With the cancellation of the long-running Hawaii Five-O, CBS was stuck with two valuable commodities: the series' choice Thursday-night time slot, and the series' filming facilities on the island of Oahu. The solution? Commission another Hawaii-based detective show and schedule it in the old Thursday-evening berth. And that, boys and girls, was how Magnum, P.I. came to be. Tom Selleck starred as Thomas Magnum, a Vietnam veteran formerly with the Naval Intelligence service. Now a private eye with very rarefied tastes, Magnum was hired to handle security for a reclusive mystery writer named Robin Masters, who maintained a lavish estate on the "gold coast" of Oahu.
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