'80s Action Shows

Today I happened to check the TV listings and I discovered something. Something very good. Something that had I not checked today it would have been too late. I discovered that A&E is running a Magnum P.I. marathon tomorrow. Twelve hours of Magnum. Of course I'm taping it. And I'm also taking inspiration from it. I was stuck for an idea of what to write about, now I'm not. Time for a GBU rating of 1980s action shows. And Brian, I'm not including Sledge Hammer because a) it's listed as a comedy and b) I've never seen it.

Magnum P.I.: Naturally I had to start with the inspiration for the entire feature. Magnum P.I. is not only the best action series to air in the 1980s (and none have aged nearly as well), it's one of the best TV shows ever made. Most action series offer plenty of excitement and maybe a little humour, but Magnum offered so much more. The characterization is excellent, the scenery is lush (there's a reason 20 TV shows and over 150 movies have been filmed in Hawaii), and the writing is superb. Some of the episodes are simply brilliant. My personal favourite is "Home from the Sea" which alternates between Thomas lost at sea and treading water to stay alive, his friends searching for him, and flashbacks to his childhood. It's shocking that the series only won two Emmy awards (although it was nominated for many more). My only complaint with the show is Tom Sellick's shorts, which are far too short. But apart from that, the show is very, very Good. Oh, and I'm firmly convinced that Higgins really was Robin Masters.

Simon and Simon: One of the better detective shows to come out of the 80s, Simon and Simon had a good mix action and humour. Now, most of the humour was based around the fact that Rick and A.J. were completely different, but it surprisingly didn't get stale. Okay, so I wrote too much about Magnum P.I. and now I don't have anything left. Sue me. Anyway, Simon and Simon was pretty Good.

Airwolf: Here's the thing. There were two different Airwolfs (or is that Airwolves? I'm not clear on this). The first one was a big budget production, ran from '84 to '86 and starred Jan-Michael Vincent. The second ran only one season and was a Canadian production. Now, I'm a seriously patriotic Canadian, but in the 1980s most Canadian television was pretty bad, especially dramatic Canadian television. The second Airwolf was no exception. It was shot on a low budget and used completely different actors, and I have to wonder who thought making a bad version of a good show was smart. So while the helicopter was really cool, I'm forced to call the whole messy debacle Ugly.

MacGyver: Now, first off MacGyver ran until '92, so it's a bit of a stretch to label it an '80s show, but I pretty much stopped watching it by 1990 because they changed the network it aired on here and I didn't have cable so I couldn't watch it, therefore I'm calling it an '80s show, and this is one serious run on sentence. However much I loved MacGyver when I was a kid, now it seems really silly. The idea of a guy who won't use guns and always comes up with a last minute solution involving duct tape and paper clips was clever, but became seriously contrived when it was done again and again over seven seasons. And the recurring villain Murdoc got to be a bit much, especially when he kept falling off cliffs and being blown up and just wouldn't die. That's Bad.