User Reviews

"Yesterday Died..." is Danno's turn in the limelight and while James MacArthur does a fine job carrying the show, the character of Danno proves that he is not yet ready for prime time. That's not a put-down: Steve McGarrett himself has stated in other episodes that someday Danno will make a good cop. In this episode the eager apprentice is seen stumbling along the way to that goal.

I did sympathize with Danny when the Attorney General and the Governor ganged up on him. Less than an hour after McGarrett is shot, they have Danny in and called on the carpet of the governor's office. The AG thanks Danny for doing a good job on the McGarrett case, but when he asks Danny about the rest of Five-O's obligations, Danny admits he hasn't given them much thought. The AG gets a sheepishly queasy look and glances to the governor, who feels compelled to condescendingly remind Danny that Five-O is responsible for policing eight islands with over a million people living in an area of 540,000 square miles. Five-O can't shirk its duties just because a cop got gunned down.

Maybe that humiliating moment is what fueled Danny to go rogue for a few moments when he and Kono brutalize Mangan and his chauffeur. Danny was convinced Mangan ordered the hit on McGarrett and was ready to beat a confession out of him until Kono talked him down. Just out of spite, Danny arrested Mangan and his driver on the ludicrous charge of loitering. Such pettiness should be well below a professional policeman.

Danny also slips professionally on the beach when he first arrives at the scene, tongue-lashing Lt. Kealoha for not having all the answers and then making ridiculous demands upon him. There's a nice shot of Kealoha with a biting his tongue expression on his face. Back at the office, Danny wants to write every potential suspect's name on a blackboard. Chin informs Danny that there are a thousand hoods for the list, but Danny presses ahead. To paraphrase Brody in JAWS, Danny's gonna need a bigger blackboard.

Speaking of Chin, he boasts the best scene in the episode when he shows up to get information from a young punk and his posse. "Settle down, boys," he says when approaching the roughnecks, adding an adage worthy of Charlie Chan, "Any trouble you got is the trouble you make." Wisdom is lost on M.K., leader of the losers, who gets cheeky with Chin, "What do you want, venerable pain in the ancestor?" I found this clever (and surprising) line significant, showing that even Oriental culture was suffering the disrespect towards one's elders that by late 1968 was a counterculture-spawned epidemic. When M.K., showing off for his pals, says to Chin, "You ain't that tough, old man!" Chin switches tactics from sage speech to brute force, quickly getting the best of the young thug. Chin's one tough dude.

McGarrett's secretary May has an unusually substantial role in this episode, playing what struck me as Della Street to Danny's Perry Mason. But May is no Della Street. She wholly lacked charm and tact, often barging in and interrupting discussions. I wasn't sad to see her leave the series. The same goes for Attorney General Walter Stewart (his name is revealed in this episode). His sinister appearance always reminded me of Roger Delgado, the original Master on DOCTOR WHO, and his shabby treatment of Danny in this episode served only to sour me on the character.

Something I appreciated in this episode were the calm and professional hospital scenes. Doctors and nurses dressed professionally (instead of the blue pajamas one sees today). Even when the doctor determined McGarrett needed another surgery, he calmly orders it and a crew came in quietly to load McGarrett onto a gurney, so unlike later medical dramas such as ER where people are screaming "Code Blue!" and running around in circles like the Keystone Kops.

McGarrett was missed in this episode, but Danny, Chin, Kono, and Kealoha carry the ball with aplomb, even if the episode underscored why there was never a HAWAII DANN-O spin off.