Magnum, P.I.: Season 07
Having moved from Thursdays to Saturdays to Tuesdays in previous seasons, Magnum, P.I. settles upon a Wednesday-night CBS slot for its seventh season on the air. While the show itself has been shifting about quite a bit of late, several things remain constant. Private eye Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck) continues to work as security chief of the Oahu estate owned by celebrated (and... (read more) never-seen) author Robin Masters, with Masters' stuffy manservant Higgins (John Hillerman) persisting in his efforts to get Magnum to behave himself and play by the rules. And as before, Magnum is frequently aided in his investigations by his Vietnam buddies T.C. (Roger E. Mosley) and Rick (Larry Manetti). Of the many season-seven episodes, several are standouts, notably "A.A.P.I.," in which Magnum and fellow gumshoe Luther Gillis (Eugene Roche) attend the 14th Annual Convention of Private Investigators, where they meet TV producer Stephen J. Cannell as security guard Ray Lemon, and Magnum semi-regular Elisha Cook Jr., normally cast as wizened underworld character Ice Pick, reprising his "Wilmer" role from the 1941 classic The Maltese Falcon! "Novel Connection" finds Magnum briefly teaming up with mystery writer Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote fame, with Angela Lansbury (who else?) guesting as Jessica. "Murder by Night" is the season's obligatory "homage" episode, set in the 1940s and filmed in the style of a black-and-white Bogart epic; "Solo Flight" is a reworking of season four's "Home From the Sea," with Magnum trapped in a perilous situation (his legs are caught under the wreckage of a plane), forcing him to relive past events in his mind, courtesy of excerpts from previous episodes. And in "Little Girl Who," Magnum discovers that he may have had a daughter with his first wife, Michele, a five-year-old girl named Lily Hue. Inasmuch as the producers were certain that Magnum, P.I. would be canceled at the end of its seventh season, a surrealistic two-part finale titled "Limbo" was conceived in which Magnum is shot dead, whereupon his soul ascends to heaven. Imagine their surprise when the series was renewed for an eighth year, requiring an extremely hasty "explanation" as to why the protagonist has suddenly returned to life! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi