Shocking Budget Cuts: ‘BLUE BLOODS’ Cast Slated for Fewer Episodes Next Season!
Blue Bloods Boss Previews CBS Drama’s December Sendoff, Reveals How Iconic Series Finales Informed It
Blue Bloods showrunner Kevin Wade took a cue from Hawkeye, B.J., Sam, Diane and Tony Soprano (but hopefully not Journey!) when formulating his approach to the long-running cop/family drama’s series finale.
It was announced last November that Blue Bloods would end with a bisected Season 14. The first 10 episodes aired February through May, and the last eight will roll out this fall, beginning Friday, Oct. 18.
Has Wade had a series finale sketched out in his head, even before the final-season announcement? Things that he always felt must happen during that very final hour?
“I mean, if you’re on for 14 years, in at least four or five of those years you started out a season going, ‘This could be the last one,’ just as a numbers game,” the EP told TVLine during our in-depth Fall Preview Q&A. “So, I’ve thought about it a lot, along with my colleagues. [Longtime executive producer] Siobhan Byrne O’Connor and I would talk about it a lot over the seasons.”
Once Blue Bloods‘ fate cemented into a sad reality, Wade immersed himself in other long-running series’ send-offs.
“I rewatched the series finales of great shows, going back to M*A*S*H and Cheers and Mary Tyler Moore, and certainly The Sopranos..,” he shares. “I watched a lot of them for what they might have in common, and what they basically had in common, if I boiled it down, is they did a great show, and then in the last few minutes they did a little pivot towards, ‘This is also the last show.’”
That approach, Wade says, “avoided the ‘We are now going to do a retrospective of how great we’ve been,’ because I think people tune in just to see a really good episode of the show that they loved.”
And that is how he approached Blue Bloods‘ own series finale, which will air on either the first or second Friday in December.
“To me, the Blue Bloods season finales that worked best were where we found a crime or criminals or a situation for all the Reagans to work together on — separately but together,” Wade notes. “And we did that” for the series finale. “We have four different stories but all are aimed at solving or preventing the same crimes.”
With the final episodes of Blue Bloods already in the can, Tom Selleck appears to be in vacation mode.
The handsome 79-year-old was caught in a candid photo looking scruffier than his normal manicured appearance while running an errand in Thousand Oaks, Calif., near his ranch home.
True, he sported his famous mustache, but he appeared to have stopped shaving during his work hiatus as he also had a full beard and tousled hair, making him almost unrecognizable.
Selleck hasn’t always worn his now signature moustache. His first series role on TV was on The Young and the Restless and he was clean shaven for that. He did sport the moustache for his iconic role as Thomas Magnum on Magnum, P.I. and also for his role as Commissioner Frank Reagan on Blue Bloods, but he recently told People that he initially thought he would play that role sans moustache.
