The 1980s CBS television series Magnum, P.I. was created to take advantage of the Hawaiian facilities built by CBS to produce Hawaii 5-0. On the surface, Magnum was a standard private eye drama, starring preternaturally handsome Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum. The series' early success started a boomlet of crime dramas with good-looking male leads. However, it was the underlying subtext that set Magnum apart—the Vietnam veteran as hero. While Magnum was not the first series to feature Vietnam vets, it was the first to have Vietnam as a subtext, and the show set off a mid-1980s trend of heroes with Vietnam backgrounds, including The A-Team, Riptide, Stingray, and Miami Vice. Previously portrayed mostly as victims of post-traumatic stress, the success of these series changed the way Vietnam was viewed, at least in popular culture.

In the pilot, which aired December...