After being unceremoniously canceled back in May, Magnum P.I. has been saved and will now get two further seasons on the air.
The show was one of 14 shows that were axed on the same day as US network CBS tightened its belt ahead of the summer, but it’s now been resurrected.
According to Deadline (opens in new tab), Universal subsidiary NBC has picked up the show, and has ordered 20 new episodes, which will be split over two seasons, with an option to order further episodes. The show is broadcast on Sky in the UK, and on Binge and Foxtel Now in Australia.
The report adds that in anticipation of the show’s resurrection, CBS Studios, which co-produces the series with Universal TV, did not extend contractual options they had on the show’s cast, leaving them free to sign on once again.
Magnum P.I. is a reboot of the 1980s series Magnum, P.I. (note the missing comma in the new show’s title), which starred Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, a former US Navy officer and Vietnam War veteran making his living as a private investigator.
Magnum had settled on Oahu, Hawaii and worked as a gentlemen private investigator, while living in the guest house of a 200-acre beachfront estate called Robin’s Nest.
He lived in the house at the invitation of its owner, Robin Masters, a successful romance novelist, who was famously voiced by Orson Welles in the original show.
In the reboot, which began life in 2018, one-time Hang Time and Suicide Squad star Jay Hernandez plays Magnum, who in this incarnation is a former Navy SEAL.
As with the original, Magnum is principally employed as a security consultant for Masters, and lives in the guest house on his estate, while also working as a private investigator, with a new case to solve each week.
Now he’ll get at least 20 more cases to solve, providing some of them aren’t two-parters…
Why was Magnum P.I. canceled in the first place?
The show’s cancelation was a surprise, with each of its four seasons proving popular with viewers, as shown by its status as the most-watched broadcast series to get the axe in the US networks’ recent spate of cancelations.
As well as that, CBS, which is owned by Paramount, only had domestic rights over the show in the US, meaning that the show would not go to Paramount’s streaming platform Paramount Plus in the rest of the world.
With Paramount focused on growing its own platform, spending money making a show it can’t offer up outside the US doesn’t make a great deal of sense.
As well as that, shooting on location in Hawaii, while undoubtedly a very pleasurable experience for the cast and crew, doesn’t come cheap.
None of that will matter to Hernandez and his co-stars though – they’ll just be glad to get back to solving crimes under the hot Hawaiian sun.
In other canceling news, Netflix is at it again…
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