Saturday 17 September 2016
495 Magnum P.I.
First viewed : Uncertain
I think I'm probably covering this a bit early but as I have no idea when I first caught an episode we may as well get it out of the way now.
Magnum PI was first broadcast on ITV towards the end of May 1981. It inverted the usual cliches of private eyes being somewhat down at heel by placing its protagonist in the ludicrous situation of living in a beachside mansion at the gift of its unseen owner ( voiced occasionally by Orson Welles ) , an extravagant reward for unspecified previous service , and only working when he felt like it.
The series was generally light in tone , somewhat akin to The Rockford Files and Tom Selleck, the hairy faced giant with the squeaky voice in the title role, was an amiable presence. What made it rather unpalatable was that Magnum had to put up with the owner's disapproving English butler, a trope filched from Two's Company , although the said Higgins was played by an American actor John Hillerman. With his dodgy accent and stiff, anal personality Higgins seemed almost designed to get up the nose of English viewers.
Nonetheless it was popular on both sides of the Atlantic and ran for early 8 years. Selleck was able to enjoy a reasonably successful film career for the next decade. Hillerman's career petered out not long afterwards.
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I seem to remember watching this purely on the basis that Magnum drove a Ferrari. I was shallow in that way, as a child...
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