One Reagan family member is still bothered by Blue Bloods‘ cancellation.
For its fans, the CBS procedural was not a regular cop series. Throughout its 15-season run, the Reagans — a clan of public servants living in New York, being at the forefront of its story made it more of a family show than your usual procedural. Blue Bloods featured a stacked cast, spearheaded by Tom Selleck as the Reagan patriarch, Frank. The characters’ love for each other was the same off-screen, as the ensemble genuinely liked being in the project.
Not long after Blue Bloods wrapped its run, its legacy continued during the 2025-2026 TV season with the Donnie Wahlberg-led spinoff sequel, Boston Blue. Instead of policing the streets of New York, Danny moved up north to Beantown to join his son, Sean, who is starting his career there. The offshoot did well during its debut year that it wasn’t difficult for CBS to order its sophomore outing. Amid its success, the way Blue Bloods ended is still a sore spot for one of its beloved cast members.
Speaking with Ted Danson on Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, Selleck recalled filming the final dinner scene of Blue Bloods and how everyone didn’t want the show to end. At that point, they had already taken a big pay cut just to ensure that the show continued because they all loved working with each other. Even then, CBS didn’t budge and moved on with its cancellation. Read his full story below:
“Blue Bloods was a labor of love… I think for everybody. The real truth to that is, in the last year of [Blue Bloods], at our last family dinner, everybody wanted to come back. We’d already taken a 25 percent cut in salary. We’d already done all sorts of things to keep the show going.”
“It was very frustrating because… out of the top 100 shows on broadcast television, Blue Bloodswas number six in our fifteenth year. Nobody wanted to leave. Everybody was gonna stay on. That’s hard to get. It may be some kind of record to have the same cast intact for that length of time. Usually, if it wasn’t a family, it would be different, but you couldn’t very well replace Jamie or Danny or anybody with another actor.”
“Maybe people don’t realize, but a lot of shows become miserable to work on. You get a lot of egos and ‘I’m not coming out of my dressing room until he’s coming out’… and it’s miserable. Blue Bloods was never that.”
Blue Bloods ended its 15-year-run with a milestone episode, but unlike many finales, it didn’t change much of the show’s status quo. Instead, it wrapped with the happy announcement that Jamie and Eddie were expecting their first child during the last Reagan family dinner scene. Contrary to rampant theories, Frank didn’t retire. In fact, he remains as the NYPD Commissioner during the events of Boston Blue. Whether that changes in the near future is currently uncertain, but it certainly opens the door for more involvement from him in the offshoot, even though he hasn’t appeared yet.
Compared to quickly greenlit spinoffs, such as S.W.A.T. Exiles, it seems like everyone is supportive of Donnie Wahlberg continuing the legacy of Blue Bloods via his own offshoot. Thus far, several characters from Blue Bloods have visited him up north, such as Erin, Joe Hill, Henry, and of course, Maria Baez. The people involved in Boston Blue have openly talked about wanting to bring in Selleck’s Frank, but it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe they can finally do it in season 2.
It’s understandable how Selleck feels about Blue Bloods‘ cancellation. As he laid out, there were so many factors that could have convinced CBS to keep the show on the air, including the cast taking massive pay cuts. Unfortunately for him, the network just didn’t deem the flagship profitable enough to remain on their roster. Now, they have a replacement in Boston Blue.
Blue Bloods
- Release Date
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2010 – 2024-00-00
- Directors
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David Barrett, Ralph Hemecker, Alex Zakrzewski, Robert Harmon, John Behring, Alex Chapple, Jackeline Tejada, Douglas Aarniokoski, Eric Laneuville, Michael Pressman, John Polson, Heather Cappiello, Félix Enríquez Alcalá, Jennifer Opresnick, Peter Werner, Donald E. Thorin Jr., Frederick King Keller, Bridget Moynahan, Dean White, Deran Sarafian, James Whitmore Jr., Martha Mitchell, Rachel Feldman, Robert Duncan McNeill
- Writers
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Siobhan Byrne O’Connor, Brian Burns, Kevin Wade, Robin Green, Kevin Riley, Jack Ciapciak, Thomas Kelly, Diana Son, Van B. Nguyen, Dawn DeNoon, Willie Reale, Bryan Goluboff, Julie Hébert, Mark Rosner, Vanessa Rojas, David Black, Ed Zuckerman, Gwendolyn M. Parker, Ken Sanzel, Seth Pearlman, Amanda Green, Ben Cummings, Orson Cummings, James Nuciforo