The new Magnum PI has charming actors, the location, TC’s helicopter (when it isn’t CG), and mostly Magnum PI style plots (occasionally they are way too big, taking down Bin Laden-level terrorists or whatever). I think it was a mistake making Higgins a woman - they could have changed Rick or TC (although the new Rick is very Rickish).
But the worst change is that they made the new crew winners instead of losers. Old Magnum was a bum, forever trading in on a single good deed. Old Rick and TC, they were struggling. TC had time to help Magnum because he didn’t have customers. Rick had connections because he worked with petty criminals when he tried (and failed) to keep his own place afloat. They were hanging onto the past, dealing with crooks hanging onto the past all in a new land where they could have remade themselves, but failed to try. There was melancholy there. Something about the human condition. Maybe it’s the difference between how we saw veterans of Vietnam and now see veterans of Afghanistan. Maybe society has stratified much more, and we don’t have those struggling stragglers attaching themselves to rich people as much. It’s not that the new show is bad (I watch it, and I like it), but it’s the trappings of Magnum, not its essence.
Ha!
