The TV thread

I've been a fan of the rebooted Hawaii Five-O since it's inception, but this doesn't bode well for next season: Two of the core cast, Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, are leaving the show due to a pay dispute -- they wanted equal pay with the other two leads, Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan. Of course, that brings up the whole Hollywood race debate since Kim and Park are Asian-American.

Hawaii Five-O Is Apparently Okay With Paying Asian Actors Less Money

Seems penny-wise and pound-foolish to me, since with O'Loughlin's statements about him leaving after this coming season, it's probably not going to last beyond next May anyhow. Don't see why they couldn't have ponied up some money and let the cast have its swan song.

 

If you're going to screw over one particular race on pay, try to make sure it's not the race that is great with math.

 

Hey ex, stop being racist.

 

Leaving race or sex out of it, aren't they considered secondary leads anyway? And I'm guessing that they figure the show is ending and they don't want to get stuck without a shot at another series. They can fill out the year doing guest spots and be open for pilot season. It isn't like either is hurting for work. Kim is producing a show on ABC this fall and Park could probably do whatever she wants to do.

Its funny, for the top-rated network, CBS has no problem booting people who aren't the top-line stars of shows. Their procedurals are littered with supporting actors who wanted a bump and were shown the door.

 

I noticed that Ian Anthony Dale, who plays Kono's husband Adam, is already on another show, Salvation.

 

Stared GLOW on Netflix.
Meh.
2 episodes in and it's not funny. At all.
Barely entertaining.

Also, I thought I read somewhere years ago that Sly Stallone's mom was influential in the getting the GLOW thing going. Everything read recently on the show and the old GLOW program - which I watched - makes no mention of her.

 

I had the same question about the roles played by Kim and Park, though some of the reporting is happy to portray this as purely a matter of racism. I have only seen a couple of episodes, so I wasn't sure how big their parts were.

 

Bigger question on H50. The actual accomplished stars on the show, going in, are Caan and O'Loughlin. I imagine they made more at the start.

For Kim and Park, I imagine it's quite tough to find good roles. In 2017, it seems that any white lead on a show has a group of friends and at least one is a person of color. Actors of Asian descent are highly underrepresented on American TV and film -- almost never in a lead role.

 

Fair point. I've never seen Kim in anything other than a supporting role. Park was a big part of the ensemble on Battlestar Galactica, but I'm not sure she was ever that much of a big draw for 5-O.

 

The third season of "Broadchurch" just hit Netflix. I have become a big David Tennant fan since "Jennifer Jones", and my wife likes the BBC crime shows. I told her that the third season was out and she flat beamed at me. She turned it on Saturday - I thought she'd start season three, but she went to season one, episode one so that I could catch up and so she'd be back up to speed with it.

Excellent show. First season involved the murder of an eleven year old boy and the pursuit of his killer, and it took the full eight episodes to get there. We did all eight on Saturday, and half of season two yesterday. Yeah, it's good. Well worth a watch. What is unusual about the script is that it focuses as much on the effects on the families involved and the small town that they live in as it does on the crime and the detective's efforts to solve it. The spreading ripples, all the connections between people, and the continuing hurt of it are all very much a part of the story. So well written and acted.

 

If memory serves, the same two characters (Kono and Chin Ho) didn't survive until the end of the original H50, either. Kono was Hawaiian and Chin Ho was Chinese, and I believe their replacement characters were minorities, too.

Still enjoy watching the original episodes on DVD. More focus on plot and solving the case in the 1960s-70s 5-0, instead of constant shootouts and off-duty drama of the reboot.