Blue Bloods will return later this month on CBS, and the final episodes of the 14th season will begin airing. Series star Tom Selleck recently reflected about what it was like to end the long-running Friday night series.
Selleck, Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan, Will Estes, Len Cariou, Marisa Ramirez, and Vanessa Ray star in the Blue Bloods series, which follows a New York City family who all work in law enforcement.
Frank Reagan (Selleck) leads the family, and the actor has been very outspoken about CBS’s decision to end the popular Friday night series.
In a new interview with TV Insider, he said the following:
“I’m kind of frustrated. During those last eight shows, I haven’t wanted to talk about an ending for Blue Bloods but about it still being wildly successful. In a Top 100 Shows of 2023-2024 (in total viewers, we were number 9 out of 100), if you discount the three football shows, we’re #6 !
I’m not going to turn into a bitter old guy saying, “Get off my lawn!” I don’t believe in holding grudges, but if you were to say to the television network, “Here’s a show you can program in the worst time slot you got, and it is going to guarantee you winning Friday night for the next 15 years,” it would be almost impossible to believe.
My frustration is the show was always taken for granted because it performed from the get-go. So how do I feel? It’s going to take a long time to sort all of this out. I remember after the weekend [of the final episode’s shoot], I said, “I’ve got to get to bed early tonight because I have to do my dialogue for Monday.’” Well, there was no Monday. It’s just going to take a while.”
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Selleck talked about his final time playing Frank and said, “My last scene was ironically family dinner; that was also the first scene I shot on the show 15 years ago! I’m not going to tell you everything about the last episode…but the family dinner kind of reunites the Reagan family. Erin’s daughter Nicky (Sami Gayle) was there and so was Jack (Tony Terraciano) Danny’s older son. Everybody agreed with me that we should close the set for the family dinner and not exploit that. Most of them had four more days to shoot, but not me.”
While he had finished filming, Selleck made a point to fly back to New York from Los Angeles (where he had been filming a commercial) in June, to be with the cast and crew when the show wrapped. He shared, “I watched the last scenes with Bridget and Steve (Schirripa] and then Donnie and Marisa [Ramirez]” Selleck recounted. “It was hard, but I didn’t want to just stay home; I wanted to be there, and I felt an obligation to share the experience.”
Blue Bloods returns to CBS on October 18th. The network has teased a possible spin-off of the series, but that is in early development.