There are just three episodes of Blue Bloods left before it gets permanently removed off television.
Although there are many reasons why this is devastating, the loss of the familial element is the one that hurts the most.
The fact that Blue Bloods focuses on a family of police officers rather than just the case of the week is part of the reason for its popularity. Should the pattern it established be followed by other police procedures?
Blue Bloods Was Unique, But Other Procedurals Can Learn From It
It would be pointless to watch all the police procedurals if they weren’t slightly different from one another.
What made Blue Bloods special was the way it treated family ties. There are side tales about the cops’ personal life in many shows, but Blue Bloods has more.
For this show, business and family were entwined in novel ways. For starters, the Reagan family has a long history of law enforcement.
At the family dinner table, we had four generations of Reagans, and everyone was primarily police officers, except for the youngest, who was still a child when the series started.
That premise is what made the family scenes that followed so natural. Family and police work were inseparable from each other for the Reagans.
Additionally, they were an Irish Catholic family whose religious faith demanded they do public service, making it even more clear that work and family were two sides of the same coin for them.
This premise opened the door to the types of stories you can’t find on any other cop show.
For example, an early episode had Henry riding along with Jamie, and Jamie feeling like he didn’t measure up to his grandfather’s standards.
Later episodes included Danny having to postpone a romantic weekend with Linda when an important case came up, Eddie and Erin butting heads when Eddie wouldn’t let go of a perp’s claim that a cop raped her, and Frank making Jamie and Joe ride together when they got in a fistfight.
Some of these are typical police procedural stories, but they wouldn’t have landed the same without the close family relationships at the heart of Blue Bloods.
Still, that doesn’t mean other cop shows can’t learn from the Blue Bloods phenomenon.
People are hungry for family dramas.
They want to see people who are like them, and those who don’t have strong family ties want to become part of a fictional family that will love and accept them for who they are.
Blue Bloods isn’t the only show that has ever capitalized on this desire, even if no other show does it to such a remarkable degree.
Early SVU Also Got The Family Stuff Right
The crime of the week and Stabler’s issues with his teenage children were the two storylines in the original SVU structure, which was comparable to Blue Bloods.
Strong cases don’t always make for the most memorable SVU episodes. The family items are the most noticeable.
I will never forget Kathleen’s total breakdown while battling undiagnosed bipolar disorder or Stabler’s struggles with Maureen’s possible eating disorder.
These were moving accounts of the family problems Stabler faced in addition to locking up those responsible for some of the most horrific crimes in history.
The creators of SVU tried this feature again in Season 2 of Law & Order: Organized Crime because it was so effective.
The stories about Mama Stabler’s dementia and teenage Eli’s acting out were more popular than the long cases, though people loved those too.
So what did Organized Crime do? It got rid of all the family stories in Season 3.
Talk about going in the wrong direction!
Law & Order: Organized Crime has since taken steps to rectify that mistake. Adding Stabler’s brothers was a great idea, and now Eli is back and is having a baby of his own.
This dynamic works well, making Law & Order: Organized Crime the closest thing to the Blue Bloods phenomenon.
I find it strange that some Blue Bloods fans think this show should be canceled when it has a similar family dynamic.
Hopefully, this time, the changes will stick, and the writers will not decide to eliminate Stabler’s family again, which is the opposite of what they need to do.
FBI Season 7 Episode 5 Was On The Right Track
By putting their own unique twist on how to balance work and family storylines, police procedurals like the FBI series are also examples of how to copy the Blue Bloods craze.
This was done almost brilliantly in FBI Season 7 Episode 5, where Jubal gets into problems after using his FBI agent status to free his kid from police detention following a demonstration.
Hopefully, Jubal’s suspension will only be brief because the FBI series has a tendency to write off characters with compelling family plots.
FBI: Jess LaCroix was popular in part because he had to cope with a disobedient daughter, but she was written out just before Jess was murdered off.
Similarly, agent Kristin Gaines, who had a daughter around the same age as Jess’ daughter, was written out without explanation.
Of course, this is not entirely the show’s fault; if actors want to leave, they have to be written out. However, the FBI shows could make more of an effort to replace departing characters with those who also have compelling family storylines.
Do Police Procedurals HAVE To Have Family Storylines?
The Blue Bloods phenomenon suggests that blending family and police drama is extremely popular, which is undoubtedly part of what makes the series so beloved that millions of people are angry about its cancelation.
However, that doesn’t mean every police procedural has to have family stories to succeed.
The genre used to require impersonal, nearly interchangeable detectives. Look at Dragnet, one of the most classic police shows in TV history.
Sure, Bill Gannon talked about his wife sometimes, usually jokingly, and there were an endless number of suspects, witnesses, and other police officers who thought it was a damn shame that Joe Friday didn’t have a girlfriend.
But those side conversations were as far as it went. The cops had a job to do and they did it, and it was only on rare occasions that they were even seen outside of working a case.
The original Law & Order followed a similar formula for over 20 years. (Fun fact: Dick Wolf tried to reboot Dragnet shortly before hitting television gold with Law & Order.)
The series focused mostly on the cops and prosecutors doing their jobs, and it was only toward the end of its original run that it began incorporating more personal storylines.
Although there is a market for that kind of impersonal police drama, it is evident from the Blue Bloods sensation that contemporary viewers would rather have their drama with a dash of familial drama.
The more recent Law & Order episodes appear to acknowledge this; Law & Order Season 24 Episode 3, which told the tale of Detective Riley’s bad brother, was one of the most watched.
Police procedural zealots, it’s your turn.
Would you prefer that the plots concentrate more on cases than family drama, or do you think additional series should follow the Blue Bloods phenomenon?