If you drew even a single breath between the years of 1980 and 1988, you know this show. You might not know you know it, but Magnum is part of your soul.
What's great is that once you go out and buy this set, you'll realize that it's a bigger piece of your soul than you'd thought. I'm wiling to bet that even the crappy theme song that was used for the first half of this season rings a bell. You can't think of it now -- you CAN remember the brash, catchy, action/adventure theme song that was adopted after the first few episodes -- but you'll remember that old song and say, "Oh, yeah. I never knew this was the original Magnum theme."
And then the episodes start. From the very first minute of the pilot, you get to see why this was one of the top-rated TV show of the eighties. There are car chases, Vietnam flashbacks, competent mysteries, astoundingly good comedy, sexy stewardesses, gravitas, suspense, drama, exotic locations, and remarkable consistency.
What's crazy is how quickly the show hit its stride. This set contains a couple crossover episodes and specials from later seasons, and -- aside from the opening credits -- it's very tough to tell the difference between those and the first-season episodes on the discs. The cast and crew went into the show with confidence, and a pretty clear idea of what they hoped to accomplish. So the writing is great right off the bat. The cast jelled instantly; even though their characters weren't fully fleshed-out, they played like actual people. (It kind of makes you realize how often other TV shows -- and movies -- are filled entirely with stock characters, stereotypes and cardboard cutouts.) Larry Minetti as Rick is particularly grand as the proprietor of an eighties club, and the stellar John Hillerman nearly steals every scene as the overbearingly British Retired Sergeant Major Jonathan Quayle Higgins.
But let's have a word on the subject of Tom Selleck. This is the guy who was originally cast as Indiana Jones, but had to bow out because Raiders of the Lost Ark was scheduled to begin shooting at the same time as Magnum's first season. Did he make the right decision? It's tough to say whether Thomas Magnum is a better or worse character than Indiana Jones, but it's obvious that there wasn't a bad choice to be made there. He's absolutely delightful as Magnum, though, so let's just say that he made the right call.
To quote Magnum, "I woke up one day, age 33, and realized I'd never been 23." Arrested adolescence found the perfect actor in Tom Selleck, it seems. He plays the part of Magnum perfectly, but more than that, he anchors and holds together the cast and carries the stories quite ably.
Overlook the bad wardrobe and hair that clamor for screen space. This was 1980, and frankly, the hairstyles seen here were remarkably tasteful for that year. Not timeless by any stretch of the imagination, but tasteful.
Very first spoken line of the series: As two Dobermans are charging and Magnum is trying to pick the lock on a chain-link fence... "Don't look at the dogs. Work the lock," Magnum tells himself. "Work the lock. Don't look at the dogs. You looked at the dogs!" So good.