‘Hawaii Five-0′: “Everyone came together and it felt like a family”

The Hawaii Five-0 panel kicked off today at the San Diego Comic-Con at 10:14 am with a reminder for tweeps to tweet about ‘Hawaii Five-0′ and not ‘Hawaii Five-O’.

After the trailer was shown, director Len Wiseman and executive producers Peter Lenkov, Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci were introduced to a full and appreciative house.

The first clip screened from the pilot set the tone for the relationship between Danny Williams and Steve McGarrett, who a blogger recently likened to a bickering married couple, but definitely one with real chemistry.

Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan are back on Oahu presumably hard at work, but both stars are expected to make an appearance at the TCA press tour in Beverly Hills next week.

We’ve learned that Danno’s role was not cast until the eleventh hour because the producers had mistakenly thought that Scott was unavailable, Kurtzman revealed. “I’ve never had the experience of seeing a cast come together on day one and having it feel like it was the fifth year of the show. Everyone came together and it felt like a family,” he marveled.

Daniel Dae Kim then came onstage to loud applause, followed shortly afterwards by Grace Park, whose character’s gender change as Kono elicited the comment, “”I think we got used to watching a lot of men on television growing up. Women were either the mom or the girlfriend or the prostitute. So when you remake an old show it’s nice to make a change.”

For feature film director Len Wiseman, Hawaii Five-0 was the first foray into television, but the decision to make the switch came easily to him. “Alex [Kurtzman] had sent me the script, I’m 20 pages into it texting him saying ‘you bastard, I’ve got a lot of things going on but I’m going to drop everything and do it straight away,’” he shared.

Although a rock musician did attempt to retool the show’s signature tune for the new series, the producers changed their minds and recorded the theme song exactly as it was in the original show. You can watch the video with composer Brian Tyler in the recording studio in June 2010 with the original musicians here.

From the start, the producers’ vision for the new Hawaii Five-0 has always been that of an epic story that unfolds over many episodes. “We keep adding to the mythology of the show, but for the most part it’s consistent with our original vision,” said Lenkov, who went on to reveal that although he loved the original, the current series is a reboot rather than a continuation of the first. “But what I missed from the original show is how this great team got together. So there was never a thought of a continuation of the show, but how this family was born.”

Kurtzman also shared his pleasure about the level of CBS’s enthusiasm for Hawaii Five-0. “When they love something, they love something. When we started seeing the ad campaigns, our minds exploded. They’re going to put H5-0 on every bus in New York City. Every bus!”

The upbeat panel wrapped with the promise of recurring villains, lots of scenes involving Kono in a bikini and enough Chin Ho and Kono centric episodes to keep Grace and Daniel fans engaged.

Being the equal opportunities executive producer that he is, Peter Lenkov also teased Alex O’Loughlin’s fans with the revelation that Steve McGarrett will be seen coming out of the water in his swimsuit in the second episode. Hooyah, Commander!

Read the Digital Spy live blog for a full account of today’s panel, check out the slideshow below, CBS’s pictures on Twitpic and CBS.com, as well as the following related articles:

• “‘Hawaii Five-0′ Packs Comic-Con”
• “Comic-Con 2010: First Words from the Hawaii Five-0 Press Room”
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