Hawaii Five-O The Bark and the Bite (1968–1980) Online

Season 11 of "Hawaii Five-O" constantly amazes me as I watch it. While I have not yet finished the year's episodes, already three times I THOUGHT I'd seen the worst episode of the series! And, today, I think perhaps I just saw one that beat out the other two for rottenness. "The Bark and the Bite" is a painfully bad episode where the writers TRY to do an intentionally silly show but it falls hard on its face.

The show begins with an annoying an poorly written heiress arriving on the Islands. She clearly knows that laws do not apply to her and she tries to sneak her dog past the very stringent Hawaiian quarantine laws. When she is caught, she lies repeatedly and then behaves as if she is above all this. This woman, Dilys, is annoying--too annoying to be real.

Soon McGarrett receives a call from the Governor. It seems the Governor is a friend of Dilys' family and he wants McGarrett to make sure she isn't robbed. After all, she is carrying a very, very valuable ruby on her and her sister just had the matching ruby stolen. McGarrett makes a nice courtesy call on Dilys and is treated like dirt.

Later, McGarrett is concerned because a charming man (John Saxon) has been spending a lot of time with Dilys. When Danny checks, the guy turns out to be a jewel robber--or at least a man thought to be one, though he's never been convicted. But, when McGarrett and Danny go to talk to the guy, they see that someone else beat them to the home and has ransacked the place. Who is this second man? At this point, the show was silly but a decent change of pace. However, when the quarantine folks and the dogs started becoming a major part of the plot, the show really went to the dogs. Don't believe me? Watch this awful show and you'll see what I mean. The cast seems ill-at-ease with such material, the second guy's freckles appear to have been put on sloppily with a mascara brush and the whole thing just becomes very tiresome--especially at the end. All in all, an awful show--one that most fans of the original series might just want to skip. Yes, it's THAT bad.

Well, I loved this one. Although it was totally not five 0 style. I just loved seeing McGarrett with a sense of humour and looking as if he thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially with the bloodhound scenes. I agree the Dylis character was silly and badly acted. Her script was awful, but I loved the kennel lady. She was just so funny. A typical dog lover. So it wasn't quality viewing in the crime fighting sense.. but it was better than the one or two other episodes and made a change, having a proper ending rather than so many of the abrupt endings that the writers seem to delight in doing. I am giving it a nine, just for McGarrets humour.and that 'book me Danno ' quip.