Life could have been so different.
Instead of staring manfully into the crashing waves on Hawaii's beaches after dealing to international secret agents, criminals, and organised crime syndicates plaguing the islands on Hawaii Five-O, Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) could have been steering the USS Enterprise through deep space.
Don't take my word for it.
Apparently - and I have this on good authority - Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry offered Lord the role of Captain Kirk, but Lord asked for 50% ownership of the show, so William Shatner took the part.
It sure sounds true.
Anyway, Lord became McGarrett, spent 12 seasons from 1969 to 1980 as a fictional police hero on Hawaii Five-O, and will forever be linked to possibly the best-ever theme music in the history of television.
If you are too young to remember, find it on the internet somewhere and listen.
It was well cool.
Lord also became the man behind that most famous of catchphrases, "Book em, Danno," which seemed, at least, to end every show.
Such memories.
From tonight at 8.30pm, a remake of this excellent piece of pop-culture premieres on TV3.
Such a disappointment.
To be fair, it is hard to compare the old and the new, because apart from the music and the crashing waves at the start and the finish of each show, and that most famous catchphrase, I can remember very little of the original.
But I do remember it was cool, never mind I was only 8 when it started.
The new version is just plain silly.
Steve McGarrett is played by Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin, his character an American military hero type with male ego issues and all that rubbish.
Taking in an evil Irish gun runner, he finds his father has been kidnapped by the Irish gentleman's chum, and one thing leads to another: the father is shot dead, McGarrett is chosen to head some sort of special police force, and away we go.
Remarkably, early in episode one, McGarrett says this: "I swear to God I will hunt you down and I will kill you."
Really, which book of hackneyed scripting ideas did that come from?
The remake of Hawaii Five-O contains every cliché in the police series book, including father and son bonding while fixing up a classic car, and McGarrett having testosterone-filled clashes with his new partner before they become (I'm sure) best of chums while saving each other's lives on the mean streets of Hawaii while solving crimes.
His partner, of course, has issues because his wife left him, probably because police work was his real love.
Awful.
