Will Magnum P.I. Be Renewed For Season 6 To Hit A Major Milestone? Here's What Jay Hernandez Told Us
Magnum P.I. will reach 100 episodes if it returns for Season 6, and star Jay Hernandez weighed in on what the future holds.
The first half of Magnum P.I.’s fifth season came to an action-packed ending with the midseason finale that involved some tough realizations for Magnum himself ahead of new problems for when the show returns. Originally, Magnum P.I. was rescued by NBC for a fifth and sixth season after being cancelled by CBS, but that has since changed into one longer Season 5. For now, there’s no confirmation of whether or not a Season 6 will happen, and star Jay Hernandez recently spoke with CinemaBlend about the future of the series and the 100-episode milestone that it’s approaching.
As of the spring finale on April 23, a total of 86 episodes of Magnum P.I. have aired. When speaking about the spring finale, Jay Hernandez acknowledged that he’d “shot almost a hundred episodes of television” thanks to the show. When I noted to the actor/director that the show would be very close to hitting 100 episodes by the end of Season 5, he shared:
It’s too soon to say if NBC will officially give the order for a Season 6 that would give Magnum P.I. enough episodes to hit 100, but Jay Hernandez at least seems optimistic! As he noted, running long enough to reach that milestone isn’t something that every show manages, let alone one that had to deal with COVID production challenges and then survive a cancellation from its original network.
It’s worth noting that NBC renewed all of its other ongoing dramas for the 2023-2024 TV season (with the three Law & Order and three One Chicago shows in one swoop), so there’s certainly no recent trend of the network cancelling its dramas en masse. Official news about whether or not Season 6 happens just may be a ways off, with half of Season 5 still to go.
That said, Jay Hernandez shared an idea for a specific kind of episode that could happen if Magnum P.I. returns for Season 6. When speaking to the action sequences of the show, he noted that he loves doing the flashbacks and “it’s so much fun to shoot” scenes that feel “a little different than the, quote unquote, case of the week.” The actor continued:
If a sixth season of Magnum P.I. happens to take Magnum, Higgins, and the rest to that 100-episode milestone, then fans could be in for an episode made up entirely of a flashback. The flashes to the past have been part of the series from the start, and featured in the spring finale in some key ways to explain why Rick was kidnapped while T.C. and Magnum were targeted for assassination.
So, Season 6 could deliver a flashback episode that would bring Jay Hernandez back as a director after his latest turn behind the camera for a trippy Higgins episode, but what about another reenactment of a scene from one of Robin Masters’ books? I posed that question to the star, who laughed and replied:
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Thomas Magnum is presumably never going to parachute from outer space even if the show runs for much longer than Jay Hernandez previously indicated, but it’s hard to rule out much of anything if Magnum P.I. revisits the adventures of the White Knight! Whether or not fans see another reenactment of a Robin Masters book from the cast of the show, Hernandez once again touched on the fact that the show has almost hit 100 episodes.
For now, fans can always revisit the first half of Magnum P.I. Season 5 streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription during the wait for the show to return. In the meantime, there are also plenty of other shows on the way in our 2023 TV premiere schedule.
Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).