He is coming at you, swimming
in or near the tidal pool of the Estate. Then there is a shot of him from the
side and you see that, as he swims, he is pulling a plastic bag containing
clothes. Then he has gone up the beach and is against the sea wall. His left
shoulder seems to be bothering him. Then he is moving along the sea wall and
turns the corner and... And so it begins or began.
Thomas Magnum will be around for eight years. Mr. Tom Selleck, ably
assisted, will star in "Magnum, P.I." As we all know, that series is
gone, it was of the 1980s. Beyond the years it could just as well be in a
galaxy far, far away. Mr. Selleck, Mr. Hillerman, Mr. Manetti, and Mr. Mosley were the Principal Four in a Selleck pilot
that was bought and went on to become a hit and then a megahit.
Still, it is gone. Maybe a Ferrari from the series is still on the
Islands. We know the chopper is there. The Estate is there. Some other Hawaiian
locales are still there. None of the plots for the episodes remain. Magnum,
Higgins, Rick, and T.C. were never there, not really there. Some of you say you
"grew up with Magnum." Congratulations. What an experience it must
have been, week to week, never knowing what it, the last variety show, would
next present. Can't get it back. Hundreds of associations for those moments of
viewing in a framework of international, national, regional, local, and
personal scopes are irretrievable.
My own fantasy of return takes in the beach scenes like at Waikiki when
those on the beach were mostly tourists and “Magnum, P.I.” was not yet well
known. How to get those scenes recreated? Freeze frame by freeze frame you
could identify all of the people and then have them return and do it again.
What a lost cause!
What has been gained is hero status for the Principal Four. It would
have been uncomfortable to call them heroes then. But now, why not? What else,
other than already accounted for on the website, Magnum Mania, is needed? However,
it is better to acknowledge them as heroes after the fact, not allowing such a
status during any real-time viewing of the series. After the fact, it can be
better known that each of the heroes had an inner obligation. We all know
heroes are representative. They represented men, real men. Such status once
entered into a people's calculations of appreciation for them.
Those calculations added up to “Magnum, P.I.” being entertainment. It
was either entertainment or edification. To be entertainment, there must be a
center, and “Magnum, P.I.” had many diverse elements at its center. Those
elements are made known at Magnum Mania as brought to you principally by J. J.
Walters and Steve Paruszkiewicz.
For edification, there is no center. There need not be one as its
elements can be spread about, like string, usually of facts. Of course, the
edifying can be sorted into topics, themes, a thesis, and so on. Meanwhile, a
center for entertainment is human and humane while facts are facts. Today we
have "entertainment" and what is in a word? Sometimes the word is of
a falsehood. No matter its place in a sequence of words, it remains false. Not
a lie. Not lacking authenticity. Not any more than a wayward center. Today if
it isn't entertaining nor edifying it could be about action or perversely about
inaction, or the entailment of the sensory.
By way of contrast and in book form is Thomas Pynchon's novel,
"Inherent Vice." It is set in 1970s Los Angeles and mainly has the
action, inaction, and sensory experiences - contrarily edifying - of Doc Sportello.
Doc is a P.I. like Magnum and not much else have they in common. The Principal
Four were not known for smoking it, snorting it, popping it, or shooting it. As
a pothead, Doc gets by on joint-to-joint, relating to pretending to trust
everybody. Someday it will be a TV series, trust me.
Trust me, “Magnum, P.I.” is gone. Sad to say, absolutely no way can it
return as it was. Gone, but not forgotten. There are DVDs. Every episode can be
seen. Relate to them as best you can to what once was a center with a vast and
glorious potential. More alive then, but not yet The End. With those DVDs
watched at least now and again, the Fat Lady can't sing.
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