selected by a random choice of twitter fans. This means the episode will be filmed so any of three suspects did it, instead of if you are smart enough you can figure out the only one who did it.
HAWAII FIVE-0 has had ratings problems this year but should do better now that NBC’s THE VOICE (with its strong lead in to whatever) is over. I don’t get the need for this gimmick.
Don’t be surprised if twitter fans in the West Coast pick a different killer than those in the East Coast.
January 4th, 2013 at 4:50 am
Sounds like a perversion of the jury system- vote for guilty !
Never seen NEW Five-0 , but it can’t be fair play, if it is pretty much of no consequence WHOdunnit .
The Doc
January 4th, 2013 at 8:19 am
It’s mainly worth watching for the amazing scenery but plot-wise it leaves a lot to be desired, as each episode features “McGarrett” (sorry, but I can’t think of him as the same) racing around the islands in his (product placement) Chevy.
Another bad thing they do: whenever they go to question or arrest someone they never walk up to the guy and ask if he’s the person they’re looking for and take him into custody, because where’s the drama in that? No, they call out his name from 100 feet away so he will make a run for it and give them a chance to chase him down.
The one good thing they’ve done was to bring Ed Asner back as the same bad guy he played on the old show, now aged and out of jail but still as evil as he was 30-odd years before. They even used scenes of him from the old show.
Book him, Danno!
January 4th, 2013 at 9:51 am
Indeed…the old show was always at least a bit goofy, but had some good scripts particularly when Freeman was still alive and showrunning, but this version is just clumsy despite at least having some sexual integration of Five-0, and a less vague definition of what exactly the squad is (whereas the original series damned near stated that this handful of men, and one woman in the last season, were the whole damned state police, as well as working out of Iolani Palace)…
January 4th, 2013 at 10:33 am
I would suggest a 4th ending: the entire cast gets killed off and the last thing we see is a stock footage shot of Jack Lord smiling.
January 4th, 2013 at 11:09 am
I recall that Matlock did this once, about midway through its NBC run.
This was before Twitter; viewers were given a bunch of 1-800 numbers to vote for their suspect, while the show was in progress.
I don’t remember how successful the phone gimmick was as far as attracting viewers went, but Matlock only did it the one time.
Isn’t technology wonderful?
**yes it isn’t**
January 4th, 2013 at 4:13 pm
Todd- sexual integration ??? What sort of show IS this ?
And Mike : it isn’t !
The Doc
January 4th, 2013 at 6:40 pm
The idea is not new. I think most of us remember those make your own adventure paperbacks from decades ago. I remember back in the late 80s/early 90s, there was an attempt to do an interactive movie. It was tested in at least one movie theatre and had the audience with a device that allowed them to decide what choices the characters would make.
My problem here is using it to “solve” a murder. It works better with action adventures. Such as…
The Governor is being held hostage by terrorists. Do you…
A) Rush to save the Governor.
B) Go to the beach.
You are at the beach. You see a drug smuggler’s boat land on the beach. Do you…
A) You attack the boat starting a gunfight that ends with the boat exploding and the drugs destroyed.
B) You check out what that blonde in the bikini knows.
The blonde gives you the lead you need to stop Wu Fat yet again.
A) You immediately run off to confront your nemesis.
B) You wait until after breakfast, making sure the blonde tells you all she knows.
That is an episode I’d enjoy interacting with.
January 10th, 2013 at 8:32 am
By “sexual integration” of Five-0 I would think Todd means that the team now includes a woman, and the fact that she is played by Grace Park, late of Battlestar Galactica, doesn’t hurt at all.
My problem with this gimmick is that if I were a writer with any self-respect at all I would want to protect the integrity of my concept and script, and the idea of letting others decide how to end it would infuriate me.
January 10th, 2013 at 10:31 am
#11, David, you bring up an interesting point. As a writer I had been overly protective of my words, but in this case the challenge is to write a script where all the suspects can be guilty but only one gets picked (no “Murder on the Orient Express” where everyone did it). The writer still writes each of the ending so his or her concept remains the writer.
Of course, “Murder on the Orient Express” could have done this too, so there is no great challenge here for the writer, just two extra ending.
January 10th, 2013 at 6:48 pm
Michael, I’m going to respectfully disagree with your assessment that the writer is retaining artistic control over the script because he is himself writing each of the different endings. I don’t think the writer should be told anything about the ending, but should be free to make his own decisions about how the story should end. Here he/she is being told to come up with three different endings. That is my opinion is still an affront to the writer, whether he/she writes those three different endings or not.
January 10th, 2013 at 10:38 pm
David, one of the things I never could adjust to (and one of the reasons I failed) was there is writing that is a job and writing that is art. HAWAII FIVE-O is a job you hope will lead to being able to create art.
There is a saying that the stage belongs to the actor, film belongs to the director, and TV belongs to the producer. I don’t know who is writing the script, but I guess the showrunner walked into the writers room and assigned the story to one of them and told them to start writing. If the writer felt disrespected he was in the wrong room.
There are so many requirements to write mainstream commercial TV, you need a mini climax for every commercial break, you need to include the entire cast, you need to make sure the lead gets most of the attention, etc until story has a hard time surviving.
Is it disrespectful, sure, but its minor. What is really disrespectful is how the creator/writer is being treated. Run off by the networks and replaced with the professional showrunner who is replaced by another because one writer is as good as another if he follows orders from the networks (who own and produce the shows) until there is no vision left. It becomes more processed cheese to fill time between the commercials.
Did you read Stephen Bowie’s Classic TV History blog about the MEDICAL CENTER with multiple endings?
http://classictvhistory.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/stanley-milgram-goes-to-medical-center/
January 11th, 2013 at 11:46 am
Another interesting take on this issue, this one from Ken Levine. If you are interested in what happens (and happened) behind the scenes from a TV/Film comedy writer-director-producer, Levine’s blog is a must read.
Today he took on the question about this gimmick. Very interesting.
http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2013/01/voting-on-jokes.html
January 11th, 2013 at 12:08 pm
I was going back and forth on both sides of the discussion, but there was one sentence in Kevin’s take on this that caught my eye and right now it seems to sum up my feelings on this rather nicely:
” Essentially they’re asking the staff to write a video game.”
January 12th, 2013 at 10:20 am
Michael, I did read that piece by Stephen Bowie, yes. Another example of Stephen’s superb research skills.
Thanks for the link to Levine’s post. I completely agree with him and — Steve — with you.
January 15th, 2013 at 3:37 pm
In a perfect example of how arbitrary the mystery is on HAWAII FIVE-0 you can check out the results of this pick a killer. All three endings are currently available to see at cbs.com/hawaii_five_0
All three clips last exactly 7:10. The East Coast selected The Boss. The West Coast selected The Student. Leaving the fans of The Teacher Assistant feeling left out.
All three clips were virtual the same, shot by shot the same with only slight changes in dialog. The revealing clue was the same with a different name given each time and a few words giving the “guilty” or winner of your vote’s motivation.