BW Manilowe

From TMZ: Actor Verne Troyer, "Mini Me" From the Austin Powers Movies, Dead at Age 49.

She's only physically appeared in the S7 episode with the English title "Ready to Play?, & at that season's SOTB & set blessing, but I'm pretty sure I've heard "Governor Mahoe" (as opposed to just "the Governor") name-checked at least once, if not a little more, since then. I know the Governor is only really supposed to be a recurring character, but I wish they'd go back to physically showing the character more than just mentioning "the Governor" or "Governor (last name or full name)". I mean, it's supposed to be the Governor's task force; I think we need to see her/him a bit more, like when Jean Smart played Governor Jameson (& I realize that was in S1, when they were trying to establish the premise of the show... that it was the Governor's task force) &, at first, when Richard T. Jones played Governor Jameson's successor, Governor Denning (presumably Governor Mahoe is supposed to be his successor; I thought I figured out a way that worked in the timeline, anyway). What, exactly, is the point of it being the Governor's task force if we never see the Governor anymore (& I get that we never saw Robin Masters on Magnum, P.I., even though Magnum lived on Robin Masters' estate; or "Charlie" on Charlie's Angels, among others, & the shows worked out fine... but that was part of the premise of those shows, that there was to be a character we heard about/from but didn't see. The Governor of Hawaii isn't supposed to be a permanently unseen character in the show. If it's a case of actor availability, then--in my opinion--they need to sign someone to play the Governor who's more available than Richard T. Jones seemed to become after awhile, or than Rosalind Chao apparently was (but in looking at her credits on IMDb, there doesn't seem to be that much after her H50 credit). I think Jean Smart was on a reasonable number of times; especially since she was working on another show (recurring character) at the same time.

For those who may be interested, TV Newser has Info on Commercial and Cable TV Coverage of Former First Lady Barbara Bush's Funeral Services This info is accurate as it stands when I'm typing this post; everything mentioned is subject to change, however.

From cartermatt.com: Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan Both Expected Back for Hawaii Five-0 Season 9 This website, whose owner seems to be a big fan of H50 & a few other TV shows he blogs about regularly, says that, while it isn't set in stone yet, BOTH Alex & Scott are expected back in the show for the upcoming Season 9. Having said that, at least most signs this time last year seemed to say that Daniel Dae Kim & Grace Park would be back for this season--& then they ended up leaving right before filming started. I kinda assumed, once CBS announced the renewal, it meant at least Alex would be back--because I'd think it'd be too hard to do the show with a different lead actor suddenly dropped into the show's universe after 8 seasons. But, a lot of me also felt that CBS probably might've renewed the show for this particular coming season because it will have been 50 years, this year/this September 20th, since the H50 franchise originally debuted on CBS. Who knows? Maybe they're planning some way of making that a big deal on air this season. It always seems easier, to me, to replace the characters who have supporting roles in series (mainly after that long/a similar length of time) rather than whomever's listed at #1 on the call sheet, more often than not, in a season (although, I think Las Vegas did that transition pretty well when Scott's dad decided to leave the show after 4 seasons & he was replaced as the lead by Tom Selleck playing the new character of the new bazillionaire owner of Las Vegas' [fictional] Montecito Resort & Casino in that show's fifth season--Selleck seemed popular in the role, & I don't remember there being as many complaints about him replacing Scott's dad in that show as there may have been about CBS replacing DDK & Grace Park in this season of H50; but unfortunately [as usually happens with a TV show that makes a major cast replacement around at least 5 seasons in], the show was canceled after Selleck's lone season as the lead). Anyway, the point I was trying to make above was that I think (in both versions) that the show could (& did, in both versions) probably get renewed with 1 or more changes in the supporting cast, as time goes on; but if you lose the actor playing the lead--especially when the character is as iconic as Steve McGarrett--that will probably kill the show & they won't even entertain the thought of replacing McGarrett as Five-0 head.

From: USA Today: Erin Popovich, Wife of San Antonio Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich, Dead at Age 67 After a Long Illness

I don't think any of the linked obits have listed even a speculative cause of death. I know the 1 I linked to didn't. And, yeah, 28 is way too young to go. It would be just too sad if it were drug or psychological issues.

From USA Today: Avicii, Electronic Dance Music DJ, Found Dead in Oman at 28

Original Airdate: May 4, 2018 SOURCE: https://cbspressexpress.com/cbs-entertainment/shows/hawaii-five-0/releases/view?id=50011

Way back in the first season, there was a group called Fandoms Against H8, which had an online shop where various fandom-themed items (mostly different types of shirts), with anti-H8 (as the designer wrote it) message were being sold, with a portion of the proceeds being donated to anti-hate/H8 groups. The Hawaii Five-0 reboot was among the fandoms represented, based on the popularity of McDanno. The main message on their specific items was "Some Jersey Cops Marry Navy SEALS. Get Over It." That was followed by the image of a gun underneath which, in turn, was followed by the phrase "H8 is Worse Than Pineapple on Pizza". I wondered if the items were still available, so I went Googling. As you may be able to tell from the second link, they are. Just an FYI for anyone who might've missed this stuff originally, or had had second thoughts about getting a shirt, or something else, earlier.

OK. What you've described makes me think Magnum could've been referencing H50 as being a real life part of that universe--but then again, there's still at least a small possibility he could've been referencing McGarrett & Five-0 in terms of them being part of a popular TV show (although the show was in syndication & not producing new episodes by that point; especially since Magnum took original H50's place on the schedule after H50 packed it in. Plus, there's the whole thing of Magnum apparently was only a TV show in H50's universe--in the ep where Kamekona takes Steve, Danny, & Max (I think that's all there was) up in his sightseeing helicopter for a practice tour at the end of the show, Max starts humming/doing the Magnum theme song out of the blue, & then at least Max & Kamekona, or all of them, start talking about which Magnum characters the people/H50 characters in the chopper would be; and then Max starts doing the theme song again--with everybody joining in this time--& they fade to black. So, who knows how the Magnum reboot will exist in regards to the H50 reboot, if it gets picked up by CBS for this Fall. Then again, we're talking about a TV show which once did a crossover with at least the Angela Lansbury character from Murder, She Wrote even though the 2 shows don't have any real connection in their fictional universes. They seem to have gone with Jessica (JB) Fletcher being a mystery writer & at least Thomas Magnum having read at least some of JB's books, & Magnum also solving mysteries as a PI.

I think the article sounded like Grace had distanced herself from that group awhile ago--& not just 'cause it was apparently finally busted by the cops. Maybe I misunderstood that she'd distanced herself from the group; but I hope Grace's no longer active in it. Anyway... I'm probably overthinking but (though I know the sex trafficking storyline was started with a different reason in mind--promoting the real life shelter [or whatever they called it] a group wants to build in Honolulu, to hopefully help rescued young victims of sex trafficking to successfully reintegrate into their previous lives), in the end, I sort of wonder if Kono going off to the Mainland to search for whatever was left of the Honolulu sex trafficking ring Five-0 tracked in 2 S7 eps, as well as any other associated groups she & her co-workers could stop, was supposed to be a meta reference to Grace having apparently been part of that cult in real life (if TPTB with the show & CBS knew that, but didn't know exactly how horrible they really were) since there were reports the group was into sex trafficking (besides branding & blackmailing participants [victims]). I think I started reading/hearing about Catherine Oxenberg asking for someone to help her rescue her daughter, India, from the group (after which India made a public statement that she was fine, & her situation wasn't anything like her mother claimed, at all) because Ms. Oxenberg had already heard just how awful the cult was, & she feared for her daughter's safety & life, at least a little bit before it became a discussion topic here. Or maybe the whole thing is coincidentally, unintentionally meta.

But don't forget, once the original H50 came along, "Five-0" was also adopted, in real life, in movies, & on fictional TV shows, as a nickname for the police in general, whether or not they were in Hawaii. So I suppose the "Five-0" mention could've been meant in either context; I'd have to see the scene to figure out which context it was meant in--as a Hawaii Five-0-specific reference because Magnum was set in Hawaii, or as a reference to the police in general.

From TV Line: Claire Danes Confirms Season 8 Will Be Homeland's Last And, also from TV Line, on the other side of the coin... CBS Renews More Series for 2018-2019, Including Hawaii Five-0, MacGyver, and Blue Bloods

From USA Today: President George HW Bush Held Wife Barbara's Hand All Day Yesterday; Said to Be Heartbroken Over Her Death

Well, both of Peter Lenkov's existing reboots (H50, MacGyver) got picked up earlier today for next season--H50 will be on S9; MacGyver will be on S3. We'll have to see what happens with the Magnum reboot, once they actually announce the pickups of next year's freshman CBS shows. They might have some of the same crew working on H50 & Magnum simultaneously this season, since they've done a Magnum pilot for the coming season & H50 is still on the schedule for this coming season.

Woo-Hoo!

And Here's the Barbara Bush Obit From People As I add this, MSNBC, CNN, & Faux (Fox) News Channel are all doing Breaking News stories on her passing.

Last Friday, in the East & Midwest, the President's statement on the latest Syria bombing by a group of Allied Nations, including the US, started airing in the space for the commercial break between MacGyver & H50. It ran long enough to pre-empt H50's first, 15 minutes in the East & Midwest; but when the statement ended, CBS started H50 from the beginning (like they do/might do, instead of joining it in mid-episode, like usually happens during football season). So the ep aired in full, with a start time delay of almost 15 minutes (I think) in the Eastern & Central time zones. Which means, unless the DVR was set to run long, you probably don't have the last 15 minutes of the ep.

From Artvoice: Grace Park Appears to Have Been Active in the NXIVM Cult That Was Recently Busted for Branding, Blackmailing Women What's ironic about this is, sex trafficking is apparently among the other illegal acts this group supposedly was involved with, & Grace Park's character, Kono Kalākaua, was written out of Hawaii Five-0 as having gone to the Mainland to help investigate, track, & stop a child sex trafficking ring that Five-0 had run up against in 2 different S7 eps of the show, including the season finale, without much success.

Yes, there was a flashback with Junior & a girl who appeared to be his prom/other school "dressy" type dance date; Junior's father might've been in it too, at least vocally. They seemed to be talking about the prom/dance they seemed to be going to, & taking pics (mostly of Junior & the girl); at some point, I think I remember at least Junior & the girl talking about his apparently upcoming, sooner rather than later, entrance into the Navy for training. I think it was supposed to have been Junior going because of 9/11, & it was probably supposed to be just general training; not straight into BUD/s (SEAL training). It was in 1 of Junior's first eps, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure Tani & Junior are supposed to end up a couple at some point. In the ep where Danny was shot while the team was under hospital quarantine from exposure to an illness or something else in another ep, & they were waiting for Lou & some other people to get them out of isolation (I think Danny's assailant had left explosives attached to the door, so they couldn't just walk outta there, & they did need outside help to get Danny into surgery quickly), Danny was also seeing his life at different points in the future (kinda like Steve imagining what everybody's lives would've been like if his Dad hadn't been murdered & the late Governor Jameson hadn't had a reason to ask Steve if he'd be interested in heading her anti-crime task force which eventually became Five-0). Among the things Danny saw was an older, but still a fairly young adult, version of his son, Charlie, graduating from the HPD Police Academy. Besides Steve & Danny being there, so were Tani & Junior. They were behaving like they were married, it seemed like; at 1 point, I think Junior even called her "Mrs. Reigns" (or they called each other "Mr. & Mrs."). We also found out that Tani was apparently the head of the Five-0 task force at that time; I think she tried to recruit Charlie for Five-0. As far as most people know, this is Catherine's only appearance this season, & she's not coming back on a regular basis... just doing an ep here & there, like the last few seasons. Lynn was the blonde lady who was some kind of counselor, or something, with "at risk" kids. I think she's also supposed to be a friend of the local female Prosecutor with the Australian accent whose dad was murdered during a robbery at the bar he owned & they lived over, & whose case (finding out who murdered her dad) was taken over by Five-0 as it was still unsolved at the time of John McGarrett's murder. Lynn was also the person who accidentally hit Steve in the eye, on Valentine's Day, with her shoe when she was supposed to be doing a striptease for him (they had started sleeping together by this point). And Lynn helped Danny's girlfriend, Melissa, plan a secret weekend for the couples to spend Valentine's Day, the year after the Ill-fated striptease, on a "staycation" with each other in a local resort on Waikiki Beach, where Steve & Danny don't seem to be enjoying the activities arranged by the girlfriends, & Steve & Danny appear to have more fun with each other.

I didn't think Beulah Koale (Junior) was injured in real life; I thought It was just on the show.

I loved the whole plot about Harry can't stand Barry Manilow, & then won't believe it when Christine (?Markie Post's character) tells him Mel actually recorded with Barry (in real life, during the timeframe when the show would've been on; I think even incorporating a copy of the actual album cover in what she said), & Harry said that was blasphemy, as I remember. INTERESTING FACT/TRIVIA: Barry & Mel Tormé actually did another duet, "The Brooklyn Bridge", on Barry's current CD, This Is My Town: Songs of New York. As far as I know, it wasn't recorded at the same time as Tormé's song on the previous album. It appears Barry used the same production technique on this song as he did all the songs on his earlier album/CD, My Dream Duets, because all of his duet partners had passed on prior to recording. Barry removed/had a 3rd party remove everything from the songs used on that earlier CD except the other person's vocals; he then wrote a new musical arrangement for each song & put the music & the other singer's vocals with his to make the recording which was released. And then there was the plot about the Hurricane headed for NYC, very high up on the scale where they measure how dangerous a storm like that is supposed to be, I think it was named Hurricane Mel in the ep; all Judge Harry could do was exhibit a sort of "pride" in how monstrous a storm sharing the name of his musical hero was, & adding that a storm named Barry probably couldn't even create a good gust of wind, considering Manilow was among those who shared its name.

It sounds like it to me, too. But I think the linked obit quotes his son as saying it was due to natural causes.

I have the feeling a renewal is coming. Right before the end of the season, the show & a charity group--I think children-related, somehow--announced a contest, or auction, with at least something to do with Children's Hospital LA, with the big prize being the winner gets to fly to Hawaii & have lunch with the cast (on the set, I think). Considering they finished filming for the season a week or so ago (actually around the same time they announced the contest winner), the only way they'll be able to fulfill that, the way they intended, now is if they do it during filming next season--ergo, there will probably/most likely be a Season 9. They really can't do the lunch now, during the hiatus, because nobody's probably in Hawaii--not even Alex, or anybody else who lives there; everybody's off on a vacation, or on a staycation, or maybe even working on another project or projects. Another reason I really think there'll be another season is, all/pretty much all of those websites that attempt to predict whether a TV show will get renewed or canceled had the show as being "more likely than not (however they say phrases like that on their individual websites) to be renewed for the next fall season by the end of this spring season" all the way from the start of this season through the last time those websites were updated. That, if you remember, hasn't happened since S1; for all of the seasons between S1 & this season, all the cancellation predictor sites had the show as either having "a 50-50 chance of being renewed for the next season", or "more likely than not to be canceled by the end of the season involved", however the sites word it. None of them had the show, however they word it, as being "a safe bet for renewal" until right before, or right after, CBS actually renewed it. And, of course, there's Alex's most recent interview where he said that he'd been undergoing stem cell treatments in an effort to help a bad back injury he apparently incurred while trying to do a stunt (or an accumulation of stunts) that he should've left to his stunt double, & that he's also been doing rehab type workouts (on equipment he put in his garage) since taking the stem cell treatments & he feels better than he has, & can move better than he was able to before the treatments; &, after telling an Australian newspaper (during S7) he thought he'd be ready to quit playing McGarrett at the end of S8 (the current season, & apparently the last on Alex's current contract), so as to still be able to do physical things with his sons now, & with his grandchildren in the future, he now thinks he's physically able to play McGarrett for a 9th season (& possibly at least 1 more after that), if CBS can come up with the right deal. If CBS & Alex can come to terms, then I think we'll get an S9. Even if it means Alex starts doing a disappearing act 1 out of every few eps, like Scott's been doing since, I think, the season before his daughter was born, as part of a new deal with Alex, to try to maintain the better health he seems to have regained since his stem cell treatments. I really don't see Alex making really outrageous, "diva" type demands though, for example akin to DDK & Grace P demanding to be paid the same as Alex & Scott, per episode, for this season [& Grace P actually wanting to be paid the same, per episode, as Alex & Scott, but wanting to get that salary equality for doing less than half--more like a quarter--of this season's eps, & then being written out of the show after that], & I don't even think Alex & Scott actually have salary parity with each other; even if you include whatever percentage of the show's profits either or both has on top of their salary per episode. As far as I know, Scott started with a salary a few thousand dollars below Alex in S1 & I don't think he's ever pulled even with Alex, even if both have a percentage of the show's profits. Long answer is long... Sorry about that!

The thing of it is, in both versions of the show, Five-0's offices have never been in the same building as the real (or fake) HPD Headquarters (when the HPD's fictional headquarters blew up in, I think, the 3rd season opener, it was in a whole different building than Five-0 Headquarters) or a real (or fake) precinct for HPD. So the building involved is only technically a police station--it wasn't constructed strictly for that purpose, like most other buildings serving that purpose are; Five-0 probably ended up there because they're a statewide government agency (they at least have a statewide jurisdiction, being an anti-crime task force set up by a former governor, though most of their cases are still being written as taking place in Honolulu, &/or the island of Oʻahu) & it's being used as a government office building--taking it, at least in some ways, back to when it was the Palace of the current Hawaiian ruler. I think people in real estate might call the building "commercial property", for "mixed use", but I'm not positive. Five-0's headquarters, in both versions of the show, has been located in the ʻIolani Palace complex; I think the original team was supposed to have had their offices in the actual Palace (which is the only Royal Palace in the US; it functioned as a Royal Palace between the time of King Kamehameha III, of the Kamehameha Dynasty, & Queen Liliʻuokalani of the Kalākaua Dynasty, which was founded by her brother, King David Kalākaua). ʻIolani Palace was designated a National Historical Landmark on December 29, 1962; It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in Oʻahu on October 15, 1966. I think the current Five-0 team actually has their offices in the Aliʻiolani Hale--this building is across the street from the Palace, & it's also where the offices of the state's judiciary are located. They seem to use exterior shots of the Palace & of the Aliʻiolani Hale interchangeably, though, in scenes which are supposed to be taking place in the Five-0 offices. And for continuity purposes between the classic & present shows, even though they apparently work out of the Aliʻiolani Hale, our current team will, at least occasionally, refer to their offices as "the Palace". Probably because, I'm thinking, both buildings are treated as parts of the same office complex (or whatever). Having said all that, although you're right, things would never get to the point of becoming safety violations in real life (at least probably not), & they would be allowed to bring the building where the offices are located up to current local safety codes, as needed (I mean, they'd have to or move somewhere else), the fact that the Palace has been designated an historical landmark by at least 2 historical/historical preservation groups also can (& I think maybe does) limit what they can do, repair wise, when something needs repair, at least in real life . Since the Palace is an historic(al?) landmark, (I think) they have to try not to make repairs in such a way that the "look", or whatever, of the building involved is altered & "modernized" so much that after the repairs it's unrecognizable from its original, historical landmark designation-worthy appearance (think Dirty Dancing actress Jennifer Grey before her nose job & then after it--hopefully at least some will understand the analogy/reference). That's about the only thing I can think of, other than the building owner/management was lax in taking care of it; I don't see how it should've been up to Steve alone to make sure the office space was up to code; the building owner/manager should primarily be responsible for that kind of stuff, I think.