He’s back, fighting crime in Paradise

Jesse Stone is police chief of a small New England coastal town where mostly nothing happens.

Stuck in Paradise, Mass., Stone is just about bored to death, which gives him ample time to brood about the ex-wife he still loves. Otherwise, he subsists on Scotch whisky, coffee, scowling and impatient sighs.

All in all, he’s not a very pleasant guy to know.

Except he’s played by Tom Selleck, who, of course, is always good company.

Selleck is playing Jesse Stone for a fourth time in “Sea Change,” his new TV movie airing at 9 p.m. Tuesday on CBS. And, as before, he makes Stone someone worth rooting for, particularly when a pair of crises arise that make Paradise even less of a paradise.

Based on the bestselling novels by Robert B. Parker, the “Jesse Stone” franchise began two years ago with “Stone Cold,” followed in 2006 by “Night Passage” and “Death in Paradise.”

“This guy Jesse is a bit of a mess,” says Selleck, his own affable manner in marked contrast to Stone’s. “Jesse doesn’t say how he’s feeling. He doesn’t say what he’s doing. He’s very withholding. So the mystery of each movie, until the plot kicks in, is Jesse.”

There’s a challenge to playing this character, especially for an actor who used his natural charm to great benefit in his breakthrough role as Thomas Magnum, the Vietnam-vet-turned-Hawaii-private-eye.

“Self-pity isn’t a good color to choose if you’re playing a lead who you want people to identify with,” Selleck acknowledges.

“I did an episode of ‘Magnum’ where, for once, he was feeling down and sorry for himself. It was a totally justifiable emotion but a lousy episode” -- Selleck laughs -- “because of the choices I made. And I had enough power where the visiting director wasn’t going to tell me” it was bad.

By now he has learned some different shades. He infuses Stone, however glum, with an endearing trace of irony, a wisp of wry bemusement at his life.

Selleck is busy these days. Continuing to serve as an executive producer, he has a fifth “Jesse Stone” in development. This fall, he’ll join the cast of NBC’s “Las Vegas” as that rollicking drama, set in a lavish casino-resort, starts its fifth season with the departure of cast member James Caan.

Although Selleck is still best-known for the title character of “Magnum, P.I.” (which enjoyed eight hit seasons on CBS in the 1980s), his roles have ranged from Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 2004 A&E; film “Ike: Countdown to D-Day” to his comedic turn as an openly gay TV reporter in the 1997 feature “In & Out.” He was a recurring guest star on “Friends,” starred in several western yarns for TNT and made his Broadway debut in 2001 in the revival of “A Thousand Clowns.”

If there’s a common thread in his performances, he says, it’s his effort “to find the everyman in my characters.”

Everyman?! At age 62, Selleck has retained his good looks: strapping, dimple-cheeked and handsome.

“I’ve tried to work against it,” he insists. “If you’re trivialized and made fun of for it in your early career, like I was, you desperately want to be taken seriously. How I looked lost me more jobs than I got.”

As a teen in Los Angeles, Selleck can recall accepting that “I looked OK, and I had a certain self-confidence in sports. But I was pretty shy. I would have to be fixed up by one of my friends.”

Now, Selleck and Jillie, his wife of nearly 20 years, have a teen of their own, 18-year-old Hannah.

And after a long career, he looks ahead with a sense of readiness -- maybe more than is due for a much-adored star who, at the moment, can boast ongoing projects on two networks.

“In this business, you can get used up,” Selleck notes. “And you never know when you’re used up till you’re used up.”