The Best Episodes of Magnum, P.I.
Every episode of Magnum, P.I. ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Magnum, P.I.!
A private investigator who works when he wants, lives in a beachfront estate in Hawaii, drives a posh Ferrari, runs up an unlimited tab at a swank bar, and charms attractive women in peril - that's the lifestyle of Thomas Magnum, aka Magnum, P.I.
Top Episode Ratings Summary
The best episode of "Magnum, P.I." is "Did You See the Sunrise? (1)", rated 9/10 from 779 user votes. It was directed by Ray Austin and written by N/A. "Did You See the Sunrise? (1)" aired on 9/30/1982 and is rated 0.0 point(s) higher than the second highest rated, "Limbo".
9.0/10 779 votes#1 - Did You See the Sunrise? (1)
Season 3 Episode 1 - Aired 9/30/1982
First part of what was originally shown as a feature-length story. Nuzo, an old war comrade of T.C. and Magnum's, suddenly arrives in Hawaii, and finds T.C. to warn him that Colonel Ivan, a sadistic Russian agent who once held them captive and tortured them in a P.O.W. camp in Vietnam, is after them. At first, T.C. puts his old buddy's fears down to delayed stress, but it gradually begins to seem that there might be some truth in his claims. Meanwhile, Lt. MacReynolds resigns from the Navy, and Magnum lets him stay with him for a few days, but a fatal accident meant for Thomas - as yet unaware of Nuzo's warnings - adds ground to the fears that maybe Ivan is on the trail after all...
Director: Ray Austin
Writer: N/A
9.0/10 1 votes#2 - Limbo
Season 7 Episode 22 - Aired 4/15/1987
Thomas is delivering key evidence at the courthouse when he is shot in the parking lot by a hitman. In a coma, Thomas needs to save Michelle from some killers, and meets up with the ghost of his former Naval buddy Mac. Then he bids each of his friends a personal goodbye, in case he doesn't make it.
Director: Jackie Cooper
Writer: Jay Huguely, Chris Abbott
8.8/10 430 votes#3 - Forty
Season 7 Episode 17 - Aired 2/11/1987
Thomas is in Chinatown with Rick and T.C. celebrating his upcoming fortieth birthday, but he has little to celebrate when he loses his lucky $2 bill that his Grandpa gave him as a boy. While looking for it, he meets a beautiful woman who may cost him not just his lucky bill, but his heart -- and possibly his life.
Director: Russ Mayberry
Writer: N/A
8.7/10 372 votes#4 - A.A.P.I.
Season 7 Episode 5 - Aired 10/22/1986
At the 14th Annual Convention of Private Investigators, Magnum is to receive the 'Local P.I. of the Year' award, but the event is brought to a halt when Jean Claude Fornier, the famous French Detective, suddenly drops dead while giving a speech, after being poisoned. Magnum is helped - or rather, hindered - by several fellow crime-busting acquaintances as he seeks the murderer, and becomes entangled with a gang of drug smugglers, that the Inspector was hunting before he was killed...
Director: Russ Mayberry
Writer: N/A
8.7/10 399 votes#5 - The People vs. Orville Wright
Season 7 Episode 21 - Aired 4/1/1987
When Ice Pick suddenly vanishes, Rick insists that Thomas find him. But things get complicated when Rick is arrested for allegedly killing a hitman who was contracted to murder Ice Pick -- and readily admits to the crime.
Director: Burt Brinckerhoff
Writer: N/A
8.7/10 319 votes#6 - Unfinished Business
Season 8 Episode 8 - Aired 1/20/1988
Magnum prepares for the trial of Quang Ki, who attempted to kill both him and his family. But when the case is suddenly, unexpectedly acquitted, angered Thomas suspects some other hand is behind Ki's release. It becomes evident that his arch-nemesis will stop at nothing to destroy Thomas and his family, when he receives a video-tape containing terrible information about the fate of his former wife and young daughter. As Thomas plans his revenge against Ki, he is thrust into a quagmire of intrigue endangering a sensitive P.O.W. prisoner exchange programme...
Director: Russ Mayberry
Writer: Chris Abbott, Jeri Taylor
8.6/10 538 votes#7 - Home From the Sea
Season 4 Episode 1 - Aired 9/29/1983
It's the 4th of July, and Higgins is playing in a polo match, T.C. is taking his baseball team to a professional game, Rick is out with his latest girlfriend on the King Kamehameha II yacht, and Thomas is observing his annual Independence Day tradition of a solitary day at sea -- until his surf ski is capsized in the wake of a recklessly driven speedboat and set adrift. Carried off further and further away from land by the powerful Molokai Channel, Thomas relies on childhood memories of his father's training him to tread water to keep himself afloat as he struggles desperately to stay above water and fend off a menacing shark. As the hours pass, Higgins, T.C. and Rick each have a sixth sense that Thomas is in trouble, and they team up to rescue him. Thomas approaches the twenty-four hour mark in the water recalling his wedding to Michelle and his father's burial -- on July 4, 1951 -- as Higgins scoops him out of the ocean, with T.C. in his helicopter overhead and Rick on the yacht near
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.6/10 274 votes#8 - Tigers Fan
Season 8 Episode 4 - Aired 11/4/1987
Lieutenant Tanaka is murdered while working undercover. The official Police report states that Tanaka died in a car accident, but Thomas believes that something is being covered up, and sets about trying to answer the many questions about his friend Tanaka's death, uncovering switched identities and drug-running in the process...
Director: Harry Harris
Writer: N/A
8.5/10 317 votes#9 - Death and Taxes
Season 7 Episode 6 - Aired 10/29/1986
It is almost the 4th of July, and Higgins heads to Maui for an annual writers conference, and Rick and T.C. take a trip away, leaving Thomas on the Estate to face the horror of his tax audit. But that's nothing compared to the terror yet to come when Magnum becomes the focus of a crazed, obsessed killer, who repeatedly phones him with cryptic nursery rhyme riddles of upcoming killings. At first he thinks it is a crank caller, but the full reality of the sitution hits home when a prostitute is murdered in circumstances reflecting the clues given, and the menacing calls continue, with the deranged killer boasting about his crimes and giving clues of the next one...
Director: Alan J. Levi
Writer: N/A
8.5/10 322 votes#10 - Little Girl Who
Season 7 Episode 7 - Aired 11/5/1986
Magnum's ex-wife Michelle leaves her five-year-old daughter Lily to be safeguarded by Thomas, as she escapes Vietnamese assassins out to kill her and her husband, General Hue. As Thomas watches over the child, he begins to wonder why Michelle has suddenly left Lily with him and if Lily is his own daughter, and once again sets about trying to track down his elusive former wife.
Director: Ray Austin
Writer: N/A
8.5/10 328 votes#11 - Infinity and Jelly Doughnuts
Season 8 Episode 1 - Aired 10/7/1987
Thomas lies hospitalized in a coma, caught between life and death, after being shot; as his friends and family attempt to pull him out of the limbo in which he is trapped, Thomas has an out-of-body experience in which he sees himself in heaven, guided by Mac; Thomas recovers physically from the gunshot wound in time, but finds it hard to face life again; although three of the criminals who almost killed him are already dead, one is still free.
Director: N/A
Writer: Chris Abbott
8.4/10 343 votes#12 - Resolutions (2)
Season 8 Episode 13 - Aired 5/1/1988
As Rick's wedding looms ever closer, Thomas continues surveillance on Linda to catch the psychopathic killer who is stalking her; T.C. faces a reconciliation with his estranged wife; Thomas gets surprising news about his theory that Higgins is really Robin Masters, as well as the true fate of Lily.
Director: Burt Brinckerhoff
Writer: Chris Abbott
8.3/10 513 votes#13 - J. "Digger" Doyle
Season 1 Episode 17 - Aired 4/9/1981
Magnum tries to impress a beautiful "fan" of Robin's that he befriends, by showing her the Robin Masters estate, only to learn that she is actually a top security expect hired by Robin to test the estate's security. The security company she works for has been hired after Robin's life is threatened if he publishes his latest manuscript; and with him heading for one of three possible locations to collect some dictation tapes, she asks Magnum's co-operation in seeing that the estate is on top security in case it is the destination he's heading for. With the additional aid of T.C. and Rick, Robin's Nest is soon turned into a heavily guarded fortress, but there are parties out trying to see that Robin never makes it to his destination.
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Writer: Donald P. Bellisario
8.3/10 360 votes#14 - Operation: Silent Night
Season 4 Episode 10 - Aired 12/15/1983
It is Christmas Eve, and T.C. is flying Rick to judge a beauty pageant, Thomas to play Santa Claus at a charity event, and Higgins to deliver a payroll to some of Robin Master's workers, before he goes home to spend Christmas with his family in New Orleans. But the helicopter suddenly develops problems and they are forced to make an emergency landing on nearby deserted Frenchman's Island. The remote isle is used by the Navy for shelling manoeuvres – and as the foursome try to find a way to safely make it off of the island, hopefully in time for Christmas, a Naval Captain, unaware of their presence, is hell-bent on upping his ship's target practice scores, and a shelling on the island is imminent...
Director: Michael Vejar
Writer: Chris Abbott
8.3/10 349 votes#15 - Resolutions (1)
Season 8 Episode 12 - Aired 5/1/1988
Thomas ponders his future while paying a visit to his family in Virginia, where he unexpectedly meets his grandfather and considers an offer to be reinstated to the Navy; Thomas returns to Hawaii to ascertain whether former girlfriend Linda Lee Ellison is being stalked; Rick prepares for his wedding to Cleo; Thomas and Linda renew their relationship as he searches for her stalker; Thomas becomes increasingly certain that his daughter Lily may still be alive.
Director: Burt Brinckerhoff
Writer: Chris Abbott
8.2/10 565 votes#16 - Lest We Forget
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 2/12/1981
Magnum is hired by a Supreme Court nominee to find the woman he married forty years ago, in 1941, on the eve of the raid on Pearl Harbour. He was a young Navy Ensign, she was a prostitute, and after their marriage they subsequently became separated in the bombings, with the Judge presuming her dead - until recently, after he has started receiving blackmail threats relating to an incident forty years ago... Magnum's investigations into the case are helped by the fact that Higgins wants a favour, and is being overly nice and co-operative in return...
Director: Lawrence Doheny
Writer: N/A
8.2/10 544 votes#17 - Memories Are Forever (1)
Season 2 Episode 5 - Aired 11/5/1981
While working on a routine divorce case, Thomas catches a brief glimpse of a woman on a passing boat that he is certain is Michelle, the girl he married during the Vietnam war seven years ago, and whom he previously believed to have been killed shortly afterwards in a bombing raid. All he has of the brisk sighting is some blurred photos he managed to take, and T.C. and Rick, whilst not completely convinced, help as he scours the local area looking for her. But there are several parties that intend to see that Thomas is unable to make contact with Michelle, and the search sees them stumbling into dangerous political territory.
Director: Ray Austin
Writer: N/A
8.2/10 385 votes#18 - Heal Thyself
Season 3 Episode 12 - Aired 12/16/1982
When Karen Harmon, a nurse whom Magnum knew in Vietnam whom was once traumatised when a wounded soldier she was treating was killed in a bombing, and is now a doctor, is accused of the murder of three patients in her care, he is determined to help her clear her name. All but one of the entire hospital board believe her to be guilty, and when his offer of help is rejected by Karen and her now husband, Thomas feels compelled to look into the case anyway. A hounding reporter determined for a story does not help the issue; and the whole matter only serves to trigger off delayed stress syndrome for Karen from that fateful bombing in 'Nam...
Director: Leo Penn
Writer: N/A
8.2/10 318 votes#19 - Little Games
Season 5 Episode 12 - Aired 1/3/1985
Higgins is outraged when Thomas's game playing crashes the estate's security computer system, thereby jeopardizing the selection of the estate for an upcoming multi-million dollar jewelery design competition; Thomas enlists Mac's help in reprogramming the computer in exchange for bailing him out of jail after he's been arrested for possession of stolen goods; after challenging Krista, the insurance company's wily security investigator who learned her trade at the knee of her jewel thief father, to test the Estate's security system after Mac gets the system up and running again, Thomas discovers that Mac has greatly overstated his programming abilities and that Krista has greatly understated her father's retirement.
Director: Arthur Allan Seidelman
Writer: N/A
8.2/10 330 votes#20 - Deja Vu (1)
Season 6 Episode 1 - Aired 9/26/1985
Magnum and Higgins travel to London, England to oversee the establishment of Robin Master's new castle, Robin's Keep, in time for a large banquet. While Higgins is busy training Ian MacKerras for the running of the castle, Thomas takes the opportunity to visit Geoffrey St. Clare, an old friend from Vietnam, but upon arrival, Geoffrey's wife Penelope informs him that Geoffrey has been killed, after being run down in a hit-and-run incident with a black Jaguar. But there is mystery surrounding the death - Geoffrey was supposed to be in France, and the circumstances suggest that, far from being an accident, the death was deliberate murder.The events of Geoffrey's killing seem to be echoing a disturbing, bizarre dream that Magnum had on the journey to England...
Director: Russ Mayberry
Writer: Chris Abbott
8.1/10 374 votes#21 - ...By Its Cover
Season 3 Episode 21 - Aired 3/31/1983
Rod Crysler, Thomas's Navy buddy, is on parole and working as an encyclopedia salesman after serving time in California on a marijuana possession charge. The corrupt narcotics officer who arrested Rod follows him to Hawaii and threatens to send him back to prison on trumped up charges unless Rod serves a drug courier for him. Thomas offers to help his buddy out by delivering a box of encyclopedias Rod has sold, but comes in for a rude awakening when it turns out the package was filled with dope, not books, and that Rod has shortchanged one of the biggest dealers on the island. Finding it hard to believe that his friend is a dope dealer, Thomas seeks the help of Rod's parole officer in locating him and setting up a sting to ensnare the corrupt cop and the drug dealer, thereby clearing Rod's name.
Director: Michael Vejar
Writer: N/A
8.1/10 294 votes#22 - Under World
Season 5 Episode 5 - Aired 10/25/1984
As he's about to take off after delivering a pair of newlyweds to Maui, T.C. is offered a lot of money to deliver a briefcase to Oahu. On his approach to the Island Hoppers headquarters, he loses control of his helicopter and crashes into the ocean. After being rescued by fishermen, T.C. is rushed to the hospital, where he remains in a coma with his brother Gerald at his side. When the Coast Guard is in no rush to investigate what they consider to be a simple accident, Thomas and Gerald investigate the chopper's wreckage and discover that it was shot down. Thomas, Higgins, Rick and Gerald put their own lives in jeopardy as they set out to find who's responsible for T.C.'s near-fatal crash.
Director: Ivan Dixon
Writer: N/A
8.1/10 311 votes#23 - Murder 101
Season 5 Episode 8 - Aired 11/15/1984
At the urging of the students in the private investigation class that Thomas is teaching at a local college, Thomas takes on the investigation into the disappearance of a fellow student's fiancé as the class's field work. The teacher and his pupils soon discover that while the student's fears that her fiancé is having an affair are unfounded, this anything-but-textbook case involves a man sought after by both sides of the law for trying to prevent a crime.
Director: Ivan Dixon
Writer: N/A
8.1/10 299 votes#24 - All For One (1)
Season 5 Episode 15 - Aired 1/31/1985
First in a two-part story. Tyler McKinney, an old commando acquaintance, asks Thomas, Rick and T.C. to help him rescue a buddy who is held prisoner after being captured in Chong Ker, Cambodia. The three have no reason to like or trust McKinney after he involved them in a dubious mission in Vietnam, but individually they all eventually agree to help him on the mission. They head off to Cambodia, with the unexpected accompaniment of Higgins, but the mission has dangerous consequences in store for Rick...
Director: Michael Vejar
Writer: N/A
8.1/10 319 votes#25 - Round and Around
Season 6 Episode 6 - Aired 10/24/1985
Ron Pennington, a friend of T.C.'s and Magnum's on their basketball team, is shot dead when interrupting an armed grocery store hold-up. T.C., waiting outside for his friend, gets a fleeting look at the robbers as they make their getaway. T.C. tries to mend the rift in Ron's family between Ron and his wayward teenage son that had emerged before Ron's death, as he and Thomas search for the robbers who they assume were responsible for their friend's murder...
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A