I Love Magnum P.I.

In college, I got addicted to the Magnum P.I. re-runs. It was my senior year, so studying was clearly residing solidly on the back-burner.

My favorite episode is the one where he falls off his surf-ski and treads water for days, weeks, months even! - sharks and all. I love the flashbacks to Nam and how he has that cool watch from his father.

The flash-backs in this episode are perhaps the best flash-backs of all time. My favorite is when the camera would focus on his watch and it was crusted with sea salt and he would wipe it off to see how long he had been treading water for and then it would cut to a flash-back scene when he was wiping mud off the watch while he was shooting up the Viet Cong in the rice paddies of Viet-fucking-nam.

I think this is also the episode when there’s a flash-back to his father’s funeral. It was a full on JFK junior at dads funeral type of deal. A young Magnum is saluting the casket, and the watch is too big for his 12 year old wrist, and the watch slowly rocks back in forth bringing back images of a cradle gently rocking back and forth and the security that the cradle (watch) provides a child. The metaphor is out of control. Tears in my eyes.

Don't even get me started on how fast he can pick a lock!