The series was set in the contemporary milieu of 1980s Hawaii, a melting pot of ethnic and social groups. Thomas Magnum, played by Tom Selleck, is a former naval intelligence officer making his way as a private investigator in the civilian crossroads between Eastern and Western cultures. In charge of the security for the estate of the never-seen author Robin Masters, Magnum lives a relatively carefree life on the property. A friendly antagonism and respect exists between Magnum and Jonathan Higgins III (John Hillerman), Masters’s overseer of the estate. Though both men come from military backgrounds, Magnum’s free- wheeling style often clashes with Higgins’s more man- nered British discipline. In addition, two of Magnum’s former military buddies round out the regular cast. T.C., or Theodore Calvin (Roger Mosely), operates and owns a helicopter charter company, a service that comes in handy for many of Magnum’s cases. Rick Wright (Larry Manetti), a shady nightclub owner, often provides Magnum with important information through his links to the criminal element lurking below the vibrant tropical colors of the Hawaiian paradise.

Though originally dominated by an episodic narrative structure, Magnum, P.I. moved far beyond the simple demands of stock characters solving the crime of the week. Without using the open-ended strategy developed by the prime-time soap opera in the 1980s, the series nevertheless created complex characterizations by building a cumulative text. Discussion of events from previous episodes would continually pop up, constructing memory as an integral element of the series franchise. While past actions might not have an immediate impact on any individual weekly narrative, the overall effect was to expand the range of traits that characters might invoke in any given situation. For the regular viewer of the series, the cumulative strategy offered a richness of narrative, moving beyond the simpler whodunit of the hard-boiled detective series that populated American television in the 1960s and 1970s.

Part of the success of Magnum, P.I. stemmed from the combination of familiar hard-boiled action and exotic locale. Just as important perhaps, the series was one of the first to regularly explore the impact of the Vietnam War on the American cultural psyche. Many of the most memorable episodes deal with contemporary incidents triggered by memories and relationships growing out of Magnum’s past war experiences. Indeed, the private investigator’s abhorrence of disci- pline and cynical attitude toward authority seem to stem from the general mistrust of government and military bureaucracies that came to permeate American society in the early 1970s.

On one level, Magnum became the personification of an American society that had yet to deal effectively with the fallout from the Vietnam War. By the end of the 1980s, the struggle to deal with the unresolved is- sues of the war erupted full force into American popular culture. Before Magnum began to deal with his psychological scars in the context of the 1980s, net- work programmers apparently believed that any discussion of the war in a series would prompt viewers to tune it out. With the exception of Norman Lear’s All in the Family in the early 1970s, entertainment network programming acted, for the most part, as if the war had never occurred. However, Magnum, P.I.’s success proved programmers wrong. Certainly, the series’ success opened the door for other dramatic series that were able to examine the Vietnam War in its historical setting. Series such as Tour of Duty and China Beach, though not as popular, did point out that room existed in mainstream broadcasting for discussions of the emotional and political wounds that had yet to heal. As Thomas Magnum began to deal with his past, so too did the American public.

Critics of the show often point out, however, that in dealing with this past, the series recuperated and re- constructed the involvement of the United States in Vietnam. While some aspects of the show seem harshly critical of that entanglement, many episodes justify and rationalize the conflict and the U.S. role. As a result, Magnum, P.I. is shot through with conflicting and often contradictory perspectives, and any “final” interpretation must take the entire series into account rather than concentrate on single events or episodes. The construction of this long-running narrative, riddled as it is with continuously developing characterizations, ideological instability, and multi- layered generic resonance, illustrates many aspects of commercial U.S. television’s capacity for narrative complexity as well as some of its most vexing problems and questions. Perhaps it is Magnum, P.I.’s narrative and ideological complexity that has ensured the series’ ongoing success as a syndicated programming staple.