Hawaii Five-0 (2010): The Complete Series DVD review

Nov 30, 2020- Permalink

Paramount has just released Hawaii Five-0 (2010): The Complete Series, a box set of the Hawaii Five-O reboot that premiered in 2010. The series starred Alex O’Loughlin as Detective Steve McGarret, a former Naval office that heads a team of police going after the biggest criminal targets. He’s teamed with Scott Caan as Detective Danny “Danno” Williams, while Daniel Dae Kim, Grace Park, Chi McBride, Jorge Garcia, Meaghan Rath, Beulah Koale, and Adam Noshimuri round out the team. I had a chance to review this DVD box set.

The DVD set contains all ten seasons — 240 episodes in all — spread over 60 discs with an additional bonus disc. The set also includes the crossover episodes that the show did with fellow CBS hits CSI: Los Angeles and the Magnum P.I. reboot.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a Blu-ray presentation, which would have been great considering this is a high definition show with amazing establish shots of the tropical paradise that it’s set in. Still, for a DVD box set it looks quite good. The set is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Compression issues aren’t too evident, which can be a problem with some sets as studios try to cram series on as few discs as possible. Details are good for a DVD, as is the colour palette, but black levels aren’t as good and we do lose some details in shadows and nighttime scenes. Still this is a good looking DVD set.

As for audio, you have the choice of an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and an English stereo track. A French audio track is only available for season 1. While English SDH subtitles are available for all 10 seasons, Portuguese and Spanish are only available for the first few seasons and French subtitles for season one. Perhaps Paramount didn’t feel the series had foreign appeal? Anyway, the 5.1 track is quite good. Dialogue is clear and centred while atmospheric effects place you in the action quite well.

Each of the seasons has a great variety of bonus features with everything from gag reels, deleted scenes, Comic-Con appearances, interviews, promo materials, behind-the-scenes looks, audio commentaries and so much more. This set cannot be accused of being light on bonus material. In fact, there’s a whole disc just of bonus material to celebrate the ten year run, including a 53 minute retrospective special, music videos, and a look at the shows combined 50 year history.

I didn’t watch the show during its initial run, but after spending some time looking through this set, I’m going to make some room for it. Fans of the show will definitely want Hawaii Five-0 (2010): The Complete Series.