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Are you a fan of the original 'Hawaii Five-O' TV series? If you are, and you're under 60 years old, you likely have never seen the episode titled 'Bored She Hung Herself.' The advent of DVDs in the mid-1990s made it convenient and economical for fans to own complete seasons of their favorite TV series, rather than having to collect dozens of videocassettes each holding one or two episodes each. Savvy consumers quickly learned, however, that offerings of complete seasons or series were not always truthful -- sometimes full-season or complete series DVD sets lacked an episode or two, for reasons such as copyright issues, controversial or inappropriate subject matter, or other legal entanglements. One example of this phenomenon was the second-season DVD set of Hawaii Five-0, the popular police drama starring Jack Lord that originally aired on CBS from 1968 to 1980. Neither that set (nor, later, the Hawaii Five-0: The Complete Series DVD set) included one particular episode from the series' second season, titled Bored She Hung Herself. In fact, that episode hasn't been seen by the public (outside of bootleg copies) since its original broadcast on Jan. 7, 1970 -- it was not re-run by the network after its first airing, it has never been included in the syndication packages sold to local stations or cable channels, nor has it been made available to viewers via home video or streaming. (Some mid-1990s television listings do show the episode as being scheduled in syndication, but whether it was actually aired then can't be determined at this remove.) What is it about this one Hawaii Five-0 episode, alone out of the series' run, that has kept it locked away? The plot featured Don Miles, a health freak (i.e., stock hippie character) who practiced what would now be identified as autoerotic asphyxiation (i.e., strangling or suffocating oneself to heighten sexual arousal and orgasm) but in the staid world of 1960s television was described as a form of yoga or meditation. When Miles' girlfriend, Wanda Parker, is discovered dead after a violent argument with him, hanging from the same noose he employed for his yoga, Parker's prominent psychiatrist father is insistent that Miles murdered her. (The real killer proves to be a neighbor, who strangled Wanda after she refused his advances.) https://streamable.com/8klf1z According to one Hawaii Five-0 fan page, the suppression of Bored She Hung Herself stemmed from a lawsuit over a copycat death: This explanation isn't completely impossible, but we note that: 1) Neither we (nor anyone else, as far as we know) has ever turned up any documentation of the copycat death that supposedly prompted the alleged lawsuit. 2) Neither we (nor anyone else, as far as we know) has ever turned up any documentation of a lawsuit's having been filed or settled against CBS or the show's producers over a copycat hanging death. 3) We've investigated multiple claims that a particular controversial TV episode has not been re-aired due to a lawsuit by someone embarrassed or injured by it, but we have never found a real-life case of any such banned content. 4) Even if a legal settlement had precluded additional airings of this episode by CBS and syndicators, it quite possibly would not extend to home video versions or streaming (neither of which was anticipated in the early 1970s). In reference to point #3 above, we can cite multiple instances in which certain series episodes proved so controversial or problematic that they were subsequently withheld or withdrawn voluntarily, not because lawsuits compelled those actions. We suspect something similar occurred with Hawaii Five-0, that CBS retired Bored She Hung Herself after a single airing because they opted to err on the side of caution and not because legal action forced them to. Disclaimers included in DVD sets to explain the missing episode support that interpretation: The suppression of Bored She Hung Herself doesn't seem to be much of a loss to anyone other than completists, as those who have seen it (when it has periodically turned up on YouTube or elsewhere online) consider it to be one of the series' worst episodes. It's heavy on the stereotypical portrayal of hippies and drug culture that permeated the show's early years, it lacks the excitement of car chases and shootouts that were hallmarks of the series, and it doesn't offer the other members of the Five-0 squad much of anything interesting to do. The episode is mostly talk and mostly McGarrett, and while some fans consider it to be an interesting departure from the show's usual formula, many others simply find it dull.
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