Review of Magnum PI: The Complete Fourth Season

Introduction

Thomas Magnum, the Hawaii-based private eye, was a product of the Burt Reynolds era. Created by Donald P Bellisario and Glen A Larson in 1980, it was lighter in tone than the usual noirish, thick-ear type of private investigator show. Tom Selleck played the affable Magnum, a Vietnam vet who had a network of old service buddies he could rely on to help him with cases.

Selleck, whose subsequent movie career has had its moments (Her Alibi) but has largely been less than stellar, is otherwise remembered as the original choice for Indiana Jones, had he been able to get out of his Magnum contract.

Magnum provided security for the Hawaii home of reclusive writer Robin Masters in return for bed and board (and the use of Masters` Ferrari).

John Hillerman played Higgins, Robin Masters` snobbish estate manager. Hillerman, Texas born and bred, was no more an Englishman than Selleck, but convinced a generation of American tv viewers that was how Eng-ger-lish butlers acted. He reprised the role on a number of tv shows including Angela Lansbury`s Murder She Wrote.

With series four, the show was well in its stride and reaching half-way through its total eight-season run. Apart from its ground-breaking sympathetic view of Vietnam veterans and the problems many of them faced reintegrating into society, Magnum received many critical plaudits for the wide range of styles of episode it encompassed - from wild slapstick to tragedy and every shade of drama inbetween

1983`s Season Four opens with the clammy-hander Home From The Sea, where Magnum spends his 4th July adrift in the Molokai channel with only a shark for company. The twenty episodes include a corker guest-starring Patrick Macnee as an old friend of Higgins who has a Sherlock Holmes adventure with Higgins in tow as Dr Watson.

Some episodes are wildly entertaining, some episodes are depressingly run-of-the-mill 1980s telefare.

As an item of trivia, Magnum`s host Robin Masters was never seen but occasionally heard - Orson Welles providing the voice. This led Magnum to the theory that Higgins was actually Masters in some bizarre charade, but the idea was never conclusively proved.

Video

The episodes are presented in their original 1.33:1 tv aspect ratio. The images are crisp, clear and colourful which is pretty good going for a show which is 23 years old!

Audio

Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono

Features

A promo trail on each disc for Universal Playback, but otherwise bugger all. Not even subtitles.

Conclusion

Not quite as huge a blast of nostalgia as I usually like, but more fun than a lot of tele-box-sets. In this show, Selleck was more of a master of eyebrow acting than the blessed Sir Roger, and he had the added attraction of the best-known `tache on telly.