Life is sunny again for “Magnum” fans

For a while, “Magnum P.I.” fans were perplexed.
Their show – seemingly a ratings success – was ending. And then it wasn’t.
Then again, the shows stars were also confused. “It was a shock that the show was going to go away in the first place,” Jay Hernandez said. “I was genuinely just confused as to why. (Then) I was surprised that it found another home.”
That’s on NBC, which has an all-Magnum night this Sunday (Feb. 19). Reruns from the CBS days are at 7 and 8 p.m., with new episodes at 9 (shown here) and 10. Eric Guggenheim, the producer, said he kind of knew the show would continue somewhere.
It has 20 new episodes, with half airing now and the other half possibly a year from now. “We’re looking at it as just one season total, two parts,” Guggenheim said. Each hour will:
— Fulfill its case-of-the-week obligations, with Thomas Magnum (Hernandez) and Juliet Higgins (Perdita Weeks) as private eyes. That starts with an intriguing one – a seemingly straight-arrow doctor died in a crash, shortly after a mysterious blonde (shown here, center, with Weeks, Hernandez and a gunman) left his car.
— Build one story that will be settled at the end of the first 10 episodes, with another during the next 10. This first one flashes back to Magnum’s military days.
— And continue the ongoing changes. One friend, Rick, is a new dad; another, Katsumoto, lost his police job, after rescuing his wife by freeing a felon. Then there’s Magnum/Higgins love and lust.
“If you had asked us (at the start) when thety would get together, we probably would have said maybe the end of Season Five,” Guggenheim said. Instead, that was at the end of the fourth season; now the new one starts with them – her, mostly – trying to define their relationship.
In most ways, this “Magnum” continues the formula that worked so well 40 years ago for Tom Selleck – an ex-military guy, zipping around a gorgeous island as a private eye. Like the original, it seemed to be getting strong ratings. Still, it’s an expensive show that CBS – loaded with dramas – didn’t need.
Last May, the network canceled it and added three new drama (“Fire Country,” “East New York” and “So Help Me Todd”) that have done well.
“The effort to find a home for the show started within minutes of us getting word that we weren’t going to be back on CBS,” Guggenheim said. One of the other producers, he said, “was like, ‘Don’t take another job …. Let’s find a home for this.’”
The show is owned by Universal, which also owns NBC – a network with a big hole to fill on Sundays, after the football seasons end. So the deal was set, with “Magnum” on NBC and Peacock.
Still, everything on TV takes a while. Guggenheim recalls “a 4-6 week period where we were kind of in limbo …. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, because it’s such a rare thing.”
His stars were also unsure. “I was already back in England,” Weeks said. “So I would get little things here and there.”
And then came the word. Instead of foggy England, she would again be working in Hawaii.
“I take a swimsuit everywhere,” Weeks said, “just in case. We often are filming somewhere really spectacular; you can sort of just nip into the sea for a dip.”
For Hernandez, there is surfing and some water vistas. “A turtle pops up to say hello,” he said. “Or there’s a whale breaching, 500 yards away …. It’s just breathtaking.”