Magnum P.I. reboot showrunner Eric Guggenheim reveals why a cameo from original star Tom Selleck never came to be, though it was considered.
The showrunner of the Magnum P.I. reboot has reflected on Tom Selleck never having a cameo in the show. Selleck starred as Hawaii-based private investigator Thomas Magnum in the original show, which ran on CBS for eight seasons between 1980 and 1988. The show was rebooted in 2018 with Jay Hernandez in the lead role, running for four seasons on CBS before being cancelled, then picked up by NBC for a fifth and final season.
TVLine recently sat down with Magnum P.I. reboot showrunner Eric Guggenheim following the airing of the series finale. He was asked why Selleck never ended up appearing on the show, perhaps as Robin Masters, the mysterious author who, in both iterations of the show, is an unseen presence who allows Magnum to live in his guest house. While Guggenheim says that “we joked about that very early on in the first season,” the cameo was never “a real possibility.” Read his full quote below:
We joked about that very early on in the first season, but we never thought getting him was a real possibility. Was fun to dream about, though.
Tom Selleck’s Post-Magnum P.I. Career Explained
It would have made sense to have Selleck appear as the mysterious Robin Masters, perhaps even wearing his iconic Magnum P.I. Detroit Tigers baseball cap. However, it was ultimately unlikely that the star would have been able to make it to the reboot’s Hawaii filming locations at any point during the run of the show. Although Thomas Magnum is one of his best-known roles, the star has remained consistently busy since the original show first went off the air.
Selleck first parlayed his Magnum P.I. success into a movie career in titles including Three Men and a Baby, Quigley Down Under, and Mr. Baseball, though he also held a significant recurring role on Friends in the late 1990s. When he made a major return to television, he found himself the lead of a long-running Jesse Stone TV movie franchise, starring in nine installments adapted from the works of Robert B. Parker. The final three movies in the franchise also overlapped with his lead role in the ongoing CBS procedural family drama Blue Bloods.
Ultimately, it seems that his role in that show, which is preparing to end with the upcoming Blue Bloods season 14, could be what prevented Selleck from appearing on Magnum P.I. The star hasn’t appeared in a project outside that show since 2015. He has devoted his time to the drama, on which he has now appeared for a whopping total of 275 episodes.