Magnum PI (original) (1 Viewer)

Krodwhodat

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So with the home quarantine and many of us working from home I’m planning on starting to watch The original Magnum PI from the first episode. It’s on amazon prime and is in my top 2 all time favorite sitcoms with MASH. Anyway I was wondering if anyone wanted to watch it as well and discuss the episodes as kind of a look back at 80s tv. Kind of an episode or 2 a day and discuss. I know it may sound weird but it would get our minds off of constant COVID 19. Anyway the first 2 episodes are Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii Part 1 and 2.

Anybody in?
 
Ha, funny that you should start this thread now.. i never watched the original Magnum in first run, when it was popular in the 80s when i was a kid.. for whatever reason, prior to the Covid outbreak, i started to watch it on Amazon Prime about a month ago.. i’ve Continued watching it sporadically, mainly because of the nostalgia factor, the amazing Hawaiin scenery, the beautiful 80s babes and the cheese factor.. but i have to say, the more i try to watch it, the harder it is because it’s just not a very good show... It does have the Ferrari and the other stuff i mentioned going for it, but the Vietnam flashbacks and some of the storylines just make for bad tv.. All that said, i may try to watch an episode here or there to see if it gets better (I’m about midway thru Season 2 now), but i’m Also looking for other shows to binge, i may finally watch Stranger Things, or rewatch West Wing for the umpteenth time.
 
Ha, funny that you should start this thread now.. i never watched the original Magnum in first run, when it was popular in the 80s when i was a kid.. for whatever reason, prior to the Covid outbreak, i started to watch it on Amazon Prime about a month ago.. i’ve Continued watching it sporadically, mainly because of the nostalgia factor, the amazing Hawaiin scenery, the beautiful 80s babes and the cheese factor.. but i have to say, the more i try to watch it, the harder it is because it’s just not a very good show... It does have the Ferrari and the other stuff i mentioned going for it, but the Vietnam flashbacks and some of the storylines just make for bad tv.. All that said, i may try to watch an episode here or there to see if it gets better (I’m about midway thru Season 2 now), but i’m Also looking for other shows to binge, i may finally watch Stranger Things, or rewatch West Wing for the umpteenth time.
You’re dead to me!


?
 
Actually it was really ahead of its time in dealing with PTSD and veterans coming back. It crossed a lot of barriers that were tabu at the time and did a lot of different things. Give it a shot. Just have to remember it was 1980 when it started so it is a little different
 
Actually it was really ahead of its time in dealing with PTSD and veterans coming back. It crossed a lot of barriers that were tabu at the time and did a lot of different things. Give it a shot. Just have to remember it was 1980 when it started so it is a little different



Yeah you’re right, i guess the whole Vietnam thing isnt my cup of tea, at least when it comes to ‘escapist’ detective shows on tv.. i did really enjoy visiting the Vietnam Wall in DC, and i think it was a really interesting time in America, with some parallels to today.. And i have given it a shot; will probably continue to get though some episodes, and maybe even pipe in form time to time if your thread gets going.. I think we’ve been spoiled lately with the quality writing on tv, shows like Breaking Bad and some of the others, even going back to The Sopranos and West Wing 20 yrs ago.. i just think the early/mid 80s mindset was different, and that’s probably been my biggest barrier to enjoying Magnum like I thought i would.
 
Ha, funny that you should start this thread now.. i never watched the original Magnum in first run, when it was popular in the 80s when i was a kid.. for whatever reason, prior to the Covid outbreak, i started to watch it on Amazon Prime about a month ago.. i’ve Continued watching it sporadically, mainly because of the nostalgia factor, the amazing Hawaiin scenery, the beautiful 80s babes and the cheese factor.. but i have to say, the more i try to watch it, the harder it is because it’s just not a very good show... It does have the Ferrari and the other stuff i mentioned going for it, but the Vietnam flashbacks and some of the storylines just make for bad tv.. All that said, i may try to watch an episode here or there to see if it gets better (I’m about midway thru Season 2 now), but i’m Also looking for other shows to binge, i may finally watch Stranger Things, or rewatch West Wing for the umpteenth time.
It has been a long time since I watched it - but it had a good run its first 2 or 3 seasons? At some point, it got really bad. But I still love it.
 
I was too young for magnum when it first aired, and still haven't seen a single episode

But it's on my list of 80s shows I missed that I need to watch one day

Also on the list

Simon & Simon
Fall Guy
Remington Steele
Moonlightling
 
I was too young for magnum when it first aired, and still haven't seen a single episode

But it's on my list of 80s shows I missed that I need to watch one day

Also on the list

Simon & Simon
Fall Guy
Remington Steele
Moonlightling



I was never a watcher of Simon/Simon or Remington Steele- but i absolutely loved The Fall Guy (not sure how well it holds up, my guess is not very well) and i think Moonlighting was maybe one of the Top 5 best tv shows ever produced.. the episodes are really hard to find (i think there are a few on YouTube), but it’s the reason i’ve wanted to be Bruce Willis since i was 12 years old, and that show was one of the very few that integrated itself into popular culture during it’s original run in a way that shows today cant, since back then there were only three networks... With Glenn Gordon Caron’s writing, and the casting combo of Willis and Shepherd- that show was lighting in a bottle.
 
Also on the list

Spencer for Hire
LA Law
St. Elsewhere
Night Court
Hart & Hart
 
Also on the list

Spencer for Hire
LA Law
St. Elsewhere
Night Court
Hart & Hart
Your lists are great it just hard to find these streaming. I a huge fan of 80s detective shows but can’t find them to stream
 
Also on the list

Spencer for Hire
LA Law
St. Elsewhere
Night Court
Hart & Hart



Remember watching Spencer a few times back in the day, and it was ok.. St Elsewhere i never watched, but was by all accounts a really quality show for theat era, though the series finale was a huge letdown of epic proportions that people still talk about in terms of how NOT to end a series.. i wont spoil it here.

Hart to Hart to me is a lot like Magnum; it didnt touch the cultural zeitgeist like Selleck and co did, but it was a lot of fluff but with cool 80s cars , fancy stuff , a cool dog and razor thin plot lines .. Night Court was freaking hilarious and IMO one of the most underrated comedies of all time.


LA Law to me is very similar to Moonlighting - a Top 5 of All Time tv show that is hard to find these days, but had stellar writing and acting, and i looked forward to watching it every week back then, just like with Moonlighting.
 
Remember watching Spencer a few times back in the day, and it was ok.. St Elsewhere i never watched, but was by all accounts a really quality show for theat era, though the series finale was a huge letdown of epic proportions that people still talk about in terms of how NOT to end a series.. i wont spoil it here.

I've heard that

Which is odd because from a certain point of view Newhart ended in a very similar way yet that one is consistently ranked as one of the best finales


 
Which is odd because from a certain point of view Newhart ended in a very similar way yet that one is consistently ranked as one of the best finales

But Newhart was a sitcom and the ending was funny and appropriate. St. Elsewhere was never a sitcom and although the ending wasn't funny, people don't like their serious story lines forked with. I only have that comment and don't really want to discuss it anymore because I don't think it can be without spoilers for those who don't know the ending.
 
Updating to report that, despite the sometimes terrible writing and acting, i am still consuming old episodes of Magnum PI... what’s worse is that I’ve discovered that not only is it available on Amazon Prime which I’d been watching, but it’s also on the Hallmark Channel, of all places, several times a day.

what’s weird, and i dont know that i can say this about any other series I’ve watched- is that it seems to be better on tv than on my iPad (which is where I watch it on Amazon).. in the past, it just never made a difference to me where I watch shows, but maybe because of the Hawaii aesthetic, it transfers better to a larger srceen(?). Or mabe it’s because I’ve been watching Season 2 on Prime, whereas Hallmark is showing I think season 4.
 

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