Book’em with your tricorder, Danno

It’s been a busy year for Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, two thirds of the writing team behind Star Trek’s blockbuster reboot and, somehow, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Critic cred notwithstanding, those were arguably the biggest two movies of the summer, ranking five and one respectively in U.S. box office gross this year.

So what’s next? According to Variety, the tag-team is gearing up to head back to the small screen, prepping yet another nostalgic reboot in 70’s franchise Hawaii Five-O.

Kurtzman, Orci and Peter Lenkov, an exec producer on CBS’ “CSI: NY,” will develop the new spin on the vintage cop drama. Lenkov will write the pilot script under Kurtzman and Orci’s supervision, and Lenkov will serve as showrunner should the project be picked up to series.

The trio will exec produce for CBS Television Studios. CBS gave the project a pilot commitment on Thursday after a pitch from Kurtzman, Orci and Lenkov.

I might have been more interested in this glossy sheen feathered-hair fest had NBC not failed so miserably in its attempts to repackage Knight Rider for the Twitter generation. The peacock failed in all possible facets with KR, despite capturing the undeniably zeitgeisty taste of asanine. If a network couldn’t make an idea as cool as KITT work (mistake number one was turning KITT into a Mustang), the thought of Hawaii Five-O being any good has me skeptical. At best. Then again, NBC also gave Leno a prime-time talk show, so perhaps not all networks are created equal.

On the other hand, the track record of this production team speaks for itself. At the very worst, it might be a CSI/NCIS crime procedural knockoff with excellent mindless entertainment value and more fast-cutting than you can shake a steady-cam at.

I must say I’m curious why they chose Hawaii Five-O, of all shows, to bring back? Also, if this nostalgia trend lasts any longer, I would suggest the best candidates for re-imagining would be: Happy Days (perhaps a dark, gritty version where Al gets caught in a gang fight) and Perfect Strangers (where Balki just admits he’s gay).