NBC picks up 'Magnum P.I.' for two seasons

Private investigator Thomas Magnum has been rescued by his fans.

Magnum P.I., canceled in May by CBS after four seasons, has been picked up for two seasons by NBC.

"Thank you to the fans for the tremendous effort. I mean, you guys had petitions going, you got a billboard in Times Square," said Hernandez in a video posted on NBC Entertainment's Twitter feed. "Because of all that noise you made, we now have a new home at NBC. See you in Season 5.”

On his own Twitter feed, Hernandez thanked NBC Universal, as well as executives at CBS, which dropped the show two months ago.

"So many people worked very hard to make this happen. CBS, Universal, Magnum execs & all you fans out there. The tremendous effort paid off in a very unlikely move for any TV show. We can't wait to start filming again," he wrote.

A network picking up a series canceled by another network isn't that unlikely. NBC grabbed Brooklyn Nine-Nine in 2018 after Fox dropped the show. In the history of television, it's happened many times to shows, from The Golden Girls, Taxi, Diff'rent Strokes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Futurama, to Veronica Mars, Last Man Standing, One Day At A Time, Arrested Development, JAG, Manifest, All Rise, Designated Survivor, Nashville, Cougar Town, Gilmore Girls, Scrubs, Roswell, Stargate SG-1, The Expanse and Lucifer.

Magnum P.I., a revival of Tom Selleck's 1980-88 Hawaiian crime drama, debuted in 2018 along with a reboot of Murphy Brown, Cedric the Entertainer's The Neighborhood, FBI and God Friended Me.  Hernandez (Scandal, Nashville, Bad Moms) starred as the new Magnum, a former Navy SEAL who had returned to Hawaii after serving in Afghanistan.

New episodes are not expected to air until at least midseason. TVLine reports that Magnum filming won't resume until fall, while shows premiering in September resume production by early August. TVLine also reports there is "the option for more" than 20 episodes if Magnum is a ratings success.