‘Magnum P.I.’ Tackles a Mystery From Beyond the Grave on Monday Night

This week’s episode of Magnum P.I. features legendary performer Ben Vereen in a case involving a message from a woman thought to be dead for three decades.

In “Death Is Only Temporary,” Vereen plays Henry Brown, an aging Hawaii tycoon who believes he just received a message from his long lost love. Unfortunately, the woman died 30 years ago, and he enlists Thomas Magnum (Jay Hernandez) to get to the bottom of the situation.

Meanwhile, Rick (Zachary Knighton) and TC (Stephen Hill) meet a Kenny “Shammy” Shamberg (guest star Christopher Thornton), fellow military veteran who is struggling with adjusting to civilian life.

The preview for “Death Is Only Temporary” also confirms that Hawaii Five-0 medical examiner Noelani Cunha (Kimee Balmilero) will be making another appearance. She stopped by in the pilot and also appeared in last week’s episode, “Sudden Death.”

This is the second consecutive episode to feature a major guest star. Last week’s episode featured Cyndi Lauper, who guest starred as Vanessa Nyro, a lawyer who made the case Magnum was working harder than it needed to be.

Vereen is best known for his work on television and the stage. He has Emmy nominations for his roles in the 1977 iconic miniseries Roots and the 1992 miniseries Ellis Island. More recent TV credits include Amazon’s Sneaky Pete, Fox’s Making History and CBS’ How I Met Your Mother. He also starred in Fox’s made-for-TV remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Magnum P.I. has done well in the ratings for CBS. Last week’s episode pulled in 5.63 million viewers and a 0.8 18-49 rating, reports TV By The Numbers. That was a down one-tenth in the key demographic compared to the previous week.

Back on Oct. 19, CBS gave Magnum P.I. a full 22-episode season. The series is the latest reboot for the network, and is inspired by the 1980’s Tom Selleck series.

Like the original series, Magnum is a private investigator in Hawaii who lives in a guest home owned by the unseen Robin Masters. Higgins (Perdita Weeks) is Masters’ caretaker and often argues with Magnum. However, the two do see eye-to-eye when it comes to catching bad guys and often end up helping each other.

Although the show follows the format from the Selleck series, Hernandez and executive producer Peter M. Lenkov have worked hard to establish their own show.

“They didn’t have to sell me on the character,” Hernandez told Collider. “I was on board with that. Learning about how they were going to capture the character and put it on screen, and not do Tom Selleck, I thought was important.”

New episodes of Magnum P.I. air on CBS Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.

Photo credit: CBS