Hawaii Five-0 completes its ‘Brofeld’ arc

Original cast of the 2010-20 Hawaii Five-0

Hawaii Five-0, the 2010-20 reboot of the original series ended its 10-season run on Friday night. The show ended by finishing its version of “Brofeld” — a new version of a classic villain with a personal reason to get the hero.

In this case, the villain was Wo Fat. Wo Fat 2.0 was killed back in 2014. But Mrs. Wo Fat (?!) was still around to get even.

Back in 2015, the blog examined how the rebooted Wo Fat and Ernst Stavro Blofeld from SPECTRE were similar.

Each was a new take on a classic villain. Each had a personal reason to go after the lead character. In fact, each felt they were virtually family!

The 2010-20 Five-0 actually did this first, with Wo Fat 2.0 mockingly calling McGarrett 2.0 “brother” (just before the latter finally put him down for good).

In 2015’s SPECTRE, the filmmakers decided to make Blofeld the foster brother (or whatever) of Bond.

Essentially, all of this followed the Austin Powers path where the hero discovers he’s the brother of his archvillain Dr. Evil. Except, Austin Powers was a comedy whereupon Five-0 and SPECTRE were intended to be taken seriously.

In the Five-0 finale, it was revealed that Wo Fat was mad at not getting an inheritance from McGarrett’s mother (don’t ask). And that was the catalyst for most of the events of the past 10 years. OK, whatever.

Personally, I watched the show closely the first three seasons before giving up. I’d occasionally catch an episode or two after that.

After not watching for a few years, I decided to catch an eighth-season episode. There was a subplot about McGarrett and Danno trying to start a restaurant.  I immediately changed the channel. After that, I caught episodes even less often.

Regardless, the 2010-20 Five-0 has to rank as a successful reboot from a business standpoint. It lasted about 240 episodes. It was almost as long as the original 1968-80 show.

The most satisfying aspect of the finale was how the music score incorporated quieter versions of Morton Stevens’ class theme music. In the final episode of the original series, Stevens produced a score that was the best aspect of that finale.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

For now, Black Widow and Bond will be out in November

Poster for Black Widow

Movie studios continue to play a game of chess with release dates as the coronavirus slams the global economy.

Walt Disney Co. announced a series of release dates, according to Exhibitor Relations, which tracks movie box office.

Among the new dates is Black Widow, made by Disney’s Marvel unit, now scheduled to debut on Nov. 6 in the U.S.

Black Widow originally was slated to come out on May 1. The coronavirus, which resulted in movie theater closings in multiple countries, has forced many changes.

One of the first films to change dates was No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film. It originally was scheduled to be out on April 2 in the U.K. and April 10 in the U.S.

The Bond film currently is scheduled to be out in Nov. 12 in the U.K. and Nov. 25 in the U.S.

If all this holds up, Marvel’s leading espionage character will have her solo film the same month as No Time to Die.

How significant is this? With the coronavirus, everything is in flux. We’ll see how it goes.