Oakland (Special to ZennieReport.com) – The ION Television TV Show Magnum P.I., or as its referred to in online search for good reasons, The New Magnum P.I.,has had a wild and bumpy ride since it’s debut on September 24, 2018 and its 96th and for now final episode on January 3, 2024.
Along the way, The New Magnum P.I. was one of CBS Television’s most popular shows, lost its original creator and showrunner Peter Lenkov to allegations of a toxic work environment, gained a new showrunner in writer Eric Guggenheim, suffered a weird type of “cancellation” from CBS that caused it to move to NBC, only to eventually be cancelled for yet another crazy reason early in 2024.
The New Magnum P.Ifeaturing the brilliant cast of Jay Hernandez as Thomas Magnum, Perdita Weeks as Juliet Higgins, Zachary Knighton as Orville “Rick” Wright, Stephen Hill as Theodore “T.C.” Calvin, Amy Hill as Teuila “Kumu” Tuileta, and Tim Kang as Gordon Katsumoto, received great ratings on CBS, only to drop considerably after the move to NBC vs. its prior averages on CBS – Magnum P.I. Season 4 averaged 5.2 million viewers and a 0.4 rating.
Still, even with the lower ratings compared to CBS, the second episode of The New Magnum P.I.on NBC managed to win its 10 PM time slot. (Here’s Lenkov, Guggenheim, and the cast of The New Magnum P.I. at 2018 San Diego Comic Con. Please visit Zennie62Media’s new San Diego Comic Con News website here: https://sandiegocomicconnews.com/ )
While it seemed The New Magnum P.I. couldn’t catch a break on network television, it managed to gain a giant set of loyal fans waiting for that day new episodes would appear – somewhere. Meanwhile, those fans are able to catch a steady diet of past programming on ION Television.
But this vlogger and fan of the show wanted to know why The New Magnum P.I went through the afforementioned twists and turns and if there’s a future where it’s fans can see new episodes?
I also wanted to know why The New Magnum P.Itook time to so respectfully and deeply reflect Hawaiian Culture in each episode? In an effort to get answers to those and other questions, I first turned to my friend television writer and showrunner Mark Guggenheim (AKA creator of The Arrowverse along with Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg), who happens to be the brother of The New Magnum P.I Showrunner Eric Guggenheim. Mark said Eric wasn’t into video interviews, but would answered emailed questions. That’s what led to the idea of “10 questions for Magnum P.I. Showrunner Eric Guggenheim”.
Thankfully, Eric was only too happy to take time and answer each one of them.
The New Magnum P.I. Represents Hawaii And Hawaiian Culture
What follows is really something I am delighted to present because my 90-year-old Mom is also a huge fan of The New Magnum P.I and really enjoys how it represents the Hawaii we have traveled to and and the people of Hawaii we have come to have so much love for after so many years and so many visits. Zennie62Media, Inc. thanks Eric for taking his valuable time to do this, and thank you, once again, to Mark for connecting us.
Here’s who Eric Guggenheim is in brief. Eric Guggenheim is an American writer and executive producer based in Los Angeles, California. Mr. Guggenheim was born and raised on Long Island and is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Two years later Eric sold a script, Trim, to Fox 2000 at age 23. Later, he wrote an unproduced drama for Warner Bros. and a one-hour drama pilot for USA Network. Then Mr. Guggenheim wrote the script for Miracle, and later wrote scripts for episodes of TV series’ Parenthood. Then he became writer, executive producer and co-showrunner of the CBS series Hawaii Five-0, and The New Magnum P.I before becoming The New Magnum P.I‘s sole showrunner.
With that, here’s Eric Guggenheim answering the 10 questions.
1. How did your team come to develop the “family feel” I described? Was that intentional, or a byproduct of other story objectives?
Always intentional. Those characters all had a lot of trauma in their past and most of their biological family had passed on. It made sense that they would come together and form a new family.
2. On Magnum P.I. was there a deliberate attempt to reflect Hawaiian Culture from the start, and if so, did you have a research staff devoted to that?
Yes, honoring Hawaiian culture and history was always important. We didn’t have a full-time tech adviser but a lot of our crew were native Hawaiians so there was always someone we could ask. For specific translations, we’d hire someone, usually a local college instructor. For scenes involving traditional ceremonies we cast Kordell Kekoa who is a real Kahu.
3. The cast has a feeling of family. In preparing to shoot the show, did you do anything to foster that feeling like picnics or outings? Or was that just great acting? Or both? Or something else?
We got very lucky with this cast. They bonded immediately and became very tight, even hanging out on their days off and weekends. I think that closeness could be felt on screen.
4. Who came up with the idea of Perdita Weeks’ character Juliet Higgins as a former MI-6 Agent?
In the OG series, Higgins was in the British Army. We didn’t want to give our Higgins a military background because Magnum, Rick and TC were all former military. Giving her background in intelligence gave her a slightly different skill set than Magnum, Rick or TC.
5. Was Perdita Weeks cast as Juliet Higgins because she’s athletic, or was who the character is altered for her build? And what about Stephen Hill’s T.C.’s helper Martin Martinez’ Cade Jensen who becomes kind-of-a-son to him? Was that also part of the assumed “family” theme?
Perdi’s a terrific actress with fantastic range and she and Jay had wonderful chemistry. Those were the most important things. We had no idea she was so athletic. That was a fun discovery. Once we found out she could ride horses and play tennis we worked those things into episodes. She really embraced all the stunt work and fight choreography too. And she’s a very quick study. She had never played golf or fenced but before long but we had her doing both and it looked totally natural.
5. Was the original plan for Jay Hernandez and Ms. Weeks to eventually become a romantic couple, or did that happen after the writers took a look at bringing some “twist” to the story?
That was always the plan. What was less clear was how long it would take. We figured it might take around five seasons and we ended up getting them together at the very end of season 4.
6. How much of the show was shot in Honolulu? How was the City of Honolulu to work with? Were there any tax-incentives that were used for the show?
A lot of it was shot in Honolulu. We were in Waikiki and Waimanalo a lot. We had stages Diamondhead for the first three seasons, along with ones in Kapolei, on the Leeward side. Then all our stage work for the last two seasons was in Kapolei. But truthfully, we went everywhere and used as much of Oahu as we could. The city and state are amazing to work with and yes, there were tax-incentives. On Oahu it’s 22%.
7. Was there a plan to eventually, actually, reveal Robin Masters?
We talked about it a lot but it’s so cast-dependent. We actually thought about introducing him during one of the Afghanistan flashbacks but that never materialized.
8. Can you explain for us the “rights issue” that stopped Magnum P.I. production? Is there anything at all that can be done to repair the problem?
Well, a combination of factors led to the 2nd cancellation. It wasn’t the budget and it wasn’t the creative. It was even the numbers. Shows that are co-productions, like Magnum, simply have a harder time getting renewed than ones that are 100% owned by a network’s sister studio. Magnum also had “split-rights”. CBS had domestic rights to the show and UTV had the foreign. That gets very complicated and can sometimes hurt a series.
9. What should be done to take advantage of the hunger for the return of the show? How about a Magnum P.I. Movie for Netflix?
A movie or shortened season would be fun. In the meantime the show is in syndication on Ion. They run episodes every Friday and I believe a couple on Saturday as well.
10. In closing, what can we fans do to help bring Magnum P.I. back?
The show would need a true domestic streaming deal and then it would have to perform. Magnum has been without a subscriber-based domestic streaming deal since the first cancellation and that really hurt the show more than anything. It was literally the only broadcast show that couldn’t be streamed in the traditional sense. The complicated rights deal made it all but impossible at the time and you can’t grow a series or maintain interest if viewers don’t have a SVOD option like Netflix, Paramount +, Hulu, Prime, etc.