Blair Loveday
From 1980 to 1988 the world was gifted the show Tom Seleck’s mustache, I mean Magnum, P.I.
Then 30 year later the series was given a new lease on life via Jay Hernandez, albeit without a mustache. Now you can get the new series on Bluray leaving one question, can the show work without such an iconic mustache? And what if you didn’t watch the original, can you still enjoy this version?
The short answer is yes to both.
Magnum P.I. kicks off with Thomas Magnum who is in North Korea to extract someone. The issue is when he gets to the house, the target says he needs to extract a woman and child too. North Korean military starts approaching the house, when he blasts out the wall in a car and kicks off a high speed chase through the forest before being picked up by his partners in a helicopter. He lets his teammates know where he is by blowing up one of the vehicles chasing him.
So we immediately have a vibe for the tone of the show.
It turns out, this version of events may be slightly fudged, as it is being retold in a novel. The novelist is super famous, and lets Magnum live in his house as long as he can use his stories from the military in his books.
Magnum also works as a security consultant for the writer, but his only real contact is via Juliet Higgins who is in control of the writers estate and affairs. Higgins is, of course, an ex-MI6 agent which we find out in the first episode.
The series mostly focuses around a different job that Magnum is working on, for each episode. Initially he uses some of his old army buddies to help, but quickly starts getting Higgins’ help, before she becomes a full on part of the P.I. business. The show definitely tries to get some nice dramatical beats going, but nothing in that space is overly outstanding. Instead the interest in the show comes more from the cases, and the acting. All the actors do really solid jobs, and the protagonists all tend to be very likable. This is totally fine, as it becomes a popcorn munching silly action show and doesn’t get much deeper.than that.
Now to be fair, I don’t remember much, if anything from the original series… except the mustache I mentioned. As such I kinda went into this totally new.
From that perspective I can’t say how faithful it is or isn’t to the source material. What I can say is it’s an incredibly enjoyable chill show that doesn’t require a whole lot of brain power. Again, not a bad thing. Sometimes that’s exactly what I want after a long week at work.
This Bluray box set packs in all five seasons with just under 100 episodes. There are plenty of special features, the best of which are the extended or deleted scenes. This set does something I really like, which is having them appearing just below each episode they are relevant to. If it was all loaded at the end, you’d forget what the context of an episode was for that scene. This way means you can add those extra minutes after the episode, or just skip them if they aren’t your jam.
Magnum P.I. is one of those series I love owning on Bluray. The series isn’t an instant classic, but it’s a great way to turn your brain off and watch, which is also the kind of show I tend to enjoy rewatching regularly. Slices of humour, charming characters, fun action, and some silly mysteries to unfold. It’s well worth adding to your collection.
