# Magnum P. I. reboot **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 9, 2018, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287 "2018-03-09T16:21:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/1 "2018-03-09T16:21:51Z")
When I first heard that a reboot of _Magnum P.I._ was being made, my heart leapt. A second later, my brain kicked in and decided that it won’t have the magic that the original series had. The premise is that Magnum is a decorated Navy Seal returning from Afghanistan instead of Vietnam. There’s going to be a T.C and a Rick character. The worst idea so far is that the Higgins character is a woman. Blecch. Hollywood being Hollywood, unless the Higgins woman is much older than Magnum, there’s going to be an added layer of sexual tension that never existed between Thomas and Higgins. There’s another thread about shows that jumped the shark, and is is universally agreed that _Magnum P. I._ never jumped the shark. I wonder, is a bad reboot jumping the shark? Do you have any hope for this new series? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/2 "2018-03-09T16:25:18Z")
That’s not jumping the shark, it’s jumping into the shark’s mouth. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/3 "2018-03-09T16:27:29Z")
> [@CelticKnot](#): > > Hollywood being Hollywood, unless the Higgins woman is much older than Magnum, there’s going to be an added layer of sexual tension that never existed between Thomas and Higgins. Much _older?_ That’s adorable. No, she’s much younger; he’s 40, she’s 32. ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/4 "2018-03-09T16:31:02Z")
People like that stuff to daydream about going to Hawaii. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/5 "2018-03-09T16:31:31Z")
Linda Hunt or Helen Mirren as Higgins. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/6 "2018-03-09T16:36:30Z")
I’m sorry, but Higgie Baby just can not be a woman. It’s just not going to work. They wouldn’t have the same dynamic. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/7 "2018-03-09T16:40:56Z")
I’m willing to give it a chance. Since I don’t remember the series from my childhood, I won’t have any preconceived notions about how it should be. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/8 "2018-03-09T16:45:22Z")
> [@CelticKnot](#): > > Hollywood being Hollywood, unless the Higgins woman is much older than Magnum, there’s going to be an added layer of sexual tension that never existed between Thomas and Higgins. You and I remember Magnum PI very differently. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/9 "2018-03-09T17:19:09Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Much _older?_ That’s adorable. No, she’s much younger; he’s 40, she’s 32. You misread his post. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/10 "2018-03-09T17:24:42Z")
As for the remake, it’s possible it will work. But it’s a dice roll. There was nothing special about the idea of the original series. It was a success because of the people cast in it, especially Selleck and Hillerman. The same series with different actors could be a complete bomb. As an example, look at the remakes of _The Odd Couple_. A great series with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall; a mediocre series with Ron Glass and Demond Wilson or Thomas Lennon and Matt Perry. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/11 "2018-03-09T17:56:27Z")
Maybe Higgens can be a lesbian. That way we get the eye candy without turning this into Moonlighting. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/12 "2018-03-09T18:11:18Z")
Is the original Magnum PI streaming anywhere? I never watched the original series, but I could see me enjoying it now. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/13 "2018-03-09T18:38:46Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Linda Hunt or Helen Mirren as Higgins. Candice Bergen. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/14 "2018-03-09T19:02:04Z")
Or look at the closest parallel - Hawaii 5-0. I think the show is crap, an insult to the original, the viewers, and Hawaii. But it’s on its umpteenth season, so somebody must like it. A new Magnum might be as popular. I’ll never watch it, so it won’t matter to me. The original ones are on DVD. But there would go my hopes for a reunion show. I want to know what happened to the characters. How long did Magnum stay in the Navy? Did Rick stay (or get) married? How is Lily? How did Higgins do? Remember when they used to do reunion movies? Still The Beaver was pretty good, Wild Wild West Revisited was OK. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/15 "2018-03-09T19:08:39Z")
I heard talk a while back about doing a “Magnum” involving his grown daughter talking over the family biz. ---
**Author:** ![Temporary\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Temporary\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temporary_Name)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/16 "2018-03-09T19:44:52Z")
I agree it would be very unlikely to live up to the original series, but it could work. I believe the essence of Thomas Magnum is that he is – rather can be a very formidable and competent individual who has a knack for goofing off and not taking things very seriously (until after the second commercial break at the earliest). He is valuable and loyal as a friend, and attracts and inspires loyalty from all his friends, whom are by-the-way often frustrated by his sophomoric and irresponsible manner of proceeding. He is a good natured, fun, and gifted companion—but when he is absent it is easy to resent the fact that he owes you fuel money and yet zooms around in an (adjusted for inflation) eighty-thousand dollar sports car with a borrowed high end camera/telescope/laptop computer/etc. in the passenger seat. How does this near-do-well, half assed security consultant keep sleepwalking through life and ending up on top of the world. I mean, I mean I work hard and pay my bills and take care of my business- and this guy keeps falling into buckets of shit and coming out smelling like roses. Of course, when things get serious I’ve got his back, and there is no one I would want by my side more than Thomas Magnum when I face trouble. Higgins CAN be a woman, and she doesn’t even need to be former military, she just needs a competency Magnum will subtly admire even as he makes fun of it. She does need to be a few additional things: 1) Persnickety!, 2) Entirely serious about everything- especially her duties on the estate, 3) A stickler for the rules (this is hinted at by the previous two points, but I mean a rule follower not just with Magnum, with herself and Robin Masters, certainly with Rick and T.C.) 4) she must resent Magnum’s easy manner and lack of maturity—but she MUST admire him on a very serious level. She must want him to live up to his potential more often so she can give him the deep respect he so seldom, but occasionally deserves. 5) She must not have-nor stir any romantic or sexual desires in Magnum (it would be a cute little sub-plot if she does have the hots for either Rick or T.C. whichever one she admires- the other should have the hots for her. A perfect- never executed triangle of desire). In her relationship with Magnum, she is the exasperated babysitter and he is the spoiled brat kid she must care for. 6) She must defer to Robin (who could also be female), but should often see him/her as a dupe falling for Magnum’s boyish charm. That is an interesting possibility. Robin Masters doesn’t have to be an unseen Charlie (of Charlie’s Angels fame). I think that character should be an older female who can still view herself as viable in matters of love, but distinctively past prime; the way Joan Collins and Sophia Loren were in the nineties. She still needs to be rich and powerful, dropping in with a flurry of activity on her way to a writer’s symposium or the Milan fashion shows. She should be a re-occurring role played by an honest to god former heart throb that shows up about six times a season. One of those six appearances can focus on her for the whole episode if they get a good enough actress willing to work that hard once a year. The others can be a drop in where all her scenes shoot on one day. She needs to show the audience that she counts on Higgins everyday to run her estate. But that she lets Magnum sponge off of her as a way to keep him on retainer in case she really does need him. She has perfectly assessed the value of these two rivals and created a reality in which they each play to their strengths- and lets them suffer the consequences of their own conflict while she benefits from it. Okay, too long. The paragraph below got me thinking and I went on and on and was nowhere close to a stopping point. Feel free to read it (it is even longer now I assure you), but it can be summarized thusly: The point is Magnum must carry a forty-five caliber Colt, he must have loyal friends and comrades in arms we see only once (or for a short arc), he gets all of his exercise from fun and exciting activities- he never has to go to the gym, and he should have a moustache There are a couple of things concerning Magnum. First, the military now uses 9mm as their side arms. Somehow, Magnum must carry a 1911 .45 ACP. Perhaps a range instructor he befriended in his past has converted him away from the girlie NATO weapon, or his own personal taste, or it can be a gift from dying comrade in arms. His gun must look and especially sound different from the others on the show. Second, like Spenser for Hire from the time of the first run of the show, Magnum must a have long list of highly accomplished men at arms just out of arms reach; guys who can fight and shoot and owe (or are owed) debts of honor from fields of battle real and figurative. I mean beside the bunch of Navy Intel personal he cons into giving him info. This is a great way to get past prime action/adventure actors on set, and also up and comers. The guy who gave him his first job, the new guy he trained for a SOG raid. The guy who is feeling his age and wants to prove he still has it comes to Hawaii and gets the guys into all manner of conflict for no reason. The young guy cycling through Hawaii on his way out of the Navy with PTSD. The guy they all used to look up to who has lost his nerve. The guy who always saw all the angles but is now suffering with dementia (perhaps a former commander of Magnum’s or T.C.’s). A young guy who admires Magnum and heard all his stories and mistakes the exaggerated stories for a model and puts himself into terrible and unnecessary danger Magnum, Rick and T.C. have to rescue him from. (This would be an example of seeing one of those relationships I am suggesting exist at its beginning.) The point is there are others farther afield than Rick and T.C. who would drop what they are doing if Magnum asked them to, and would turn to him first if…… their wife is kidnapped, their kid runs away, they are blackmailed, etc. The thing that would make this a good gimmick, is that in each case they would remember and state some truism that sort of defines their loyalty to each other. Maybe occasionally they will learn that the secret that got them through overseas in 2003 is out of date and they need to improvise a new strategy- to remain flexible. There should also be a crossover with NCIS. ---
**Author:** ![planetcory](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/planetcory/32/1032_2.png) [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/17 "2018-03-09T19:55:31Z")
Yeah, I’m not opposed to a reboot, but [sexy Higgins](http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/cbs-magnum-p-i-reboot-higgins-perdita-weeks-1202715781/) concerns me. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/18 "2018-03-09T20:03:09Z")
> [@CelticKnot](#): > > … there’s going to be an added layer of sexual tension that never existed between Thomas and Higgins. Now who’s being naive? > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Or look at the closest parallel - Hawaii 5-0. I think the show is crap, an insult to the original, the viewers, and Hawaii. But it’s on its umpteenth season, so somebody must like it. I remember reading somewhere that the original _Magnum P.I._ got its start because the original _Hawaii 5-0_ was coming to an end and with all the equipment and personnel to make a TV series in Hawaii, they might as well create a show to use them. It would be funny if the reboots followed the same pattern. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/19 "2018-03-09T20:38:16Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > Is the original Magnum PI streaming anywhere? I never watched the original series, but I could see me enjoying it now. [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3p2dxc](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3p2dxc) ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287/20 "2018-03-09T21:07:01Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > You and I remember Magnum PI very differently. You do remember sexual tension between Magnum and Higgins? > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Or look at the closest parallel - Hawaii 5-0. I think the show is crap, an insult to the original, the viewers, and Hawaii. But it’s on its umpteenth season, so _somebody_ must like it. I know him. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/magnum-p-i-reboot/810287.md?page=2)