Inside Hawaii Five-0: Dr. Max Bergman

Dr. Max Bergman

By Mike Gordon

The city’s quirky coroner, who likes to play the piano in his morgue, will have an expanded role in season two investigating cases for the “Five-0″ team.

Played by Masi Oka, the character of Dr. Max Bergman is the designated science guy, but his manners are so odd, he always provides comic relief.

“What I like about him is the surprise,” Oka said. “He’ll say things that are completely unexpected.”

Oka has been talking with the show’s writers in the hopes they will like his ideas about Bergman — he can’t reveal them yet — and how to expand the character.

In the first episode of season two, fans are going to learn more the coroner than they knew last season. The show will even take viewers to his home — in Kalihi.

“There are a bunch of things I pitched the writers, and hopefully some of the stuff they loved,” Oka said.

Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser; scans are in the gallery

AOLR Weekly Wrap-Up #88

Hawaii Five-0 Updates
  • Openfilm is organizing a webcam chat with Scott Caan on April 30 at 2 pm Pacific! Fans can find out more here. You can submit questions for Scott and view those already submitted here.
  • The latest videos:
    • Kelvin Han Yee (H50′s HPD Chief Makaha) is not the least bit shy and lets you into his trailer for a tour:flunky:
    • Chef Morimoto’s 1.19 viewing party via Hawaii Five-0 Undercover.
    • CBS’s 30-second promo for 1.20 Ho’opa’i.
  • The latest pictures:
    • Peter Lenkov added more BTS pics from the final production days.
    • Danno do surf – here are 14 HQs to prove it! :mrgreen:
    • Alex with a fan – via @nikkii_bee.
    • Alex with Will Yun Lee – Sang Min returns in episodes 1.22 and 1.23! :yesss: He’s new to Twitter, so please show him some :heart: : @WillYunLee1
    • Alex with Chef Morimoto – via @elrudest, a.k.a. Five-0 writer Elwood Reid.
    • Daniel with Kelly Hu (in the new gym for cast & crew!) and Kelly with Mark Dacascos.
    • Some BTS pics on Facebook
    • The 25th Combat Aviation Brigade provided a UH-60A Black Hawk MEDEVAC helicopter for two scenes in episode 1.19 which were shot on March 1, 2011 – BTS pictures at Hawaii Reporter.
    • Gallery updates: HD caps of 1.19 and HQ stills from 1.22! I also added a scan of an interview with Mark Dacascos with The (Singapore) Straits Times.
Hawaii Five-0 Articles
  • TV Guide has a cute article about Daniel’s fun Tweet Week contributions during Monday’s broadcast of episode 1.19: “6 Things We Learned From Hawaii Five-0′s Daniel Dae Kim During CBS Tweet Week.”
  • A teaser from TV Guide’s William Keck:

    CBS’ Hawaii Five-0 will say a final aloha to a familiar face in the May 16 season closer. “It’s sort of our all-star episode,” teases exec producer Peter Lenkov. “Jean Smart [Governor Jameson], Kelly Hu [Laura Hills] and Will Yun Lee [Sang Min] are all coming back.” But one star will not return next season. “There will be a murder,” confirms Lenkov.

    On the possible hit list: Grace Park (Kono), who may have tired of living in Hawaii, plus Jean and Kelly, both of whom have new NBC pilots. Stressing that “pilots may not get picked up,” Lenkov confirms that his cliff-hanger will be a “Holy crap! I-can’t-believe-they-did-that whodunit!”

  • The San Francisco Chronicle is absolutely right: “Island Food is the real star of Hawaii Five-0″! It’s a mouthwatering article and I don’t recommend reading it on an empty stomach… :mrgreen:
  • If you’ve seen episode 1.19 and read last week’s wrap-up, then you’ll know that Joji Yoshida’s speaking part as Jack Leung didn’t make the final edit. Mike Gordon posted in his Outtakes today:

    Yoshida had high hopes before the episode aired, noting it would help his career, but it happens all the time. In fact, when the “Five-0″ team gave the local acting community a lengthy orientation in February, the actors were told being cut wasn’t necessarily a judgment on their talent.

    “Usually if I have to cut something out, it’s for the story, and people shouldn’t take it personally,” said Peter Lenkov, one of the show’s executive producers and a panelist at the event. “It’s not based on the performance. It’s based on the storytelling.”

    Alex O’Loughlin, who leads the ensemble cast as Steve McGarrett, put it more colorfully: “In the business it’s called ‘killing your darlings.’”

    Ouch.

    Mike also writes about the crew working with a burning car last Thursday. Check out the full article at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

  • TV Over Mind posted the results from a survey conducted to determine the TV show with the strongest fandom. Among the factors considered were the level of participation in online activities as well as in-person activities. Two interesting conclusions can be drawn from the results:
    • The lower the show’s ratings, the higher the online passion;
    • Sci-fi shows have stronger online fandoms.

    Hawaii Five-0 has a strong 5th place, which really shouldn’t surprise the writer given the fact that three of the show’s four leads were previously in genre series and of course, Alex’s core fandom has always been and will continue to be very active. The Big Kahuna will also undoubtedly be amused to hear that the average age of fans who participated in the survey is 27… :giggle:

  • Selita Ebanks plays opposite Sean Combs as his character’s wife in tomorrow’s episode of Five-0. According to TV Line’s Matt Mitovich, her very first scene with Combs was a romantic one:

    Having only met Combs on occasion prior to the CBS drama, Ebanks says, “It was very awkward, because there was a love scene — my first ever! I was like, ‘No, no, can’t we warm up with other scenes first?’” That awkward intro aside, Ebanks came away with raves for Alex O’Loughlin & Co.: “The energy on set was so refreshing, so happy…. They gave me really great pointers, and I learned so much.”

  • TV Guide’s Matt Roush agrees that the renewal of Five-0 “is a no-brainer. It will be back next season.” :sun:
  • Tim Ryan posted that “preproduction for Five-0′s second season will begin in June with filming in early July…According to CBS, the production has spend more than $40 million on Oahu for season one…” and “In a message to the Hawaii Five-0 cast and crew today on the last day of filming, executive producer Peter M. Lenkov thanked them for ‘your hard work that has made this show such a great success’…Lenkov ended the message saying ‘See you in July’ which is when filming of season two begins…”
Other Alex Updates
  • Apparently liking the response to Alex’s US InStyle feature, the Australian edition of the magazine has also chosen our hot Aussie as their Man of Style – the May issue is out now!
  • An HD version of the video of Alex’s GQ Style shoot is available on YouTube!
  • You can now watch Three Rivers via online streaming on Netflix (a subscription to the service costs $7.99 per month) – thanks to Tobi for the tip! All episodes are also available in HD on iTunes for $2.99 each or you can purchase all episodes for $38.87.

More Five-0 fun tomorrow night on CBS! There will be another repeat on April 25, and then we’ll get the final three Season 1 episodes, starting on May 2.

:float:

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