Magnum Revisited

  Episode #13, "All Roads Lead to Floyd", featured Anne Bloom of Not Necessarily the News(the mostly forgotten HBO news satire show of the 80's) and Noah Beery Jr(of Rockford files' fame) as Floyd. Anne's character flies in from K.C. and hires Magnum to find her father(Floyd) for whom she hasn't seen in ten years. Turns out lots of people are looking for Floyd as he is a con-man/thief. In the end, it also turns out that he had been in the witness protection program for testifying against the KKK. However, the U.S. Marshal assigned to protect him was crooked and sold him out to the klan. In the end, there is a big shootout with island gangsters, klansman, and cops, but no one is badly injured. Magnum does have the pleasure of punching out a klansman. Side Note: In a rough stretch for the Ferrari, the car gets rear-ended by a little old lady causing $2,500 in damages.

  Episode #12, "Thicker Than Blood" is the T.C. episode. In fact, we don't see Magnum's shirtless torso until 12 minutes into the episode. The Set-Up: T.C. flies his chopper 3-plus hours in the dead of night to a shipping vessel in the middle of the ocean to pick up a Vietnam deserter buddy who once saved T.C.'s life in order to smuggle him back into the U.S. T.C. tries to convince this guy to turn himself in, but he's an addict and wants no part of that. T.C.'s chopper gets intercepted shortly before getting back to Oahu. He has time to drop his buddy off in the brush, but the Coast Guard catches T.C. after that. The Solution: Magnum and Rick now have to figure out what T.C. was doing in order to get him off the hook. This involves Magnum tracking down the ship(now in dock) and pretending to be a longshoreman to snoop around. Finally, Magnum figures out that the captain of the shipping vessel was a drug smuggler who called the Coast Guard in order to

  Onto episode #11,"The Curse of the King Kamehameha Club". In the days leading up to the big Surf Ski competition being promoted at the club, a Kahuna(mystical Hawaiian figure) shows up at a press event and puts a curse on the club. This is some real Scooby Doo shit here. In the coming days, a leading Surf Ski competitor dies during a trial run, a guest almost drowns in the pool, and there is a grease fire in the kitchen. After spinning his wheels for awhile, Magnum, Rick, Higgins, Shaggy and Scoob find out that the Club's landlord's granddaughter paid the Kahuna to put the curse on the Club and subsequently poisoned the Surf Ski competitor in an effort to bring bad publicity to the club, making them unable to pay the rent. She could have then leased out the land to a much higher-bidder and made millions. And she would have gotten away with it if it weren't for that meddling Magnum! Magnum avoided injury this episode, but the same cannot be said for Rick, who

  For episode #10, "Lest We Forget", Magnum's services are hired by a Supreme Court nominee(way to go Magnum!) who is looking to find his previously assumed-to-be-dead pre-war prostitute wife who sent him a telegram after his nomination looking to blackmail him for $50,000.  As it turns out, his wife is alive and is actually a former first lady of Hawaii(pretty weak paparazzi scene in 1960's/70's Oahu not to have uncovered her scandalous past). But, she was not the one who was blackmailing the judge. It was her driver, someone from the old days. Magnum eventually figures it out and the driver is captured. The judge subsequently declines the nomination to the Supreme Court and plans to return to Hawaii to be with his first love. Aww... Magnum avoids injury this episode, but does get driven off the road at one point and shot at. The Ferrari's transmission is dealt a fatal blow. Side Note: Great casting in this episode as Miguel Ferrer and Diane Lockhart play

  Onto episode #9 of Magnum P.I., "Missing in Action". This week's tale(1981) features a lounge singer having Magnum investigate her "visions" of her fiance who went MIA in Vietnam back in 1972. Turns out she was clairvoyant(which we accept as fact) and her fiance was actually in Honolulu, as he was part of a secret naval "Delta Section" which did all sorts of nasty "off the books" military business. After getting knocked out by some other Delta agents and later exchanging gunfire with the missing fiance(who had no interest in being found), Magnum finally discovered the Truth, being that the Delta Section Chief Newton, expertly portrayed like no other by Lance LeGault(pictured below) was really trying to kill all members of the Delta team because one of them could have been a double agent. In the end, the fiance to the lounge singer gets killed by Newton. Magnum does shoot Newton in the shoulder and tells him that he is exposing the story t

  After an episode that featured Nazis, the Magnum producers probably felt that they had to go light for episode #8 of the series. And light they went with "The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii" in which Magnum has been hired to protect a homely looking dog. Bumbling dog thieves led by Frankie Pentangeli actor Michael Gazzo try four times to steal the dog in order to get a Swiss bank account number that was tattooed on the dog's rear. Magnum deals out some punches and avoids some gunfire, only getting dosed with a tranquilizer during one of the many scuffles with the dog thieves. Ultimately, justice prevails, and the dog is safe. The only major harm this week is Robin Master's 1980 GMC Jimmy which got shot up and abandoned in a banana patch...

  Just seven short episodes into Magnum's run, and we're already dealing with, you guessed it, Nazis. In this case("Never Again...Never Again"), Magnum and the gang find themselves protecting an older Jewish couple against Nazis who were trying to hunt them down in Hawaii because the husband worked for the Israeli Mossad that had previously hunt down Nazis hiding out after the war.  Well, that's the set-up, anyway. Because, as is becoming common on Magnum, there is another PLOT TWIST! Turns out that the nice older Jewish couple were secretly Nazis in disguise. Magnum figures it out though in time to bring the wife into custody(but not before the husband dies of a heart attack and three Israeli agents are killed by said wife). While Magnum avoided injury in this episode, the same cannot be said for Higgins, who spent a night in the hospital after being hit with a tranquilizer dart when the Israeli agents stormed Robin's Nest looking for the Nazis.

  Onto episode 6 of Magnum's first season, "Skin Deep". This week's story has our hero investigating the apparent suicide of actress Erin Wolf, who is of the verge of making it big.  Spoiler alert! It wasn't suicide, it was murder... But, plot twist, the victim was not the woman we thought it was, only a lookalike. Magnum, of course, figures it out with a lot of help from T.C. and they ultimately catch the killer played by the devilish Ian McShane and save the real actress from said killer before it was too late. Magnum takes some abuse though, with some more PTSD flashbacks to Vietnam when he witnessed his friend Rick get shot in the stomach and then some present day abuse when he takes a shot from a rifle to his upper right leg. But, within a month, Magnum and T.C. are back on the beach playing two-man volleyball(albeit losing...)

  Moving into 1981, for episode #5 of Magnum, "No Need To Know", our hero avoids all physical injury, harms no one, and saves five lives. Not bad work for a couple of days work and $200 pay. This week's tale features international intrigue. The Robin Master's estate hosts a British Brigadier General known for taking down key IRA leaders. As a result, there are attempts made on his life. And while Magnum avoided violence this week, British Special Forces did gun down two IRA-associated assassins at the estate(the first deaths at Robin's Nest for the series). This episode also featured the explosive death of the first "Robin 2"(Robin Master's Audi). More noticeable than any of this, though, was the heavy-handed nature with which the characters lamented the phrase "need to know" in the respect that if only different countries/agencies communicated better by sharing more information, lives could be saved.

  Onto Episode #4 of Magnum P.I. "Thank Heavens for Little Girls, and Big Ones Too". A much lighter episode, airing on Christmas Day, 1980. It did not feature any murdering, and only one fight where Magnum and T.C. fended off about a dozen opponents while catching a few punches to the jaw and ripping their shirts. In any case, the show featured five schoolgirls who approach Magnum to hire him to find their teacher, who supposedly took off with some beach bum while watching them on their field trip to Hawaii. Instead of immediately calling the police or social services, Magnum takes the case and spirits the girls away to his secured estate while he investigates the case. I'm beginning to question Magnum's choices. Turns out its a double cross and the girls(and the teacher) are trying to steal a Gauguin painting at the estate. But then, not really, and it gets more complicated...etc... etc..In the end, Magnum saves the day. Side Note: In another cringeworthy moment, Mag

  Onto episode #3 of the original Magnum P.I., "China Doll". In this episode, Magnum is hired to protect a woman and her valuable Song Dynasty vase until custody can be transferred to someone else. In the meantime, a martial arts master killer is out to get the vase from the woman(and Magnum). It does not go swimmingly, as Magnum is tricked at one point and his client is kidnapped. He gets her back. She is relatively unharmed, but has been drugged. As for Magnum, he avoids injury until the end of the episode when he catches a throwing star to the back of his left hand and gets kicked and chopped a few times. Thankfully, he has his .45 handy to shoot the bad guy in the head in a nick of time. 2 episodes in and Magnum has two kills. At one point, early in the show, his client and Higgins(you remember Higgins) converse in Mandarin. Magnum comments that he'll have the egg rolls and won tons. Boy, that didn't age well! Side Note: Magnum's helicopter flying friend T.C.

  Magnum P.I. kicks off with a two-hour series premiere. CBS must have had a lot of confidence in their new detective drama. In this introductory episode, recently Navy-retired Thomas Magnum investigates and avenges the death of fellow Vietnam veteran who unknowingly got caught up in some underworld drugs/gold/corruption sitch. Throughout the episode, Magnum experiences PTSD in the form of flashbacks to Vietnam firefights. In present day(1980), he gets shot at(and missed) by machine guns on two separate occasions, he gets shot in the upper left chest by a bad guy/traitor wielding a pistol in an airport men's room. He manages to shoot back and kill the bad guy. After a stint in the ICU, Magnum is on the mend. Related: Magnum's club-managing friend Rick kills an underworld hitman with an Uzi in a crowded area of downtown Honolulu with no apparent red tape to deal with after the fact.

  The original Magnum P.I.(not to be confused with that unrelated and unnecessary re-boot currently happening) aired from 1980 -1988. For me, that was 5th grade right up until I graduated high school. It was my favorite show not about a Boston bar. My memories of the show are quite fond. I remember Magnum living the life of Riley and chasing down bad guys. I also remember that he had a good moral compass. Finally, the show had a lot of funny moments. Well, those are my hazy memories anyway. It is now 40-plus years since Magnum P.I. debuted. I will now go back and look at each episode through my 50-something year old eyes with the lens of the present day.  Please Note! There will be spoilers, tons of spoilers. If you ever have an inkling to re-watch Magnum P.I., this blog may ruin many plots for you.  Stay tuned!