I'll Take the Ferrari: Magnum, P.I.

The Rockford Files went off the air the same year Magnum, P.I. premiered, and Tom Selleck’s Magnum was its natural successor. I couldn’t ever verify that anyone copped to the inspiration, but it’s hard to miss.

Just like Jim Rockford, Thomas Magnum is a wisecracking detective with a difficult past (a wrongful conviction for Rockford, service in the Vietnam War for Magnum) who ekes out a living in a beautiful beachy paradise. He’s played by an attractive man with easy charisma (whatever you think of drek like Blue Bloods, there’s a reason Tom Selleck was an early pick for Indiana Jones). There are mysteries to be solved, old and new friends and lovers to contend with, and a car chase or two pretty much every episode. Usually things are wrapped up in the length of a one-hour episode. Both Rockford and Magnum establish a familiar, comforting formula.

But Magnum is much more comfortable with a gun, and the action sequences are faster-paced. The most visible change is probably the glitz. Instead of struggling to keep an older sedan afloat and living in a trailer on a Los Angeles beach, Magnum gets to drive a beautiful Ferrari and live in a split-level Colonial on the north shore of Oahu. Cleverly, this isn’t a “how the hell do the Friends friends afford their rent?” situation. Eccentric author Robin Masters¹, something of a cross between Jackie Collins and Ian Fleming, took a liking to Magnum and invited him to live in the guest house on his Hawaiian estate. Magnum’s room, board and the use of that beautiful car are all covered, without having to make Magnum particularly rich or privileged. This was a pretty good trick; it gives us all the glamorous trappings of a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous episode while still keeping the lead character’s everyman appeal.

Magnum is supported by two best friends from his service in Vietnam: T.C. (Roger E. Mosley), now a private helicopter pilot and tour guide, and Rick (Larry Manetti), who usually manages a luxe nightclub and has “business associates” with names like “Icepick.” They provide resources and plot devices as needed. T.C. and Rick were in the Marine Corps; Magnum was a Navy SEAL and intelligence officer. Rick’s nightclub provides convenient cover, free drinks, and sometimes mysteries to solve. T.C. is a reliable source of rescue, and his helicopter gives the showrunners the opportunity for some beautiful location shots. Their shared military service also fuels more than one plot.²

Rick is a bit of an eccentric who would really rather be Humphrey Bogart than a guy whose legal name is Orville; T.C. falls a bit more into the “one Black character” trap, but he still has a distinct personality, and the men’s shared military service makes it logical that they would stay in each other’s lives.

Then there’s Higgins.

Jonathan Quayle Higgins III is, when we first meet him, absolutely fucking done with Magnum. He’s the major-domo of Robin’s Nest, Robin Masters’ Hawaiian estate, and he treats Magnum as a continual thorn in his side. Higgins lives in the main house with two perfectly behaved Dobermans named Zeus and Apollo, who appear to have hated Magnum on sight and can be relied upon to growl or bark whenever the script decides it’s funniest. (Higgins calls them “lads” and is quite protective of them if they’re threatened. It’s adorable.) Higgins, an extremely British character played by extremely Texan Jonathan Hillerman³, is the button-down, straight-laced contrast to Magnum’s Hawaiian-shirted free spirit. Magnum is a born button-pusher, a Bugs Bunny who solves crimes, and Higgins has Elmer Fudd written all over him.

I’m an absolute sucker for a Worthy Adversary character; the kind who opposes the hero not because they’re a villain but because they’re a decent, well-intentioned person doing their best. Higgins is a stuffed shirt wearing a ludicrous uniform, but he’s also loyal, pragmatic and chivalrous. He runs Robin’s Nest like a well-oiled machine, and Magnum’s continued squeakiness throws him continually off-kilter…but he’s not always wrong about things, either. (Hillerman and Selleck each won an Emmy for their roles.)

Higgins becomes a good friend, but neither he nor Magnum ever fully let go of the push-and-pull dynamic that characterizes their relationship. (The seventh season devotes a full episode to an escalating and increasingly vicious prank war between Magnum and Higgins. It’s a fan favorite for good reason.) Both Higgins and Magnum are veterans (the Pacific theater of World War II for Higgins⁴, Vietnam for Magnum) and one of their early common areas of respect are for each other’s service.

Magnum was one of the first shows to represent Vietnam vets as series regulars, neither ignoring their service nor depicting them as barely-functional trainwrecks. Which was not to say that their service didn’t inform the plot: some of the show’s most famous episodes were about their military history. Did You See the Sunrise? might be Magnum, P.I.‘s most famous storyline. A two-hour opening that was split into two parts for syndication, it focuses on Magnum and T.C. facing off against Ivan, the Russian military officer who held them hostage in a Vietnamese P.O.W. camp.⁵

Its ending was shocking at the time, with Magnum confronting Ivan alone. Ivan has diplomatic immunity, and tells Magnum that he knows the detective better than his own mother.

“Your sense of honor and fair play. Oh, you could shoot me, if I was armed and coming after you. But like this, Thomas, never.”

And then Magnum lifts up his gun. The episode cuts to black, but the sound of a gunshot tells us what he’s chosen.⁶

Did You See the Sunrise? carries a lot of the best and worst of Magnum. It treats the veterans of the United States’ greatest military debacle⁷ with dignity and respect, but also dips into some of the silliest cliches about that war and its P.O.W.s. A lot of Magnum is one-step-forward, two-steps-back like that. 

It recognizes the pan-Asian and Pacific Islander population of Hawaii in a way that’s not a given even now⁸, but is sometimes damn silly about it. (There’s an episode about a samurai, played by the legendary Mako, that makes me cringe a little to remember!) 

Fun fact: I’m also pretty sure the first time I saw karaoke was on a Magnum episode. I’m mostly telling you this so you can watch Tom Selleck trying to sing “Misty.”

Magnum, P.I. wouldn’t work at all without Selleck; his wry voiceover carries us through every episode. Shows that followed it (Burn Notice is one great example) understood how much fun it is to have a strong narrator take you through his thought process and whatever tense or wacky shit he’s up to.

Selleck wears Thomas Magnum’s loud Hawaiian shirts naturally. He looks great behind the wheel of a Ferrari, and, honestly, everywhere else. He’s a handsome guy with a handsome shirtless torso. He looks back at the camera at the end of every credit sequence, inviting you into the next adventure, and millions of people wanted to join him.

Magnum, P.I. ran for seven seasons, and did well in syndication; but by 1987, the show was clearly nearing the end. The final episode of Season 7 was “Limbo.” Magnum, in a coma, tries to help his lost love Michelle and reach out and say goodbye to all his friends. In the final moments, he seems to walk into the afterlife. Magnum’s death was originally meant to finish off the series.

…and then they got renewed for a shortened real final season. They figured it out. Magnum gets out of the coma, the Season 8 opener features his friends dealing with the trauma of Magnum’s near-death, and they end the series on a brighter note, with Magnum re-activating his Navy commission and looking forward to a very different future.⁹

Honestly, even with the bits that aged badly, Magnum, P.I. is a blast. It understands the power of breaking the formula, with episodes ranging from serious to goofy (including a recurring role for Carol Burnett and a delightful crossover with Murder, She Wrote). The guest stars are incredible (Jessica Walter! Chuck Mangione! Richard Roundtree! Phil Hartman! Shannon Doherty! Dozens of Hawaiian singers and actors!) Little character notes like T.C. gently teasing Higgins for being too stiff are great. And it’s hard to beat the gorgeous landscape of Hawaii.

Magnum, P.I. was a step forward at the time, and an excellent time capsule now. And it’s hard to beat that theme song.

1. Masters is never seen; he’s a voice on the telephone in the early years of the series, voiced by the delightfully distinct Orson Welles. After Welles’s death, the show teased that “Robin Masters” was really an actor the author hired so the real Robin Masters could have some privacy. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but Magnum’s increased certainty that major-domo Higgins was really “Robin Masters” made for some pretty good jokes, right until the show’s final episode. ↩︎
2. We’ll get to that. ↩︎
3. A first cousin to author Tony Hillerman ↩︎
4. Higgins has a scale model of the Bridge on the River Kwai he’s continually working on; it gets semi-regularly destroyed. Why that bridge? Because he’d helped build the fucking thing. ↩︎
5. Yeah, we’ll get to that too. ↩︎
6. They apparently cut the gunshot noise in some airings in the UK. Wimps. Anyway, this is the episode that got namechecked in Psych and explicitly referenced in Archer. ↩︎
7. At that time. Yeah. Anyway. ↩︎
8. The bar is on the floor, yes, thank you. ↩︎
9. By the end of eight seasons, there was quite a bit of mythology in play. Suffice to say they tied up a lot of knots. ↩︎