Hawaii Five-G0?

Hawaii Five-0's future was hard to predict when season 7 concluded and it was renewed for season 8. Lead star Alex O'Loughlin made fairly categorical statements that he would leave following s8 due to a number of chronic injuries suffered from his tenure on the show, and with Scott Caan's ever-dwindling appearances on the show, it didn't seem likely that Hawaii Five-0 could last without its two front men.

   But now CBS has gone and done something even more kamikaze: firing co-leads Daniel Dae-Kim and Grace Park.

   Now, apparently I've been missing signs of this impending announcement. I've seen a comment from one Internet user who claimed Grace Park had told him long ago that she would be leaving after s7. I also did wonder how Daniel Dae-Kim was set to executive produce The Good Doctor over at ABC, but didn't imagine he would be heading away from Hawaii to do so.

   In effect, the show has lost two and a third of its original cast, being that Caan only appears in roughly 2/3 of episodes these days.

It's possible - and indeed probable - that CBS knew the show's days were numbered (perhaps they heard O'Loughlin's statements and considered a preemptive strike), and decided to unburden itself of some of the cost attached to an ageing show (which includes stars' wages), to leave a little extra money in the coffers for the 2018/19 season. Dae-Kim and Park's contracts have been under negotiation, but they were reportedly demanding the same pay as O'Loughlin and Caan (which is about 10-15% higher, according to reports), and CBS weren't willing to pay. Financially - given the age of the show and the likelihood it wouldn't have survived to season 9 - it isn't hard to understand why the network decided to cut its losses.

But will this have an impact on the other Friday shows around it?

   CBS hasn't played around with the Friday formula of MacGyver-Hawaii Five-0-Blue Boods because it was working. In fact, in 2016/17 Hawaii Five-0 was one of just 2 CBS shows which managed to increase its ratings from the 2015/16 season (the other being NCIS Los Angeles), which makes what we expect now (a rather sudden plummet in ratings) all the more of a crazy juxtaposition. But will Hawaii Five-0, if it does lose ground in the ratings, bring MacGyver or potentially Blue Bloods down with it?

The question I have is whether keeping Hawaii Five-0 on Fridays was a good move considering this outcome must have been known to be possible when the renewal and the upfronts were announced. CBS had a perfect Friday formula, and the last thing it will want is one bad apple to spoil the bunch. My thinking is it perhaps should have switched with NCIS Los Angeles, which could have breathed even more life into Fridays - although that would admittedly have left Sundays in a very sticky spot.

But I'm sure the bigwigs at CBS know what they're doing. And even if they don't, they know how to steady a ship.

A last word to say thank you to Daniel Dae-Kim and Grace Park for their work on the show. I've loved the characters for seven years! Good luck to whatever comes in the future - especially to Dae-Kim with The Good Doctor, which I intend to check out in the fall!