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No, read it now, Tom.” The article was titled “Magnum, the Champagne of TV?” In a typical television series, the professor wrote, “Each episode stands by itself. Characters and situations develop only slightly, if at all.” But Magnum was different. “Its creators have established and refined a new television form that stands between the traditional self-contained episodic forms and the open-ended serials. Call it the ‘cumulative narrative.’ One episode’s events can greatly affect later events, but they’re seldom directly tied together. Each week’s program is distinct, yet each is grafted onto the body of the series, its characters’ pasts.” Magnum was all about memory and storytelling, according to Newcomb. He singled out the show’s voice-over narration, which he said provided “a central perspective and permit[ted] Magnum’s ongoing moral dialogue with himself.” And all of it, the professor said, was true to the post-Vietnam world that Americans found themselves living in.
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