A TV cancellation order isn’t necessarily the end.
Several procedurals — like Cagney & Lacey, which was canceled and subsequently revived thanks to high-performing reruns —have been removed from lineups only to return months later.
Other shows, like In the Heat of the NightandMedium, were dropped by their networks and later revived by different channels who weren’t quite ready to say goodbye.
From long-running legal dramas to modern-day renditions of classics, the path from cancellation to continuation has played out across decades of television.
Here are seven procedural TV shows that were canceled and then picked up again.
S.W.A.T.
S.W.A.T.premiered on CBS in 2017 as a revival of the 1970s cop series of the same name. It followed a team of police officers led by Shemar Moore, alongside costars Jay Harrington, Alex Russell and David Lim.
After six seasons, CBS first canceled the series in 2023. The network then brought it back for another season due to demand. The seventh season was supposed to be its last.
In April 2024, CBS renewed the cop drama for season 8.
“To get canceled twice in a row and to get uncanceled twice in a row, I give kudos to me running my mouth on social media,” Moore told PEOPLE in November 2024. “Nothing lasts forever, but I fight.”
The show’s revival was short-lived, however. It was canceled again in March 2025, though it will live on with Starz’s spinoff series, S.W.A.T. Exiles, premiering in September 2026.
Cagney & Lacey
Cagney & Lacey premiered on CBS in 1982, with Meg Foster and Tyne Daly starring as New York City police detectives in a fictional precinct known as “Midtown South.” CBS canceled the show following the first two episodes.
Executive producer Barney Rosenzweig then persuaded the network to move the series from its 9 p.m. time slot to 10 p.m. Ratings soared, per The New York Times, and the show was picked up again, with Sharon Gless replacing Foster. When ratings fell in 1983, however, CBS canceled the show again.
The show got one more chance after reruns performed well. It returned in 1984 and aired until 1988.
“This is the only show on television that presents two intelligent, mature working women in a dramatic rather than a comedy format,” Rosenzweig told the outlet in March 1984.
In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Nightpremiered as a TV series on NBC in 1988.
It originally starred Carroll O’Connor and Howard Rollins as a small-town Mississippi police chief Bill Gillespie and detective Virgil Tibbs, respectively. Carl Weathers was later introduced as Chief Hampton Forbes, while Rollins’ Tibbs became a guest character.
The network canceled the series in 1992 because it believed it could no longer profit off of the show, per The New York Times. CBS promptly picked it up, and the show ultimately ran until 1995.
JAG premiered on NBC in September 1995 and ran on the network through July 1996. When NBC canceled the legal drama, it was picked back up by CBS soon after, with fresh episodes airing in January 1997.
The series, which starred David James Elliott, Catherine Bell and Patrick Labyorteaux, ran for 10 seasons before it ended in April 2005.
JAG also later inspired NCIS, which is still airing today.
Medium
Patricia Arquette starred in Medium as a mom who used her psychic abilities to solve mysteries as a consultant for a local district attorney’s office in Arizona.
The series premiered on NBC in 2005. Four years later, the network canceled it, but CBS quickly picked it up.
One year later, however, CBS canceled Medium. The show ran for a total of seven seasons, with the finale airing in January 2011.
Unforgettable
Unforgettable premiered on CBS in 2011. The series followed a police detective with a photographic memory played by Poppy Montgomery.
CBS canceled the series twice: in 2012, despite averaging 12.1 million viewers that season, and again in 2014, per Deadline.
After the second cancellation, A&E resurrected the series for a fourth season, which was the show’s last. Its final episode aired in January 2016.
Magnum P.I.
The Jay Hernandez-led Magnum P.I. — a reboot of the 1980s procedural of the same name starring Tom Selleck — premiered on CBS in September 2018.
After running for four seasons, the network canceled the series in May 2022. The series was one of the highest-rated shows on broadcast television when it was removed from the lineup, per The Hollywood Reporter.
NBC picked up the series only two months after it was dropped by CBS. Magnum P.I. subsequently came to an end in January 2024.
Read the original article on People
