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EXCLUSIVE: Ed Asner is upgrading his status on Hawaii Five-0 from a guest star to recurring. In a very unusual series guest arc spanning 36 years, the multiple Emmy winner will guest star on CBS’ Hawaii Five-0 reboot in the spring, reprising the role of August March, which he played in an episode of the original series in 1975.
In a first for the new Hawaii Five-0, footage from the original series will be featured in Asner’s episode. It will be from the actor’s first Hawaii Five-0 appearance in an 1975 episode titled Wooden Model Of A Rat, in which August March (Asner) was an up-and-coming world class smuggler. Now a reformed man after serving 30 years in prison for murder, March lives on O’ahu and is approached by the Five-0 to assist on a smuggling case. “It is thrilling to, for the first time, merge the original Hawaii Five-0 and our new show by having the classic, versatile and award-winning actor Ed Asner reprise his role of August March, a character Mr. Asner first played 36 years ago,” Hawaii Five-0 executive producer/showrunner Peter Lenkov said. “There is no better way to form a bridge between our reboot and the original series.”
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color me confused…. isn’t the current version supposed to be looking back at a young McGarrett and Dano? How does that work with old March? Whatever… might be interesting. Good luck to ‘em
No, the current version is not a prequel to the old version.
Damn, now I’ll have to watch.
This show is so campy awful and Peter Lenkov is an unapologetic hack. The writing, directing and acting are terrible. Ask yourself why no actor on the series was given a real feature opportunity after the first season. Scott Caan sold his soul.
Next season NBC and ABC should program a strong show against Hawaii Five 0. Look at the week to week numbers. They are completely vulnerable.
Way to go with the personal attacks, dude. What’s wrong Mike, did Peter pass on your great Dragnet Spec Script and you’re still riding a desk at Paradigm waiting for your big break?
To the previous poster named Mike;
I’m an executive at NBC and reading your strategy about programming a strong show against Hawaii Five-0 makes complete sense to me. It’s brilliant and undiscovered (frustrated and out of touch) people like you that we like to hire around here. We anxiously await your pitch about what kind of show we can put on next season to smash Hawaii Five-0. I’m sure you have a script (written at the local Starbucks) that can help us accomplish this. Maybe a cop who’s forced to write a book with a novelist – or a group of Airline Stewardesses from the 50′s who work for a guy named Charlie. Either one will work if we can bring you on our team and figure a way to harness that bitterness inside you!
This was funny.
Dude Your an idiot its a great show
I know both fans of the original series and the August March superfans have been waiting for this. Why didn’t they do it sooner, I wonder? I see a spinoff coming.
>In a very unusual series guest arc spanning 36 years…
Asner’s got spunk! I HATE spunk!
CBS… always keeping it old. You gotta love it — I know grandma does!
So Les, you have something against old people? You discovered the Fountain of Youth? Someone tell Ponce De Leon! Take your youth obsessions and choke on it.
ok, my idea is Ed Asner also plays Lou Grant, a retired editor in Hawaii who is investigating the story.
Is Wooden frame of rat episode or something like that
I watch it if it is same plotline
Can we get Betty White in the same episode?
Mike? Seriously? Have you seen the “week to week numbers”. Hawaii Five-0 is the #1 10pm drama on ALL NETWORKS. You may want to rethink your trash 5-0 strategy, or better yet, give up your dream of ever being in the entertainment business. If it hasn’t happened by now, it never will.
Week to week?
U have to be kidding me. All CBS Monday block is up from last year while Hawaii 50 is flat or down. The only day it did better it was because it was against repeats in the other networks.
Plus, CBS replaced CSI Miami with Hawaii 50, and the remake is getting 25% less numbers than CSI Miami.That is a failure.
CBS never had a problem on 10 pm Mondays, never, with CSI Miami getting 3.8 demo and 14 million viewers. Now Hawaii gets 10 millions and 2.9/3 demo.
Mondays 10 pm are way down for CBS since they put the remake there. It is the CBS 10 pm drama with the strongest lead in, and the show drops a lot after it.
It is a mediocre performer in the hottest CBS night.
Love ASNER! Sounds great! Can’t wait!
This sounds like a “Star Trek: Enterprise” thing where the two universes don’t reconcile. You design the remake to not have anything to do with the original, then try to shoehorn a guy from the original into the new continuity where he never existed. This would have worked if the new McGarrett was the SON of the original, but they created this show with the same character names as the original and nothing else. Crazy.
Hawaii 5-0 is the photo you see in the dictionary when you look up the word “pedestrian”. It’s like some awful parody of a Quinn Martin production. But I’m still amused by its depiction of the toothpick-thin Hawaiian lady cop knocking down a grown man with one punch. In real life, she looks like she would snap in half if struck by a big wave.
I just think its funny how his Name is August March
I hear he’s dating April May.
AND her twin sister, June.
The amazing thing is that the lead actor is 99.8% charisma & personality free – he’s not a bad actor in the traditional sense as they obviously hired him for his no acting acting ability, and viewers? no one seems to mind he’s an android that has zero facial expression, nor change in tone but can jump around and handle a gun. (I’m presuming women find him good looking?) But if that’s ok with america viewers, who am I to argue. So on that measure, it would seem taht Hawaii 5-0 can be “taken down.” But then I cannot fathom why anyone watches CSI, or AFHV for 30 years … so yet, so far, nothing from the nets seem to work … though really, we’re just talking ABC as NBC is still staffed by “genius” Zucker who would only hire people dumber than him …
Ok. Here’s a questions. If their going to be running clips from the original 5-0 within an episode of the current 5-0, how will the residual be paid? The original was a SAG show. The current is unfortunately AFTRA. Any SAG show produced after 1960, re-aired on television, (especially network) will owe the talent a residual payment. So, not only will Ed Asner and any other actor used in the original clip, be owed a SAG residual check, one the current episode is re-run, the actors of the original episode will be owed another SAG residual check plus an AFTRA residual check. Great pay day for Asner!!!
Another example not of merger, but of SAG asleep at the switch and refusing to take AFTRA to court, or at a minimum, to the DOL or AFL-CIO for violation of jurisdiction recognition. And for those who still are drinking the kool-aide, digital has nothing to do with it. That’s a made up reason created by AFTRA to justify their raiding practices. If digital really was the reason, why isn’t AFTRA doing full length features, playing in movie theaters? Is because the digital divide is a load of crap.
Some union advocate you are! I guess merger would piss you off. If you cannot see how a new union will clear up your worries about jurisdiction and give a huge strength to actors and other TV folk, well one can assume you are looking to the past and not the future. Wake up and smell the coffee, dude!
MIKE!!
Dude,chill out! Go eat some Spam bro!
They’ve already done this weird “Hawaii 5-O/The original series” meets the new re-imagined “Hawaii 5-O”. They did it with McGarrett’s Mercury Marquis automobile.
The exact same Mercury Marquis driven by Jack Lord as McGarrett in the original, was brought back in the new series. It was said to have belonged to (the new) McGarrett’s father. McGarrett is seen driving it with Dano, and it breaks down. McGarrett plans to restore the car.
Yes, it’s bizarre that the new series ignores the existence of the original, yet does things like bringing back the same car and now Ed Asner as the same character. Will August March talk to McGarrett about how he was caught 36 years ago by McGarrett?
Thing is, it’s just a TV show. Go with it and have fun. But I agree with others that it’s a shame the new series isn’t about the original McGarrett’s son taking on the criminals of Oahu just like his Papa.
They should have McGarrett’s dad be the one who busted March 36 years ago. That way if they show clips of him in the past saying McGarrett it could mean Steve’s dad. Assuming they don’t show Jack Lord.
The 6 million dollar Man is already Steve’s father.
If they had just done the ‘alternate timeline’ thing like Star Trek, they’d have license to do anything with old characters. They should have discussed it further with J.J.
I seriously doubt they will show any of the old actors in the clips of Asner from the previous show. They will probably do something like in Forrest Gump, mixing old and recently-filmed footage, but will they get the current McGarrett’s father to be the one who put March in jail? If McGarrett’s father was around 60 when he was knocked off in the pilot episode for the current Five-0 (there is speculation after the last episode that he was not), this would mean he was about 25 when the events of the old show were taking place. However this is handled, this will seriously disturb the Five-O/Five-0 space/time continuum.
There is some discussion on the forum on my site about having Asner’s MTM co-star Gavin MacLeod also reappear as the slimy dope dealer Big Chicken (he was in two episodes of the original series). I also doubt this will happen, at least this year. In getting Asner to make a guest appearance, the producers have used up their quota of stars-from-the-old-show-appearing-on-the-new-who-will-not-appeal-to-the-18-to-49-demographic for season two. (Robert Loggia filled this bill last season.)
It is quite possible they might work some other reference to Big Chicken into the story, though:
Spring Chicken — a younger relative of Big, who seeks revenge for what McGarrett (again, space/time continuum issues) did to his father/grandfather, putting him away in the clink. If we are talking grandson, maybe they can hire some current heartthrob like Robert Pattinson.
Deep Fried Chicken — this is the original character, horribly burned during an explosion of a fryer in the kitchen while he was in prison. This way they would not have to hire MacLeod, they could get some relatively insignificant actor to play the part, covered with a grotesque and heavy latex mask.
Guess CBS doesn’t know what else to do to get more people to view this lame remake. CBS has some good cop shows , but this remake is awful, the scripts are not great, but the acting is just hideous.. Seems to me CBS has realized the mistake they did when they chose the actor for this show and that is why they hired Terry O’Quinn for 10 episodes. They should had hired him in the first place, someone with strong screen presence.. Too late now.The show is really unwatchable.
I saw the original episode with Mr. Asner and he was terrific in it. I know, as do all his devoted fans … and he has legions… just attend an incredible performance of his one man play FDR wherein he takes the time and effort to cordially “meet and greet” and take photos with every last audience member who waits after the play to pay their respects…, that to reprise this role will be nothing less than stellar.
He is America’s finest actor and has the too many to mention awards to prove it. The only thing the other cast members have to worry about is keeping up with this 83 year old work-horse. He commands any scene he’s in and his intensity is immense.
Kudos to CBS for having the insight of adding such a beloved icon.
Now, if we can just get The Kennedy Center Honors to induct him… it is long overdue.