Was that Jack Lord in the season seven premiere of Hawaii Five-0? Recently, EP Peter M. Lenkov spoke to Entertainment Weekly about bringing the original series star back to life for the CBS reboot.

Lord, who passed away in 1998, played Steve McGarrett on the original Hawaii Five-0 for all 12 seasons before the show ended in 1980. In the CBS reboot, McGarrett is played by Alex O’Loughlin. The rest of the cast includes Scott Caan, Daniel Dae Kim, Grace Park, Chi McBride, Masi Oka, and Jorge Garcia.

Speaking to EW, Lenkov said production created a CG version of Lord using images from the original Hawaii Five-0 series:

I originally conceived of the idea — a scene between McGarrett and Jack Lord — to be the final scene in the series, but realized last year that the end was nowhere near and if I wanted to be the first to do something like this, I better commit soon. Thankfully, the conversation between the two men fit perfectly with the theme of season 7.

This was a very well-planned combination of many elements and many departments — CG, a voice actor, a body double and an actor for Alex to play off of. Not to mention a huge amount of man hours, editing and finessing every moment to do our best to make you believe Jack Lord is in that room with Alex.”

What do you think? Are you a fan of Hawaii Five-0? What did you think of Lord’s appearance in the premiere?