Hawaii Five-O (TV Series) No Blue Skies (1968) User Reviews

Pretty good...but an awful lot of singing.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 5 October 2009]

"Hawaii Five-O" did several episodes over the years that featured singers. Yvonne Elliman as well as Tommy Sands (in this episode) starred as singers who ran afoul of the law or organized crime. The problem with these episodes is that if you love the music, you're in for a treat but if you don't, they really drag. In this case, hearing Sands singing Hawaiian tunes (in particularly the seriously overplayed "Ain't No Big Thing") really wasn't that entertaining...plus it was far from Sands' best material. Way too much of the show consists of hearing him sing--detracting from the plot and serving to dilute the episode.

As for what there is of plot, it's pretty good. Sands plays a singer who is on the cusp of the big time except that his gambling addiction might get him killed. So, to pay off the bad debts, he takes to very dramatic cat burglaries. He dresses all in black (almost like a ninja) and climbs down huge high-rise hotels to rob guests. Unfortunately, the episode unfortunately fizzles near the end. Instead of the police proving that the singer was a thief, his girlfriend eventually turns him in and then the dummy reacts VERY foolishly. You wonder if most criminals are THAT stupid! Apart from the ending, though, not a bad episode at all.

A better episode than the current rating...

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 9 September 2023]

But I had to wonder about the guest star, Tommy Sands. I'm old enough to remember this show from the beginning, and I had no idea who this guy was. Apparently he had a singing and acting career much like the famous Hawaii Five-O wave - awe inspiring but fleeting, and his fame was largely over by the time he made this guest appearance, but I digress,

A cat burglar is breaking into hotel rooms by propelling down the high rises involved from the roof and making off with jewelry when the guests are out. A break comes in the case when a girl is killed at the airport and a piece of the missing jewelry is found on her. The investigators go talk to her roommate who says she knows nothing about this and that she knows nobody who would want to kill her.

But this is not the truth. The roommate is the girlfriend of lounge singer Joey Rand (Tommy Sands) who is behind the thefts so that he can finance his gambling habit. But even that isn't enough to pay off the syndicate and it's only a matter of time until they put out a hit on him for nonpayment.

There is way too much singing in this episode, and I wasn't really charmed by Mr. Sand's vocal performance. He's not exactly Elvis. And I have to wonder what his character's girlfriend sees in this vacuous person. It is interesting how the whole thing unfolds, and I'd recommend this one, although the singing reminds me of "the screechers" from the 1930s. Those would be films from the late 30s in which a teen girl with an operatic voice sings tortuously for several numbers, but I stick around because I want to see how the rather interesting plot turns out.

We're They Painting McGarrett's Office?

[miketypeeach · 8/10 · 20 January 2024]

The first episode of season 1 where Steve McG & Co. Don't congregate at 5-0 headquarters. Was it being painted (as a plot device)? Was there an issue with the set? It isn't explained. Steve hangs around the Honolulu cop shop quite a bit, leading the investigation more than we've seen up to this point. Perhaps it's why we see Steve out in the wild so much--to give Jack Lord more room to shine, which includes taking a punch from a suspect.

As another commenter said, there's a LOT of singing in this episode. Too much, really. Personally, taking in a set by a lounge singer wouldn't be on my itinerary. I certainly wouldn't traverse the Pacific to paradise to hole up in a bar. But, according to this episode, tourists really dig it, man. For everyone old enough to remember, you can catch up on the groovy slang of the day, get me? Cool, baby!

Anyway, the plans of the criminals go horribly wrong. The pace is kinda slow in spots, with certain bits being more than a little cliché and predictable. But, we're treated to where the jet set checked in and spent their holidays, which I find interesting.

Fascinating toupee has a life of its own

[ArtVandelayImporterExporter · 6/10 · 24 January 2023]

Tommy Sands is the name-brand ''star" of this episode. He plays a terrible lounge singer (not a stretch) who moonlights as a cat burglar. He needs to steal jewels to pay off an enormous gambling debt he owes the mainland mob.

As you watch the episode you'll realize why he's so far in the red. He's a worse gambler than he is a singer. At a local high-stakes poker game he's as fidgety as a sewer rat, with more tells than a jailhouse snitch.

His girlfriend is reluctantly caught up in events. I'm not familiar with Sandra Smith but as another reviewer pointed out she really stole this episode. Well, that's if you don't count Sands' toupee, which looks like it was extruded from a mould. It even moves independently from his head. It really should have got its own acting credit in this episode.

I also want to point out, as I'm binge-watching Hawaii Five-0 on pirate TV (thanks, Amazon Firestick!), that McGarrett and Danny ''solve" a lot of cases at the end of their guns. They kill more suspects than the Atlanta PD. Plus, every episode in Season One has characters that sound like they live in a hippie commune, spouting ''baby," "cool, man" and "yah dig?" Comes across like dialogue a 40-year-old (pre-Boomer) would write to make the show sound cool to kids who grooved to the Beach Boys (and had never heard of The Beatles, much less the Rolling Stones).

Sandra Smith Shines Here!

[Sylviastel · 9/10 · 2 September 2017]

The actress, Sandra Smith, was truly underrated in this business. I remember watching in the Columbo episode, "The Greenhouse Jungle," as a wife who leads a separate love life apart from her husband. She held her own against Columbo and Ray Milland in that episode. Here she played Valerie Michaels,a Hawaiian tour guide. She gets involved with Bobby Darin type aspiring singer with a gambling problem. Sandra's performance is truly the scene stealer.

Homage to Bobby Darin and the Kennedys

[chugheschughes3 · 8/10 · 26 April 2009]

An obvious homage to June 1968 death of Robert Kennedy, the quagmire in Vietnam and the disillusionment of artists such as Bobby Darin-referenced by the guest star Tommy Sands.

Hawaii-5-O was such high quality, that it may have set the bar too high in earning such a low (5.5) score, especially within the stellar first season.

The dramatic events of 1968, the dropping out of society of one Bobby Darin, famous for his version of "Blue Skies" and how his jazzed-up version of that song cynically-contrasts with the lighter, more optimistic post-WWII version given by Bing Crosby. I could imagine the effect of the Kennedy-Vietnam-Class-Warfare perfect storm spreading gloom and yet counterbalanced by the emotional reserve of our heroes who display calm, confident multi- ethnic teamwork. True liberal democracy-an incredibly expensive result of patient virtue. I'm looking forward to the movie treatment of this series. Thanks