Regardless of how you feel about the current season, the engine that fuels Hawaii Five-0 has shifted from the obsessive dance between Steve McGarrett and Wo Fat to the psychological tango between McG, his long-presumed-dead mother and her desire for both forgiveness and validation of a super secret spy life that destroyed an entire family. To get it, she not only had to work her way back into Steve’s life, but that of a daughter she hadn’t seen in two decades.
She (both Mama McG and the actress, Christine Lahti) also had to accomplish said task while nits were being thoroughly picked by fans who crave action & adventure, not characters stuck living their own private soap opera. But by the end of “Ōhuna,” which was both surprisingly unpredictable and remarkably solid in its execution, it says something that welcoming family back into the fold occurred in more ways than one Monday night.
By the time we came to the end, where messy reality and emotional turmoil were trumped by a desire to make a family (mostly) whole again, nearly a million more sets of eyeballs were watching than the previous Monday. Hawaii Five-0, in fact, pulled its highest numbers to date for season 3, with a 2.2 in 18-49 (up a tenth from last week) and roughly 8.9 million people watching live.
Overall, Five-0 dented Revolution’s number significantly for the first time this fall. The sci-fi drama managed just a 2.6/7.04 and will air its mid-season finale next Monday. It will not return to the NBC schedule until March 25, leaving Five-0 with the chance for some ratings momentum in the months ahead. It’s like the show took two giants steps forward last night, and hopefully there’s no going back.
Reaching into the mailbag …
A couple people have asked me (whether in comments, on Twitter or Facebook) how to become a member of the Nielsen sample. The answer, quite simply, is that the entire thing is strictly through chance. You can’t call Nielsen and volunteer to track data for them, nor can they ask every home in a community to participate. Instead, they select a sample of homes in a given area to represent the entire TV audience. You can learn more about the process HERE.
And a final thought…
There has been some spirited commentary on a recent blog post that colors outside the lines of quality fan discussion. While I certainly appreciate that you take the time to read and comment on these blogs, attacking each other in the process is both unnecessary and counterproductive. I assume you all participate because there are more aspects of Hawaii Five-0 you enjoy than those you don’t, and I ask that you redirect your energy away from the vitriol and get back to pros and cons of these episodes and how they reflect on the ratings. Mahalo.
