The hero essay
Chief Steve McGarrett is a classically modern hero of action. He acts out. It is what he does. The camera is always on him. He is hardly ever off-screen. He has just one case per week. The audience knows what the case is and also knows, by the end of Act One, who is guilty. Because the audience knows the truth before Steve McGarrett does, there is no mystery, there is only Steve McGarrett.
Context
Twelve-year-old Hal's analytic instrument is spectation itself: the modern hero is defined not by what he does but by camera time — "The camera is always on him. He is hardly ever off-screen." Hero-ontology as a function of being-watched, from the boy whose own life runs on exactly that economy (Mario's tapes, the rankings, the eventual R.A.S.U.). The Hawaii Five-0/Hill Street material as TV nostalgia belongs to entertainment-self; what's taken here is strictly the camera argument.