The last few episodes of "Hawaii Five-O" before this one were pretty weak--with too many plot holes or logical problems. Because of this, "1000 Crooked Miles to Honolulu" is a welcome episode. I also liked it because it was pretty cool seeing Buddy Ebsen play an evil guy! The show begins with a bazooka attack on an armored truck carrying traveler's checks near Denver. This is just one of a chain of events that will lead to an amazingly complex crime in Hawaii. In the next scene, a group of teachers are set to arrive by chartered plane on the islands. This group, led by Ebsen, is obviously criminal in nature--but exactly how this and the traveler's checks were involved is still uncertain. At the same time, a lady who is supposed to send out warnings with numbers of stolen traveler's checks to the merchants of Hawaii disappears--along with all the letters with the stolen numbers! In other words, because of this, the shops on the island do not have the numbers of the checks stolen in Denver--and Ebsen's plane full of crooks (posing as a teacher's group) can spend stolen checks with abandon! The idea is for each part of this phony group to break as many checks as they can--converting most of the checks into cash.
All this seems rather complicated but brilliant and you soon learn that Ebsen (who's called "the professor") really is a professor and came up with the scheme. The muscle he needs is provided by organized crime--and unknown to Ebsen, they aren't the least bit worried about killing a few people to make this plan work. Unfortunately for the plan, one body too many is turned up and McGarrett is alerted. Eventually, the plan cannot succeed--despite Ebsen's very impressive brain.
Overall, a clever and interesting show. I saw it first as a child and even 30+ years later I remembered this one and was excited to be able to see it again. After all, seeing Uncle Jed/Barnaby Jones on the side of evil was pretty cool.
All this seems rather complicated but brilliant and you soon learn that Ebsen (who's called "the professor") really is a professor and came up with the scheme. The muscle he needs is provided by organized crime--and unknown to Ebsen, they aren't the least bit worried about killing a few people to make this plan work. Unfortunately for the plan, one body too many is turned up and McGarrett is alerted. Eventually, the plan cannot succeed--despite Ebsen's very impressive brain.
Overall, a clever and interesting show. I saw it first as a child and even 30+ years later I remembered this one and was excited to be able to see it again. After all, seeing Uncle Jed/Barnaby Jones on the side of evil was pretty cool.
