The new season of NBC’s “Chuck” could be longer than anyone expected.

NBC is in negotiations with Warner Bros. TV, which produces the cult series, about ordering as many as six more episodes of the show. That would bring the total for the show’s third season from 13 to as many as 19, and it didn’t take a SAVE CHUCK twitter campaign or a flurry of Subway sandwich purchases to make it happen.

The critic fave but low-rated “Chuck” barely survived the ax last May, but NBC execs were wowed enough by the aggressive campaign by die hard chuck fans to keep it on the air.

Now that it has canceled “Southland,” and “Trauma” appears unlikely to get a back nine order, NBC may be plotting an earlier return (perhaps in January) for “Chuck.” Hence the decision to expand the show’s third season to 19 episodes.

As things stand, NBC is planning to air 13 episodes of “Chuck” starting in March, after promoting the show during the Winter Olympics in February.