CBS has picked up a reboot of the 1980s private eye series Magnum P.I. for its fall lineup. The original series, which starred Tom Selleck, ran from 1980 to 1988, and became part of pop-culture lore. Everything from the series theme to Selleck's mustache to his Ferrari, ball caps, Hawaiian shirts, and even the semi-mysterious caretaker, Higgins, who looked after the grand estate at which Thomas Magnum lived, was ubiquitous at the time and, today, is still referenced in modern series like Family Guy.

The series, set in Hawaii, focused on Magnum taking cases and working with his two friends, T.C. and Rick, who, with the P.I., are Vietnam vets occasionally dealing with the loss and enjoying the camaraderie that comes with that harrowing experience.

The new CBS series will be very similar. In this go-round, however, the characters are vets of the Afghanistan war, according to EW. Magnum (Jay Hernandez) is a Navy SEAL, as he was originally, and his two friends, as named above, have not changed. Higgins, a British army sergeant major, originally played by John Hillerman, will get a gender change in the 2018 series: Played by Perdita Weeks (Ready Player One, The Tudors), she's now a disavowed MI:6 agent.


Along with Magnum, P.I., CBS picked up three other hour-long drama series, two of them co-produced by Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter, producers of the former CBS series Supergirl, which is now on the CW (along with Arrow and other DC universe series on which they also have producing duties). In one of the new series, an atheist is "friended" by someone identified as "God" on social media. His life is soon turned upside down as he becomes an "agent of change" and, presumably, force of good, in the lives of the people around him. The series, entitled God Friended Me, explores both faith and science, according to the series description.

Also coming to CBS from Schecter and Berlanti, along with Ava DuVarney, is The Red Line, a much more serious drama confronting what happens following an accidental shooting of a black doctor by a white police officer. The series will give viewers three perspectives, telling the story from the lives of three families affected by the shooting. A third hour-long series seems to be in the NCIS mold. It finds several marines, each one with a different sort of law-related specialty - prosecutor, defense lawyer, investigator - working cases each week.

Magnum P.I. is expected to debut this fall and is being developed by Peter Lenkov, who steered the successful Hawaii Five-O reboot, and, along with Eric Guggenheim, rebooted MacGyver. Those series go into their ninth and third seasons respectively later this year.