Here's my review of Magnum P.I. Season One on DVD.

I have recently finished watching my DVD boxed set of season one of Magnum P.I., which is my favorite TV show of all time.

My ratings are on a relative scale of 1 to 10.

EPISODES FROM SEASON ONE:

"Don't Eat The Snow In Hawaii" - My rating: 6: This is the 2 hour pilot. It certainly does a good job of introducing the series and the characters. The story is that one of Magnum’s friends is found dead with a stomach full of burst packets of cocaine. Magnum has to prove that his friend was framed and murdered, and was not a drug smuggler. I like the opening scene a lot, where Magnum has to do a security check that requires him to sneak onto the Robin Masters estate, avoid the dogs, and steal the Ferrari. I also like when Magnum has to sneak into the N.I.A. building. Overall, this episode is pretty average in quality for the series.

"China Doll" - My rating: 7: This is a good action/adventure story. Magnum has to protect an old Chinese vase from a guy who kills with his bare hands. And watch out, because he blinks before he strikes!

"Thank Heaven For Little Girls And Big Ones Too." My rating: 3: Magnum gets hired by 5 little girls to find their missing teacher. This is a Christmas episode, and there’s no violence, and no one gets killed. That’s not a problem, because there are plenty of good episodes without any violence or killings. But the overall story here is lame. However, the switcheroo at the airport towards the end of the episode is very cool.

"No Need To Know." - My rating: 9: This is a great story involving I.R.A. terrorists. Magnum is in charge of protecting a British military officer who is taking a vacation at the Robin Masters estate. Great plot. Lots of intelligent, interesting characters. The car chase towards the end of the episode is the best car chase in the series.

"Skin Deep" - My rating: 7: A woman dies from a shotgun blast to her head, in what looks like a suicide. Magnum thinks that the woman was actually murdered. Magnum also seems to think, "Well, as long as she's dead, I might as well eat the food in her refrigerator." I love Higgins's graphic descriptions of the different effects that shotgun blasts have on the human body when fired from various distances.

"Never Again Never Again" - My rating: 6: An old Jewish married couple whom Magnum is friends with, and who had been in a concentration camp, are worried that the Nazis are after them again.

"The Ugliest Dog In Hawaii" - My rating: 3: Actually, the dog looks fine to me. I like the old mafia guy. And I like how Magnum talks the marijuana growers out of shooting him by pretending to be another marijuana grower, and then tells them that the mafia guys are really D.E.A. agents, so the marijuana growers end up shooting at the mafia guys. But other than that, there isn’t much in this episode that I especially like.

"Missing In Action" - My rating: 2: A mysterious plot involving a woman with apparent psychic ability and the military doesn't save this relatively boring episode.

"Lest We Forget" - My rating: 5: A woman hires Magnum to find someone whom she hasn’t seen since December 7, 1941. This episode treads kind of close to formula, except that the specific details do make it interesting, and all the characters are interesting, too.

"The Curse Of The King Kamehameha Club" - My rating: 4: Some old Hawaiian guy puts a curse on the King Kamehameha Club, and people start dying. A TV reporter tries to blame the deaths on Magnum.

"Thicker Than Blood" My rating: 4: T.C. helps to sneak one of his old military buddies into the U.S. The heroin junkie in this episode is really pathetic, and he gets way too much screen time. It is interesting to see Magnum and T.C. in a fistfight with each other.

"All Roads Lead To Floyd" - My rating: 1: The Floyd guy is such an awful character, that he ruins the episode. He’s a terrible driver who swerves in and out of traffic and causes lots of accidents. In addition, he’s a con artist, but he’s not an interesting con artist. There’s also a separate con going on which is a really stupid pyramid scheme, where people are promised $50,000 in the future if they give $1,000 now, but a lot of people are dumb enough to fall for it. Magnum’s female client is an idiot. This episode has too many characters who are stupid morons.

"Adelaide" My rating: 5: Magnum is hired to be bodyguard for a very expensive horse. A man tries to kill the horse for the insurance money, but the horse defends himself and kills the man.

"Don't Say Goodbye" My rating: 6: The old woman who hires Magnum is very interesting. The Ted Danson character gets killed by a boat propeller

"The Black Orchid" - My rating: 9: A rich, bored housewife hires Magnum to play games, such as having Magnum act like a Bogart type P.I. while she plays the damsel in distress. I’ve seen the edited for syndication version of this episode on TV over a dozen times, and I always loved it. Watching this DVD was the first time that I ever saw the opening scene with the airplane, and this scene makes the episode a lot better. I always liked this episode a lot, but seeing the full version makes it so much better. That opening scene is one of the best opening scenes of the series, and I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing on the screen. This episode is a very nice tribute to old, classic movies. Guest actress Judith Chapman is an extremely good actress. (She will return to play a different character in the season 2 episode “The Woman on the Beach.”)

"J. Digger Doyle" - My rating: 8: Higgins gets kidnapped. We get to see and hear Robin Masters in this episode, and I like how he gets writing ideas from everyday occurrences. I love the rivalry between Magnum and the female security expert. Magnum’s music collection includes Styx, Blondie, and Jefferson Airplane, and also Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.

"Beauty Knows No Pain" My rating: 5: Magnum participates in an athletic competition that requires him to swim 5 miles, run 26 miles, and bicycle 100 miles. He also has to find a woman’s fiance, who had stolen a bunch of money from the mob.

BONUS MATERIAL

“Ki’s Don’t Lie” - My rating: 6: this is an episode from season 3 of Magnum P.I.. It was a crossover with the TV show Simon and Simon. People are dying because they touched an ancient religious idol. A con artist steals a bunch of money from a fundraiser for orphans. The DVD contains the original broadcast version of “Ki’s Don’t Lie,” which has a cliffhanger ending where the con artist escapes to South America.

“Emeralds Are Not A Girl’s Best Friend” - My rating: 2: This is an episode of Simon and Simon, and is a really bad continuation of the story that was started in “Ki’s Don’t Lie.” This is just too cheesy. Higgins goes to South America to help Simon and Simon recover the stolen money from the con artist. (For the syndicated version of the Magnum P.I. episode “Ki’s Don’t Lie,” they filmed a separate ending where the con artist gets caught, which makes the syndicated version of the “Ki’s Don’t Lie” episode self contained. I prefer the self contained ending of “Ki’s Don’t Lie,” instead of the Simon and Simon episode.)

“Echoes of the Mind Part I” - My rating: 10: This episode is from season 5 of Magnum P.I. Sharon Stone plays twins in this episode. One of the twins is nice and kind and sweet, and the other twin is the character that Sharon Stone usually plays. They were both kidnapped at age 5, and their father paid $1 million ransom to get them back. Their kidnapper was never caught. This originally aired in 1984, so you can see what Sharon Stone was like several years before she became famous. Magnum falls very much in love with the nice twin. Note that the music during the opening scene is from the movie Blade Runner. Magnum has sex with Sharon Stone in the shower. Note how Magnum looks up and down at her naked body right after she enters the shower.

“Echoes of the Mind Part II.” - My rating: 10: This really is a separate episode, because it originally aired a week after part 1. Magnum learns a lot more about the twins. This is a very disturbing story of child molestation, and the resulting psychological problems that result from it. This is a very sad, scary story of mental illness. One of the saddest endings of any episode of any TV show ever.