Tom Selleck on ‘Blue Bloods’ Final Season: ‘People Aren’t Ready to Say Goodbye’
Blue Bloods is getting ready to sign off after more than a decade on the air. The CBS drama about a tight-knit family of New York City cops will end with its upcoming 14th season, which premieres Feb. 16. But not everyone is ready for the show to end, series star Tom Selleck says.
‘Blue Bloods’ is ‘more popular than ever,’ Tom Selleck says
In November 2023, CBS announced that Blue Bloods Season 14 would be the last for the show, even though it is one of the most-watched dramas on broadcast TV. The police procedural averaged 9.4 million viewers in season 13. That means there are plenty of people who are going to miss spending Friday evenings with the Reagan family.
“CBS will find an awful lot of people aren’t ready to say goodbye to it,” Selleck told TV Insider. “The show’s more popular than ever, and I think [numbers] will increase with the interest this year. We’re certainly not out of ideas.”
Given the show’s solid ratings, why did CBS decide to cancel Blue Bloods? The high cost of producing the series was likely a major factor. CBS only agreed to a season 14 renewal after the cast and producers agreed to take significant salary cuts, Deadline reported.
Selleck isn’t ready to retire
The 78-year-old Selleck plays NYPD police commissioner Frank Reagan on Blue Bloods. Though the Magnum P.I. actor is approaching 80, he has no desire to retire, he said.
“I’m not counting the days so I can do something else. I love the work,” he said. “Sometimes the hours are a little harder because I’m older, but so what? I want work as long as they’ll have me.”
Nor is Frank Reagan ready to hang up his hat.
“He picks fights because he’d like somebody to take the weight of this responsibility [off] his hands and fire him,” Selleck said. “But he has a hyperactive sense of responsibility and he’s stuck with it.”
‘Blue Bloods’ Season 14 will be split into two parts
Though Blue Bloods’ upcoming season will be its last, the show is getting a lengthy send-off. Season 14 will be split into two parts. The first 10 episodes will begin airing in February 2024. The final eight episodes will air in the fall of 2024.
In the season 14 premiere, “Loyalty,” Jamie (Will Estes) goes undercover with a deadly human trafficking ring. Danny (Donnie Wahlberg) and Baez (Marisa Ramirez) investigate a homicide connected to Darryl Reid (Malika Yoba), Danny’s old partner. Also, Frank grapples with whether to publicly support Mayor Chase (Dylan Walsh) on a policy decision, and Eddie (Vanessa Ray) is determined to teach a young shoplifter a lesson.
The episode airs Friday, Feb. 16 at 10 p.m. ET on CBS. It streams live and on-demand for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers and on-demand the next day for Paramount+ Essential subscribers.
Source: Deadline
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