Had it come out in the 90s, Tom Magnum would have been a paranoid character fighting off the nightmares that plague him for all eternity after losing half his men in combat, or being the last man left in his squad.
And had it come out today, he'd be almost perfect, struggling never, with no character development. Stagnate, boring, with no growth to speak of. He'd be right all the time and end each episode political statement... like the New Magnum does.
Instead he was written in the 80s, and he is kind of a mooch, but a charismatic one. He struggles and overcomes, his relationship with his friends grows and evolves, and he deals with Vietnam and flashbacks in a realistic and functioning way.
He is capable of screwing up and fixing his mistakes. He is light and comical and void of an agenda. And he has friends that will unquestioningly follow him into a bar room brawl just because, well, that's what real friends do.
It makes everything fun and relatable, it makes the show more down to earth and realistic that it would have been in following decades. And that goes double when its a story that involves an expensive sports car... which, to make it believable, he doesn't own.
