How do you figure? That post was about what would happen unless they cast a much older woman; I didn’t think the odds of that made it worth mentioning. 
Now who’s a Tom Selleck fan? Who? Who? You? Yes, you are! You’re a big Tom Selleck fan! Wanna cookie?
Actually I’ve always admired Higgins. And those dogs.
I heard the lads are now the lasses, Hera and Artemis.
Outrageous.
This seems like something that just doesn’t need a reboot, honestly.
I heard they wanted Harrison Ford as Magnum, but he was committed to a movie shooting in Indiana or something.
The original series is on late at night on AMI TV, channel 888 on my provider. It’s narrated for the visually impared.
Rocky!
It’s also on COZI TV on Sunday nights if you get that one.
I would argue that the original hugely jumped the shark when the got into the whole “Michelle” thing. Lame. Not to mention the final episode.
“Oh My Ghawd!”
…
You should check out Selleck as Lance White on The Rockford Files:
Tom Selleck as Lance White, a successful private investigator with an uncynical approach to the business. Liked and admired by everyone but Jim, who considers him naive and lucky and likely to cause others to get hurt.
Sample quotes:
Jim Rockford : [Referring to an unsolicited tip just received] It hasn’t occurred to you this is a trap?
Lance White : [laughing] A trap? C’mon Jim, I doubt that.
Jim Rockford : I can’t explain why you’re still walkin’ around. It’s not gonna last long. You’re naive, Lance, you really are! Ya hafta be cynical, you have to question things. You can’t take someone named “Belle LaBelle” on face value! What’s her angle, huh? Who’s payroll is she on? You find out the answers to those things and then you start moving fast and crooked. You go through door sideways and low, at odd angles. You look for the Big Lie. Question everything!
Lance White : [Blithely] I’m going up to Lake Malibu. Why don’t you come with me?
Jim Rockford : [Appealing to heaven] They’ll kill 'im!
…
Lance White: Maybe we should forget about lunch and follow up a lead or something?
Jim Rockford: Which lead did you have in mind, Lance?
Lance White: We don’t have one, Jim.
Jim Rockford: [laughing] Then I guess it would be hard to follow up then, huh?
Lance White: C’mon, you and I both know that when you need a lead one always shows up. That’s the way it works.
Jim Rockford: [Frustrated] No, it never just shows up, Lance. Never. Watch my lips: NEV - VER.
Freddie Beamer: Hey guys, look at this.
[He gives Rockford a picture]
Jim Rockford: What’s that?
Freddie Beamer: I found this last night with the Senator. It was in his hand.
Jim Rockford: [Disbelievingly] Sure it was.
Freddie Beamer: Yea, I put it in my pocket and forgot about it.
Lance White: This could be the lead we’ve been waiting for, Jim.
Jim Rockford: Wait, wait, wait a minute, let me get this straight. Ten seconds ago we had no leads, nothing, huh?
Lance White: That’s right.
Jim Rockford: And now Beamer pulls this picture of a band leader or something out of his pocket and says it was in the dead man’s hand, and then he tells us it’s been in his coat for 18 hours, and it shows up right now when we need it?
Lance White: That’s exactly right, Jim. What’s the problem?
Jim Rockford: Oh, no problem. No, no problem at all. I just want to get it straight. I may want to tell an analyst.
[Turns and walks away]
…
Jim Rockford: A state senator and a bus driver? What’s the connection?
Lance White: Some things you just have to accept. You know, this is just a hunch, Jim, but I think the bus driver had something on the senator. Maybe the senator was having an affair with the bus driver’s wife?
Jim Rockford: And just where did that come from?
Lance White: Hunches don’t come from any place, Jim, they’re just hunches. That’s how we solve our cases. We get hunches, they turn out to be right, and the case gets solved. Gee, I don’t know how you survive as a private investigator, Jim. You don’t seem to know any of this stuff.
Reading through those sample quotes, I heard the voices of Jim Garner and Tom Selleck as if they were audible clips. I kept wondering if Lance White wore exclusively shorts and aloha shirts. I had assumed I had seen every Rockford Files, but I don’t remember Lance White at all. Sure enough, there he is on IMDB for two episodes.
From those few quotes Lance White seems similar to Magnum only in style, not in substance; easy going and full of smiles and boyhood charm, but genuinely clueless and beyond naïve. Lance gets by on luck and charm as there isn’t much beyond that when you dig deeper. Lance is an investigator for how children imagine the world. (Rockford was of course a private dick for the real world.)
On the surface Thomas Magnum is all smiles and charm, but he has proven he is (or actually can be) competent and able—it is just that it requires dire situations to force him to show it. I always assumed Magnum was proud of his service—but a little frightened by it. That he spent his time in country and never had a damn thing to smile about there. That his discharge is the equivalent, to him, of an extended shore leave, let’s party! He always resents and fears having to be “on mission”. He wouldn’t even be a detective now except he fell into a job on a plush estate where he is rarely required to do anything other than the most basic security functions. Magnum is a happy go lucky juvenile because he doesn’t want to go back to being the stone cold badass he has to be to survive “the shit”.
In that sense, Magnum is almost like a superhero trying to preserve his mild mannered cover identity. By day he is beer swilling paddle board man, but when evil shows its sinister intent—he can change into Viet-Man! A fatigue wearing jungle cat who always rescues the POW’s and protects Higgins and Robin Masters for truth, justice, and the Hawaiian way.
Maybe TC and Rick will be gay lovers. Can’t get more au courant than that.
So you have seen it, then?
It’s pretty much as you describe. Lance is perfect, it’s his only flaw. Clues fall into his lap. When he gets in a fight with some lowlife, he says “put up your fists!” When he gets shot, it’s just a flesh wound. He solves the case, gets the money, and the girl. Even Chapman likes him.
Even better, apparently the only reason he wins that climax-of-the-episode fight is because he says “put ‘em up” — causing his opponent to reflexively do so, and get clocked by the big guy, instead of sensibly pointing his weapon at him.
How many remember Tom Selleck in Coma, with Genevieve Bujold and Michael Douglas?
He was one of the people surgeon Richard Widmark murdered in order to harvest their organs.
The real Magnum would get her to switch sides.
I’m not seeing what’s so bad about the Higgins/Magnum dynamic being different. Different can be better, neutral, or worse. Sure, the odds of it being better are slim, but not impossible. The original show was OK, but it was of its time, so it make sense to mix things up a bit. I think the reboot of BSG handled the switch of Starbuck’s gender pretty well.
Are you kidding? Gay is so 2010. We need one of them to be a trans man or woman!
I saw that a few times when I was a kid, and again just a few months ago. It was filmed around Boston. I found the building that was the Jefferson Institute in the movie; will have to swing by and look around one of these days.
The trannie could be the wife. That would be inclusive and empowering all around.
Once upon a time my husband looked a fair bit like Tom Selleck. I don’t need that memory spoiled by a reboot!