Magnum, P.I.: Season 03 (1982)

Season three of Magnum, P.I. finds former Navy Intelligence officer Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck) continuing to live the good life on the Hawaiian estate of reclusive mystery writer Robin Masters, who has hired Magnum to handle security. Likewise still in attendance are Magnum's "friendly enemy," Masters' haughty manservant Higgins (John Hillerman), and Magnum's Vietnam buddies, chopper pilot T.C. (Roger E. Mosley) and country club manager Rick (Larry Manetti). Making the first of their several appearances this season are a trio of recurring characters: police lieutenant Maggie Poole (Jean Bruce Scott), Assistant DA Carol Baldwin (played here by Patricia McCormack and in later seasons by Kathleen Lloyd), and middle-aged Agatha Chumley (Gillian Dobb), who has clearly set her cap for Higgins. Alas, season two marks the exit of Magnum's lifelong friend and chief informant Mac Reynolds (Jeff MacKay), who is killed in the two-part season opener, "Did You See the Sunrise?" Another episode, "Ki'is Don't Lie," represents a rare crossover between Magnum and another private-eye series, in this case Simon & Simon. In subsequent adventures, future Deadwood star Ian McShane shows up as Higgins' former comrade-in-arms Edward Clutterbuck, who has taken it upon himself to save his old chum from renegade Mau Mau warriors; Magnum attends the reading of the will of a prankish millionaire, thereby plunging himself into a near-surrealistic spoof of every "greedy relative" melodrama ever made; Sylvia Sidney guests as Elizabeth Barrett, mentor of the elusive Robin Masters -- or maybe she isn't Elizabeth Barrett after all; and in the second of the series' "retro" black-and-white episodes, a flashback sends Magnum 45 years in the past to solve a Chandleresque murder case, while the other regulars pop up in different guises. The season ends with "Faith and Begorrah," representing another opportunity for co-star John Hillerman to cut loose in a dual role, as the snobbish Higgins and as another of Higgins' estranged half-brothers, boisterous Irishman Father Paddy McGuinness. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi