TV preview: ‘Hawaii Five-0’ on CBS

Since when did a trip to scenic Hawaii involve human smuggling, machine-gun fire, kidnappings, international terrorism and murder?

The stars of the upcoming CBS series “Hawaii Five-0,” want to make it clear that the reboot of the classic crime show has levity mixed with the grit, even though the first episode on Monday contains all the above mayhem and then some.

“There are waves and palm trees and girls in bikinis,” said Alex O’Loughlin, who has stepped into the role of iconic island cop Steve McGarrett. “The look and feel of the show may be more like cable than broadcast, but it’s still really accessible. There’s a balance.”

Both sides of the coin are evident from the start, when someone dear to McGarrett gets killed — no spoilers here, don’t worry — but the former Navy SEAL also meets his wisecracking new partner and the two hit it off, literally. There’s a slugfest between McGarrett and Danno, played by Scott Caan, some comic bickering and, then, a meeting of the minds. Wry smiles all around.

“Part of our job is to find the humor and lightness in the stories because it’s commercial TV, it’s not an indie film,” said Caan, who’s a veteran of the latter and not the former. “At the same time, we’re trying to make it feel real.”

In short, viewers can expect episodes about drug dealing, gangs and gun running that don’t skimp on turquoise skies and bare skin, with hunky ladies’ favorite O’Loughlin having at least a few shirtless turns on the beach.

“Hawaii Five-0” will be the Australian actor’s third try for a hit on CBS, after the previous vampire thriller “Moonlight” and medical drama “Three Rivers” lasted 16 and 13 episodes, respectively. O’Loughlin, who has gone from FX’s down-and-dirty cop show “The Shield” to the Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy “The Back-Up Plan,” said he has a sense that audiences will like the series, especially the buddy-cop relationship at its core.

Tracking studies done over the last few months back up his hunch: “Hawaii Five-0,” which also stars “ Battlestar Galactica’s” Grace Park and “ Lost’s” Daniel Dae Kim, has consistently scored at the top of TV viewers’ lists of most-anticipated new programs. It’s scheduled after a comedy block that features the well-watched “Two and a Half Men.”

“If this one doesn’t go, I’ll be completely bewildered,” O’Loughlin said during a summer stop in Los Angeles to promote the show. “I’ll have no idea what works on television.”

Pre-release surveys aside, TV’s graveyard is littered with remakes of former hits that launched with big fanfare and quickly died: “The Bionic Woman,” “Melrose Place,” “Knight Rider,” “Dragnet” and “The Twilight Zone,” to name a few. Though success is rare, networks continue to return to familiar pre-sold concepts, with ABC mulling a new “Charlie’s Angels” for later in the season. NBC’s planned re-do of “The Rockford Files,” though, may be scrapped.

Producers of “Hawaii Five-0” shy away from the word “remake,” saying the upcoming version intends to pay homage to the original, a long-running hit that debuted in 1968, while updating it for today’s audiences. That makes it a “reboot” and not a “remake,” said executive producer Alex Kurtzman, who’s no stranger to the genre since he and producing/writing partner Roberto Orci were behind 2009’s massively successful “Star Trek” feature film.

“Like with ‘Trek,’ we tried to find the spirit of the original franchise and be true to it,” he said during the summer Television Critics Assn. gathering. “But we expanded it and brought it into a modern time.”

But there are some tips of the hat to the original, starting with the well-known theme song, which is playing a prominent role in marketing the new series.

O’Loughlin’s McGarrett will slide behind the wheel of a restored Mercury, à la the classic show, and iconic landmarks will pop up as backdrops. Hawaii, in fact, is as much a character as the elite cops, said executive producer Peter Lenkov, also a nod to the late ‘60s fascination with the exotic state and all things tiki and Polynesian.

“We weren’t interested in throwing out things that worked,” Lenkov said during the TCA conference.

calendar@latimes.com