Chicago police officers Mac Riley (Robert Ginty) – brash, impulsive, and pugnacious – and Andy Senkowski (Jeff McCracken) – introspective and cautious – leave the cold climate of their home town for jobs with the Honolulu Police Department in Hawaii.
As if the climate isn’t reason enough for anyone to envy them, they share a house with a very beautiful helicopter pilot named Irene (Tracy Scoggins) who flits about in tropical bikinis and has a parrot sidekick called ‘Pakalolo’ (which in Hawaiian means “marijuana”).
They are assigned to cases ranging from murder to smuggling to underworld drug trafficking, although their boss, police Major Oshira (Mako), has his misgivings about the two young haoles (mainlanders).
Maybe it was supposed to be a spiritual successor to Hawaii Five-O – which had wrapped only four years earlier – but this ABC series didn’t get the same reception.
Perhaps audiences were already tuned in to Magnum PI or maybe the fish-out-of-water element with Chicago natives going tropical wasn’t engaging enough to pull viewers back.
Either way, Hawaiian Heat went cold after only 10 episodes.
Mac Riley
Robert Ginty Andy Senkowski
Jeff McCracken Irene Gorley
Tracy Scoggins Harker
Branscombe Richmond Maj. Taro Oshira
Mako
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