I wrote a few weeks ago about a birthday present in the form of the 1980's Magnum P.I. DVD series. That was good timing, since I found on the news that Tom Selleck, star of the series, is currently starring in some other new police/detective show. Apparently he caused a stir by saying he wasn't going to approach the BLM issue from the 'Cops as mass murdering psycho Nazi killers' perspective. If it was approached it would be balanced, and not anti-cop/anti-American propaganda.
That alone was enough to make Mr. Selleck go up one notch on my respect meter. Beyond that, it turns out he's also a professed Christian. Granted, I know little about him. In the 80s, during the majority of Magnum's run, Selleck was the global sex symbol against which all sex symbols were measured. He had replaced Burt Reynolds, who had dominated the late 1970s as America's big heartthrob. If anything, Selleck appeared even bigger, and during the mid-80s, it seemed like he was everywhere.
Naturally, being a sex symbol, one assumed his lifestyle and moral groundings were not exactly Bible camp informed. I don't know if he converted later in life, fell away as an adult, or anything really. I just saw this article in which he openly credits Jesus Christ for the blessings of his life. In this day and age, that would be like openly crediting Stalin back in the 1950s.
Of course this doesn't mean he's my hero now, or I assume he's perfect, or I take him as the fourth member of the Holy Trinity. It's just nice to see someone who has already taken a moral stance against the prevailing winds of evil in our modern age come out and drop the J-Word.
Blue Bloods is the name of the show, my parents like to watch it. It is pretty conservative in that each episode having a family dinner scene (often with prayer).
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, in the previous post we were discussing you mentioned: "But not with the Inquisitorial finger of today's productions. I mean, Higgins simply wouldn't be - a veteran of Britain's colonial army? That alone would keep him from being portrayed (even by a Texan)."
Well... one way we can find out? They actually rebooted Magnum PI 2 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_P.I._(2018_TV_series)
So, time to do a compare contrast to see how the classic and modern series compare, eh?
(I think you can catch an episode or two here.)
I lost it when, of course, the Higgins character had to be a woman. Not that I hate women. But as John C. Wright points out, reality suggests simply making a man's part into a woman's part should entail more than just changing sexes. And yet it seldom does.
DeleteThe funny thing is, Magnum was of its time. You can't just recapture that and expect the same results at a later time. Of course things would be different if done in a modern setting. A WWII vet would be too old to be part of the daily action. Higgin's character (which was obviously popular as he became the focus of more and more episodes) was also a good way for the writers to explore the 'sins of the West', albeit through Brit eyes.
Fun fact, I remember hearing that Hillerman was given some award by a Britain film institute for most convincing fake Brit accent by an American actor. They said unlike most Americans, who will try some Liverpudlian or Cockney version of an accent, Hillerman chose the equivalent of a 'Midwest' English accent, thus making it a thousand times more convincing. I actually remember an evening news story from way back then in which the focus was on Magnum, and one of the things they said was that many fans were shocked to discover Hillerman wasn't really British.
Exactly. I do not get this producer's insistence on rebooting 80s classic TV shows that were very much of their time. The only one I could possibly see working would have been MacGyver if you at least bring back Richard Dean Anderson to play the father of the main character who is carrying on his father's work.
DeleteBut then modern entertainment seems to have problems nowadays with legacies and the idea of respecting what came before.