CBS Gives Full Season Order to ‘God Friended Me,’ ‘Magnum P.I.’ and ‘The Neighborhood’

CBS handed out some good news for a trio of brand new shows before the weekend started. God Friended Me, Magnum P.I. and The Neighborhood were all given full seasons Friday afternoon. All three shows will have 22-episode first-seasons.

God Friended Me has been a surprise Sunday hit for CBS, averaging 10 million viewers, an 8 percent jump over the same timeslot from last season. The series stars Brandon Michael Hall as Miles Finer, an atheist podcaster who is suddenly friended by God on Facebook and is inspired to help others. Violett Beane, Javica Leslie, Suraj Sharma and Joe Morton co-star. Beane plays Cara, a journalist who meets Miles after receiving a friend suggestion from God.

Magnum P.I. is a reboot of the iconic 1980s Tom Selleck series, starring Jay Hernandez as the new Thomas S. Magnum, Private Investigator. The series has been averaging 9 million viewers on Mondays, a 50 percent jump over last season, when CBS had sitcoms in the slot.

Magnum P.I. follows the same basic formula as the original series, with Magnum as a private investigator living working in Hawaii after serving in the military overseas. Perdita Weeks stars as Juliet Higgins, the caretaker of Robin Masters’ home, while Zachary Knighton and Stephen Hill play Magnum’s friends who help him solve crimes. The series was developed by Peter M. Lenkov and Eric Guggenheim, and has already established crossover links with Hawaii Five-0.

As for The Neighborhood, it is averaging 8 million viewers a week, a 14 percent jump over Kevin Can Wait, which aired in its timeslot last year. The series stars Max Greenfield and Beth Behrs as a young white couple who move into a predominantly black neighborhood. Cedric The Entertainer stars as his neighbor, along with Marvel Spears, Hank Greenspan and Tichina Arnold.

This is a big win for the Jim Reynolds-created show, which had a difficult birth. The original pilot featured Josh Lawson and Dreama Walker as the original couple moving in, but they were recast when a new pilot was filmed.

In total, CBS has already picked up four freshman shows for full seasons. Earlier this week, the network picked up Dick Wolf’s crime procedural FBI for a full year.

Fox also picked up its new sitcom The Cool Kids and ABC picked up Single Parents. NBC has picked up the medical drama New Amsterdam and its science fiction mystery series Manifest for full seasons. ABC also put in a full-season order for Grey’s Anatomy spin-off Station 19, which is now in its second season.

Photo credit: CBS