Blue Bloods has ended in the 2024 TV schedule, leading people to tearfully say goodbye to the Reagans whether they liked it or not. Many, including much of the cast, have hoped that CBS would eventually “come to their senses,” as Tom Selleck said, and reverse the decision, but that has not happened. What makes it all the more heartbreaking is that Selleck shared what the hardest part of wrapping the series was, and it makes sense why it would be much different than most Hollywood projects.
Selleck has been in the industry for decades and is, of course, known for his role as Tomas Magnum in the original Magnum P.I. back in the ‘80s. While that series ran for eight seasons and Selleck had a Magnum reunion on Blue Bloods, the now concluded family police procedural is still a special series. The actor spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his time on Blue Bloods, admitting how hard it’s been to come to terms with the fact that the series has ended and he’s no longer seeing his second family every single day for a chunk of the year:
The hardest thing I would say at this point [is] right now, this time of year, I would be shooting episodes of Blue Bloods, and I miss that. The thing that tugged at me most in adjusting and will continue is the family of actors we had and the friendships we formed. And you always say it’s kind of like high school graduation. Everybody says they’ll keep in touch, and things happen. Well, that happens in movies, too. You say you do a movie, establish relationships, and then it’s over.
Filming a show is certainly different compared to a movie when it comes to the relationships made, so I get where Selleck is coming from. A movie is usually filmed over several months, while a series can be filmed from anywhere between several months to several years. And in Blue Bloods’ case, it was 14 years. Not only were the actors a family on-screen, but they were a family off-screen as well, including the crew.
These are people who have had the same routine, seen most of the same coworkers every day for about nine months of the year, give or take, for over a decade, and you can’t just turn that routine off so easily. It was announced last year that Blue Bloods was ending after Season 14, and even though people have had plenty of time to prepare, that doesn’t mean it was easy. As for a movie, you just move on to the next project and hope that you stay in touch with the cast:
This is a more complicated one. It’s a 15-year relationship with most of those people, and it just doesn’t go away that fast. It’s hard — on a movie, you always say, ‘Well, let’s get together,’ and then you get busy, or you work somewhere else, and a couple of years go by, but this is just a bigger adjustment.
Tom Selleck’s on-screen dad, Len Caroiu, had a similar sentiment, as he previously said that filming on the final day was like any other day, but it only got hard when production didn’t start up again for another season. Not only that, but when press began on the final episodes, he had to meet up with the cast for promo, rather than filming. While everyone will hopefully get together for occasional reunions, the end still can’t be easy with the adjustment.
There’s been discussions of a potential Blue Bloods spinoff and much of the cast had ideas of where they want their characters to end up, so it’s possible that the show will be coming back in some way, shape, or form. We can cross our fingers, at least! In the meantime, all 14 seasons are streaming with a Paramount+ subscription.