Hack 'em, Danno!

I was interested in this week's Spike-TV marathon of the original "Hawaii Five-0" because the show is rarely on TV anymore and because I never really saw much of it. It's a promotional stunt to hype the upcoming reboot to air on CBS, of course, but forget the motivation: It's not often we see TV from 1969 on any of these "modern" cable channels, let alone one that panders to that coveted "young male" demographic that was born after the show premiered.

So in a sense this marathon of first-season episodes is a cool thing, one that should be lauded. But if you know anything about the series, maybe this isn't such a boon. I know very little about "Five-0," so when I sat down to watch an installment the other day, I was able to get through it and follow the story without pulling out my hair and shouting at the screen in anger at seeing entire scenes deleted. But I kind of figured some editing was being done when I saw the first 5-minute-plus commercial break.

I thought the editing was actually decent, and by that I mean I didn't catch any sudden cuts to an ad in the middle of a line of dialogue (hey, it happens, as anyone who caught the short-lived run of "Alice" on ION can attest). But I was curious as to whether there was a subtle but effective form of time compression going on or, as I suspected based on the running time on Spike, it was a whole lotta hackin' goin' on.

So I did what any dedicated researcher would do: I messed around on the Internet. Sure enough, the fans confirmed that Spike was butchering big chunks out of the episodes. Now, I'll admit that I didn't notice any obvious cuts, and to a novice like myself, maybe most of them make sense even with 8-10 minutes of material missing. But the bulk of the series is on DVD--uncut--and many episodes are available free online--also uncut. Why waste my time watching something I know is shredded to pieces?

It's a sad reminder of the increasing worthlessness of cable television to fans of classic television. There's no use in hoping a channel like TV Land or Hallmark adds an old favorite to its lineup because it will likely air it in this kind of hacked-up format. Even a relatively scarce treat like a "Hawaii Five-0" marathon is more a reason to go for the DVDs than a cause for celebration.