After being unceremoniously canceled in May, Magnum PI was saved and will now have two more seasons on the air.
The show was one of 14 shows that were canceled the same day the American network CBS tightened its belt before the summer, but has now been resurrected.
according to the deadline (opens in new tab)Universal subsidiary NBC purchased the show and ordered 20 new episodes, which will be split into two seasons, with the option to order more 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 the contractual options they had on the show’s cast, leaving them free to re-sign.
Magnum PI is a reboot of the 1980s series Magnum, PI (note the missing comma in the new show’s title), which starred Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, a former U.S. Navy officer and Vietnam War veteran who wins the life as a private investigator.
Magnum had settled in Oahu, Hawaii, and worked as a gentleman’s private investigator while living in the guest house of a 200-acre beachfront property called Robin’s Nest.
He lived in the house at the invitation of its owner, Robin Masters, a successful novelist, who was voiced by Orson Welles in the original show.
In the reboot, which began in 2018, former 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 primarily employed as a security consultant for Masters, and lives in the guest house on his property, while also working as a private investigator, with a new case to solve each week.
Now he’ll have at least 20 more cases to solve, as long as some of them aren’t two-part…
Why was Magnum PI canceled in the first place?
The show’s cancellation came as 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 ax in the recent wave of cancellations from US networks.
Additionally, Paramount-owned CBS only had domestic rights to the show in the US, meaning the show would not go to Paramount’s Paramount Plus streaming platform in the rest of the world.
With Paramount focused on growing its own platform, spending money doing a show it can’t offer outside the US doesn’t make much sense.
Plus, filming on location in Hawaii, while undoubtedly a very enjoyable experience for the cast and crew, doesn’t come cheap.
None of this will matter to Hernandez and his co-stars – they’ll be happy to get back to solving crimes under the hot Hawaiian sun.
In other cancellation news, Netflix is back…