User reviews

I'm sure this is a show no one is that familiar of and might not think good of it; after all it is almost close to Baywatch Hawaii. With the cast, the location, style of the directing and its publicity – shows women walking around on the beach and all that. No wonder people have misconception and decide not to watch it.

It was wrong of them to do that. Cause after I decide to watch the show, there are actually more thing going on, real juicy story and conflict, turn out to be really exciting to watch and pretty much – addictive.

The story of the hotel clerks, the manager, the owner and their complicated love life. Also enter the troublesome hotel's visitor and powerful man trying to steal the hotel. It actually more exciting than it sounds here.

I won't deny that the acting suck but it ain't that bad that you'll look away. The story is not so consistence but good enough. The soundtrack is fitting pretty well with the scenario and the action is all the time. I took me couple of episode before there is actually anything happen solidly so be patience.

Recommendation: I Really Do Enjoy Watching This. Zillion Times Better Than Expected.

Rating: 7.5/10 (Grade: B)

Please Rate My Review After Reading It, Thanks.

9-7-04 Finally a series I can really like & relate to & look fwd to seeing ea week.

Matter of fact, I actually tape it and watch over again in case I missed anything. The whole cast is fantastic, exactly as they have been chosen for their respective roles. First, I LOVE Kristoffer Polaha as Jason. The role he portrays is that of an honest, kind, respectful, ambitious, helpful integrity-keeping guy who is his own person and can't be dissuaded or bought off. How refreshing to see such qualities portrayed and these qualities actually seem to reflect Kris's personal life as well, as I look over his biography. Brook Burns is PERFECT as Nicole although she sure took her time going back to Jason. How could she hold out sooo long (groan moan). Really challenged him, no wonder he keeps pursuing her. James Remar as Vincent too is perfect. He is such a great character actor and great in this spot. I look for good things from him. Jason (another Jason, ha) is so cute, don't pay any attention to mom, I KNOW you have ambition. My mom always pressed my buttons too, but now I am self-employed and now I too am my own person like Jason Mathews. I loved the way Jason stood up to Nicole's father, although THAT seems to have cost him dearly. Walter Booth is such a control freak. And Tessa I already hate (which really proves what a great actress she is to invoke such feelings in us). The little waitress is as cute as a bug and very lovable. I really do look forward to seeing North Shore ea Monday here in Milwaukee and I do hope they keep it around for awhile. I'm so sick of cop shows, law & order; am now into the lighter side of entertainment. Real life is tense enough for me. I tune in on Mondays to get the feel of sand, surf and romance. Northshore delivers all these and Jason Mathews is MY idea of a refreshing, gorgeous, hunky and and I wish he wasn't married kinda guy who I love to fantasize about. I loved when Jason said to Vincent "I'm not a kid, and you'd better watch YOUR back or Walter Booth will take away everything you love". Couldn't a said it better myself. He kisses like a dream, lucky Tessa and Sept. 6 Nicole herself. Can't wait to see more of the romantic adventures as they progress. And by the way, Walter Booth isn't the ONLY guy out there who won't let go and that kinda thing can get pretty scary when it happens to you personally. I sure hope the ratings go thru the roof. I also intend to send a letter to Fox 6 Theatricals thru the mail, having cared enough to get their mailing address.

Best wishes North Shore.

The only show I have watched since 90210! Why did they discontinue it? It was the only show that captured the essence of Hawaii and made you feel like you are a part of it all! The least they should do is release it on DVD!

I checked out similar shows, but nothing has come close. The cast had incredible chemistry and I looked forward to each episode with much anticipation.

They made a big mistake by pulling that show. If anyone has any info regarding where I can obtain a DVD of North Shore please post a few lines here. Thanks! Aloha!

Dynasty Revisited in Hawaii... Full of clichés, highly predictable, unrealistic and sometimes even stupid. If you have nothing better to do however, it does provide 40 minutes of simple, unpretensive entertainment, endless looks at great male and female muscles and very good photography of the spectacular Hawaiian scenery. On the other hand, If you are looking for anything more than that, stay away...

Oh, and by the way, if you have ever worked in a Hotel or know anything about running one, you have two options: 1. You will feel sick every two minutes at the sheer stupidity and silliness of how the show presents Hotel Business or, 2. Look at it as science fiction comedy as I did, lie back, relax, and laugh about it!

i LOVED IT and was SO shattered that there not making another season!!! i wish they would! it was the best show ever!!!!!! there's probably not any chance of them deciding to not cancel the show is there! ha ha i wish there was though! i would be so so excited!! i really would! I miss it! and was especially shattered not to know what happens to Jason!! i think they should make another one.... it i also think its silly that u have to writr ten lines to post a comment.. it makes your comment drag on..and no one will read it!! i really want to know what would have happened between jason and nicole... maybe they could make a spin off!!

It started out with a lot of promise but spiraled down to a stark parade of sparsely dressed lookers without much substance.

Oh the location was beautiful and the ambiance fit for developing the character of Jason. The 3 women Nicole/ Tessa and MJ, who could relate to an earnest guy, could have been given more substantial roles to bring out their character rather than be portrayed as shallow individuals.

The role of Tessa was indeed intriguing: part vixen, part street savvy, part self centered and part loyal.

Nicole to me was the earnest woman executive who could conceal her passion and put up a brave facade in front of the man she loved.

MJ fitted into the role of the girl who had been stood up once too many times.

And yet as the story got on the characters just became part of the background without much of clue on how to go on.

I am not surprised though that they axed it after the first season.

So disappointed that this show was cancelled. Was a damn good show.

The above comment is correct. I looked at the show as a typical Evening Soap Opera. BUT I LIKED IT VERY MUCH. The characters were all very good actors and the scenery was very nice. I'm sorry that it didn't last. Though it was as typical as O.C./90210/all those other ones, I miss the characters and the story lines. I can't help but notice that whenever a show isn't doing good they bring on Shanon Doherty to kill it off completely. She's very territorial like a dog, she doesn't waste any time finding personal problems with the other actresses. On 90210 I believe it was Jennie Garth. On Charmed it was Alyssa Milano. And on North Shore it was Brooke Burns. Is anyone paying attention to this. Anyway I liked the show.

FOX has done it again! The network famous for overhauling or even cancelling shows before they premiere has outdone itself this time. The original pilot that sold this show to FOX is not the episode we just watched. The pilot had a different (and much better) cast and was supposed to be a drama about the dynamics between the staff and guests at an upscale Hawaiian hotel. Then suddenly the dim 10-watt bulb that illuminates the FOX programming office flickered to life: Hey, we're FOX, it's summer! Let's make it a soap opera and maybe we'll get lucky like with "The O.C." Sorry, but "O.C." is state of the art and "North Shore" is stale and tired. Then FOX tried to promote their new show saying it was "The O.C. for the older, more sophisticated viewer" and it was the "Melrose Place" to the O.C.s "90210". What were they thinking under that 10-watt bulb? "The O.C." is witty and smart, charming, and classy. "North Shore" is none of that. "Melrose Place" was "Masterpiece Theatre" compared to N.S. All of the actors on Melrose and O.C. could give badly needed acting lessons to the cast of N.S. "North Shore" is slow, badly written, badly acted by some of the cast, and a complete disappointment. They ended up with "Baywatch" on FOX. Brooke Burns and Jason Momoa were actually "Baywatch" cast members. The lifeguard has bleached blonde hair and six-pack abs..just like well, you get the picture. Worst of all are Burns, who cannot act, and has a toothy smile that would shame the grill of a '58 Buick, and the horribly miscast James Remar. Remar obviously was added to play the older authority figure to all the youngsters just like David Hasselhoff on yes..."Baywatch" again. But he gave an eerie, weird take to his character like the hotel was in a "Twilight Zone" episode. His character is totally unlikable. So once again FOX has managed to mismanage a new show. The winners in all of this are the lucky former cast members from the original pilot who have now escaped this mess. The losers are the viewers and the current cast members. FOX will be a loser too if "North Shore" is swept away by a tsunami of viewer rejections....as it should rightfully be.

Although only two episodes of "North Shore" has aired so far, I think it is fair to say that they have been the best two episodes of any show that has aired so far this summer. The pilot episode has certainly been the better of the two episodes that have aired. Pilot episodes for television series are usually kind of lame since the writers have to spend the whole episode establishing the characters and the story of the show, but with "North Shore", the writers couldn't care less about story and character, leaving plenty of room for chicks in bikinis and campy dialogue. I can't wait until next week's episode. Let's hope that Fox doesn't cancel the show before the end of the summer.

I'll almost always have something better to do than watch a prime time soap. But I gave North Shore a shot because I wanted to spot locations. My rationale: if I can't currently be in the islands, in my opinion that only place on Earth where a sane person could want to be, I could maybe catch glimpses of some of the places I've been. Oahu is certainly nice enough but boasts only a few areas that would be sufficiently tropical and frameworthy for filming. Sure enough, I did recognize some of them. However, despite the fact that I'm not remotely in the series' target demographic, I'm still sort of watching.

Apparently North Shore is a solid go for season one and will probably get the green for a second season. However, I suspect that the show will run out of believable story ideas before season three, if it lives that long, and be forced to start recycling. There are only so many ways to shuffle the show's sun-splashed but limited deck, just a finite number of credible high-end guests to run past the Grand Waimea Hotel's front desk, and a limited number of romantic permutations. The length of time that contrivance can be disguised by complexity is also finite. The recent episode involving the Vice President's spirited daughter already stressed the believability envelope just a tad. (However, it did give Kristoffer Polaha the opportunity to deliver some beautiful Stink Eye to a thuggish Secret Service agent who tried to coerce him into helping cover up the visiting Veep's intimate indiscretions.)

Although North Shore's characters are somewhat formulaic, they're not entirely without appeal and all handle their chores more than adequately. Kristoffer Polaha's Jason Matthews, the hotel's General Manager, transmits a lot of believable humanity. Jason is respected and liked, qualities that are not often found together in the high-end workplace. The Jason character is very comfortable in his own skin and easy to root for. Brooke Burns, who plays the Grand Waimea's 'Guest Relations' Manager and Jason's former flame, Nicole Booth, has been dinged for her lack of range, but as the emotionally-planed corporate princess, who has been groomed from birth to excel for Daddy, she's just fine in the role. I completely bought her anguish when, in a recent episode she walked in on Jason while he was working it out with Tessa. Nicole had just left her fiancé at the altar to reconnect with Jason. In fact, the sequence made me wince; soapy but so nasty… Corey Sevier's Gabriel Miller, a talented surfer, who longs to turn pro while struggling to outgrow his adolescent goofiness, also works well. Anyone who feels that he or she has a gift but cannot quite find the way to get it across, to make it work, will relate to Gabriel. He's hormonal but still too much of a waterman to forget to tie down a borrowed jet ski, which subsequently rolls off its trailer and lands him in one-finger poi with a local bad boy from whom he borrowed the machine. But it seems that every script contains at least one moment when credibility must go on stand-by. The hotel's concierge from the dark side, Tessa, played with edge by Amanda Righetti, is a girl who could make a guy seriously consider giving up women, perhaps appropriate as Tessa has pretty much given up on men, although she's still up for making a meal of one now and then. It'll be Tessa vs. Nicole in upcoming episodes. I think I know who'll win but the war should be amusing. I've always liked James Remar, who built a career playing borderline personalities. His hotel owner, Vincent Colville, is an interesting against-type play. Colville gives the impression that he already knows everything that will happen and that the Grand Waimea, although dear to his heart, is also just a stepping stone. Still, he's the sort of boss almost anyone would like to have; tough, smart, but always fair.

The thing is, Hawaii is actually a far more interesting place than the environs of the Grand Waimea, and on several levels. But one has to be willing, and sufficiently patient, to see beneath the obvious surface to get at what I'm talking about. Young local (although not necessarily Hawaiian) men with bad attitudes are certainly a part of island life and have always been, right from Captain Cook on, but there's more. Unfortunately, North Shore, whose target audience will, presumably, begin to nod off just past tan lines, will probably not permit the series to mine the real mana and remain happily fixated on who's screwing whom, literally and figuratively. If you were in the islands on 9/11, as I was, sitting beneath the sheltering trees on 'Anini Beach, you may know what I mean. The islands are another place, out of time, almost not of this earth. Viewing televised coverage of the attack on the Towers from there, it seemed that an act of such stunning and precise brutality was simply impossible; the baddest of bad dreams. Against this essential, ancient, fleeting, and fading quality, even the Grand Waimea, ostensibly a perfect hotel in a perfect place, feels a bit like the Pentagon.

It began like a new good show: great cast, good music, beautiful places and good stories. It was so perfect to be true and the story of the workers of a big hotel of Hawaii soon change to the worst opera of the TV (something with a lot in common with Venezuelan "telenovelas") with very bad guys working beautiful and ambitious women who try to win the love of the good main character in a bad way.

If you watch the firsts episodes and, after that, the last ones, you can find two shows: the first: good in every aspect the second: something completely different with the same cast and music in the same place a real freak show without the magic of the first show. What happen?, that's the big mystery (like the last episodes of Felicity).

i loved the show. the premiere wasn't so great but the second episode definitely caught my attention especially with Amanda joining the cast! she did a great job and she is incredibly talented and GORGOUSE! good job on the cast! they are all very talented. and all the guys on there are SO fine! like Corey,Jason,Jay, and KRIS! oh but this show is one of the best summer shows! i really enjoyed the second and third episodes and i know i will enjoy the rest of them! but i really hope Amanda stays on the OC because i love her character Hailey! i also love her character Tessa on here but most people will watch OC more then North shore so i would rather have Amanda on The OC, but okay well great show!

Many people missed out on this show. The thing is that critics analyst everything. It's entertainment.. and really in the end.. that's more than enough. It had a HOT CAST. Have you seen the people in it. Some include Brooke Burns, Amanda Righetti, Corey Sevier, Jay k. Johnson. It's set in Hawaii and the scenes are just amazing. It's very clear and it just feels so good to look at. One of my favorite shows including Fastlane and Skin.

Check out the theme song... Home in Paradise-- Unwritten Law Another hot song... Slide Along Side--Shifty.

Any questions.. i'll be more than happy to help.. hit me up [email protected]

Bad writing, wooden acting, all pretty people because that's ALL who gets to be on US TV anymore!

BUT, I'm hooked on the scenery of my second home. Like to guess where the scenes are shot, Haleiwa, Windward, Makapuu (amazing how fast they can get from place to place!), in addition to the Turtle Bay Hilton, formerly the Kuilima, standing in for the Grand Waimea. Used to play "Guess that background scenery" with Hawaii 5-0 and sometimes Magnum, but I lived there when Magnum PI was active, and filming in Kahala could be mucho disruptive!

Did Andy Bumatai play the tabloid photographer tackled in the first episode?

There isn't a series shot in Hawaii that Andy doesn't appear in! Used to like his stand up, back when Rap was Poi Dog. Sorry, too dated and inside. Aloha kakou!

I loved North Shore. I am so sad that it will not be coming back on. I think everybody who loved the show should write to fox.com and ask them to put it back on the air or at least play re-runs on a late night. The whole setting of North Shore was appealing. I loved how the set was in Hawaii. The cast was beautiful, exciting, and fun. I was a little upset when they added Shannon to the cast. I think they added her at the wrong time. All in all it was one of the best shows aired in along time. They should put North Shore back on instead of having all these reality t.v. shows. If North Shore did come back on they should keep the same cast and reconsider "alexandra Hudson's" part on the show. Definitely keep "Jason Matthews" he was why I watched it in the first place.

The first couple episodes may have been a bit awkward to watch. The cast and crew seem to be in their groove now. The writing is good and the stories are fun to watch. All the cast members are likable in their roles and make the characters believable. The background music is a great addition and done artistically, not too loud or no dead spots. If the cast is beautiful, why not emphasize that with close ups. Good camera work with nice shots of the island's sun, sand and blue sky, something missing from all the other shows. It's good to see Hawaii's beauty in the back drop of a little drama and life at a hotel. May be considered a replacement of "friends" in paradise. Is Amanda Righetti as Tessa part of the group? She should be written in as a permanent part. Another idea, James Remar should be written in as a bit mean, shady, opposition to the group, not always but half the time. He seems a little uncomfortable being so nice and hospitable as Vincent Colville. Some may disagree, but a good show to watch.

I think the movie was very refreshing. I can understand when some people say that a movie was plastic. That is because these people are either from US and know the area and very well or just jealous people who cannot afford by nature or their finances to be beautiful. But this is the idea and job of actors. And don't forget there is other audience on this planet unless your planet is USA. Let's stop living like critics and live a dream. I have watched 14 episodes and enjoyed them all. I had to pause writing my dissertation in order to see everything. And I am going to buy all the episodes. It is like being on holidays each time I see North Shore!

This show is not anything like "The O.C." If they wanted it to be like "The O.C." the show would not be in Hawaii. Another thing that this show is missing from being like "The O.C." is "The O.C."'s wit, it's quick dialog, and it's more teen implemented issues. If you want to compare this show to anything it is like NBC's "Las Vegas." The James Caan of the show (although not an old time actor like Mr. Caan) would be James Remar, owner of the hotel; the Josh Duhamel of the show would be Kristoffer Polaha.

The acting in this show is lacking, but the sex appeal and nice bodies makes up for it! The bottom line: you will never get a show that was such a hit as "The O.C." If you want and show that has more appeal for teens don't cast 30 year olds as the leads, and if you want to have a really friggen good show, make the hotel run by 21 year olds.

Whatever, the bottom line is that this show is a... C+

I will admit, I only started to watch this show for Corey Sevier and you know what... he's a decent actor but his character sucks. In fact most of the characters suck on this show they're all really annoying. I don't know if its the way how they all talk or if it's the mannerisms but I just can't take it. That being said, it's always fun to watch really bad shows just to make fun of them at the same time. It's one of my sad guilty pleasures, what can I say?

I don't know if this show will last very long my prediction is that it will end up off primetime like Baywatch but go on for a rather long time. If fox plays it's card right it can finally have another day-time soap opera. OK I know thats a little harsh no one wants to go from primetime to day-time while it still has the original cast but I really think that is whats going to happen. Either that or its going to WB.